Given these fundamental realities, a rational observer must wonder what tangible differences, what clear benefits could any reassertion of British insularity bring. False claims can be painted on buses, extravagant promises are easy to make, feelings of pride or satisfaction may become fleetingly convincing—but none of those intangibles can change what the UK has become: an aging nation; a deindustrialized and worn-out country whose per capita GDP is now just over half of the Irish mean (something that Swift, Gladstone, or Churchill would find utterly unfathomable); another has-been power
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