Books The only good thing about Brexit is that we learn more about British history.
Die beste Serie, die zur Zeit im Fernsehen läuft, sind die Übertragungen der Brexit-Debatten aus dem britischen Unterhaus. Nicht wegen der antiquiert anmutenden Theatralik in einem für die Zahl der Abgeordneten viel zu klein geratenen Raum, sondern wegen der rhetorischen und manchmal sogar inhaltlichen Glanzlichter.
Zuerst verglichen mehrere Abgeordnete in Westminster die Komplexität des britischen EU-Austritts mit der Schleswig-Holstein-Frage im 19. Jahrhundert. Als Süddeutscher musste ich erst einmal Wikipedia bemühen und war dann beeindruckt ob des Vergleichs.
Dann wollte die Regierung von Theresa May zum dritten Mal das mit der EU ausgehandelte Austrittsabkommen zur Abstimmung ins Parlament einbringen, als ein Abgeordneter aufstand und darauf hinwies, „dass es gängige Praxis dieses Hauses seit 1604 ist, dass ein bereits abgelehnter Gesetzesvorschlag in der gleichen Legislaturperiode nicht erneut zur Abstimmung gebracht werden darf.“ Seit sechzehnhundertvier!
Since you pale as a German-speaking audience with envy. In 1604 we not only did not have a parliament, but also no Germany. And so we miss the opportunity in 2019 in the Bundestag or in the Nationalrat precedents from the 17th Century to strive. By the way, the President of Parliament agreed with the objection and suspended the vote. Theresa May can now understand the frustration of King James I through the parliament.
That's not much to do with the Brexit, but because this Brexit mess makes no sense, it's also much better used as an opportunity to study Britain's history. This is what the historian Ralf Grabuschnig thought and published a final book Brexit, which looks at the eventful history of Britain and Europe and tries to classify Brexit historically.
As you would expect from the story of such a historic country, there is not much new under the sun. (If only the sun is shining in the UK) Grabuschnig traces the great lines of the past two millennia. It begins with the Roman conquest of the island and thus the first contact of the British with a European great power, which tried to enforce the same regulations and guidelines in Oxfordshire and Sussex as in Rome or Brussels. In a kind of referendum, the British put an end to this in 410. On the other hand, there were always profound links between the continent and the British Isles, from simple peoples to royal houses.
And there were Brexits again and again, for example when Henry VIII declared himself independent in 1534 by the Roman Catholic Church. By the way, the Anglican Church still understands and understands itself as a Catholic, not a Protestant, Church, which is perhaps a good example of the schizophrenia of leaving the EU but still wanting to be in the single market.
Grabuschnig is not only recognizable as anglophile (you could almost scold him for a Briton, if you did not have a certain feeling for this funny country), but also tried to smash the myth of dry and boring science of history. As on his blog, Grabuschnig tells loose and fast, more interested in stories and contexts than in data and pedigrees, which often make other works on British history quite dry.
Only in the assessment of the current situation, I would not be as calm as the author ("the Brexit should not play so times"). Although England and the United Kingdom and Europe have repeatedly moved towards and away from each other, we have never been so closely linked economically and legally as now in the EU. And the current chaos on the British side is not less frightening in that England has already withdrawn from the European continent after the Hundred Years War.
I wish, Ralf Grabuschnig keeps right, if he hopes that this new English departure from Europe will not last. But by then much will be destroyed, in the UK's relationship with the European Union (even the first accession attempt in the 1960s did not work), in terms of country proportions and, most haughtyly overlooked by most British postcolonial, relative to Ireland.