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Further implications

Currently all that can be said with certainty is that the impact of Brexit on Britain, Europe and the rest of the world is uncertain. In his speech of May 9, 2016, Prime Minister David Cameron stated with regard to Britain, 'If we leave, the only certainty we will have is uncertainty.'
In the short- to medium-term the consequences for Britain and the EU are likely to be disadvantageous economically and politically. All that is currently being disputed is the extent of the disadvantage in magnitude and duration.
A small majority of Britains appears to have invested its hope in an independent future, tinged with recollections of a past the very oldest of them are unlikely to have known firsthand. The vote appears to have been one against globalisation by a section of British society without the skills that would allow them to find a place in the world market. It seems to have been a vote against the supposed hegemony of a Europe that older Britains tend to see as an intermittently hostile neighbour rather than as an entity to which they belong.
The EU appears to be the imperfect embodiment of an admirable ideal. It is a union that grew out of perceived economic advantage through close collaboration and mutual support. It has begun to become a political unit wrestling to come to terms with the profound social and moral conundrums that the world's immigrant and refugee problems have created and with the dilemma of responding to global warming. Not all of those living within this Union appear to have understood nor necessarily shared its ideal of common action and the spirit in which it has been undertaken.
On one level the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU seems simply to bow to geography and history. Britain has long seen itself as close to Europe but removed from it. On a broader level it appears a retrograde step which has jeopardised an ambitious, conscious attempt to move beyond some of the limitations of the nation state.