Is the United Kingdom stuck in a time loop? This is what one might believe from reading the content of the debates which have agitated the political class across the Channel in recent weeks. As if the ghosts of the Brexit referendum were never far away. On June 23, 2016, to everyone’s surprise, the British chose to stand on their own two feet and say goodbye to the European Union. A shock which would open the way to a long period of uncertainty and political crises, also the prelude to a more global conservative revolution… in November of the same year, Donald Trump entered the White House for the first time.
It will take almost four years to finally find the exit, January 31, 2020, renamed “Independence Day”. The United Kingdom then officially leaves the EU, but remains subject to Union rules while it negotiates the terms of the future commercial relationship.
Ten years after the referendum, what remains of Brexit? A “Breturn†(return to the EU), which 55% of British people are demanding (according to a survey by the YouGov institute published on May 20, compared to 33% who oppose it), is it possible? What concrete consequences did this divorce with the continent have? These are all these questions that we address in our report this week through the eyes of the British press. And the answers are not always simple.
For the very liberal and very pro-European The Economist, Brexit has had a very paradoxical effect: never has the United Kingdom become so close to its neighbors as since it separated… From coffee beans – which the British are so fond of today – to the fertility rate, which has plummeted as elsewhere, from paternity leave to reinforced protection against layoffs, from the more controlled real estate market, to political fragmentation, the country has finally “realigned with continental Europe in many areas– even in the attachment of its population to the EU†.
“So yes, returning to the Union would be a divisive process and a journey strewn with pitfalls, dare the weekly. But wouldn’t that ultimately be the right thing to do? An unthinkable option for the very Eurosceptic Daily Telegraph. Far from the predicted economic disaster, Liam Halligan exclaims, Brexit has on the contrary brought to the United Kingdom an unexpected opening to the world. “Yes, our trade is turning away from Western Europe towards the rest of the world, and it is doing well… argues the author.
Ten years later, what is certain is that the fractures that appeared during the campaign between the supporters of Leave and those of Remain have not disappeared. On the contrary. “Even today, 60% of voters define themselves by the choice they made on the day of the referendum, underlines The Guardian. Before, we were Labor or Conservative. From now on, we are Remainer or Brexiter.†A time loop from which no one seems to escape. Except for Boris Johnson, former figurehead of the 2016 referendum, who is living his best life in Miami and making a series of interventions, each more lucrative than the last, says Nicky Woolf in The New World.
Also read in this issue, the entirety that we devote to the agreement with Iran, triumphantly announced by Donald Trump on June 14. Much less enthusiastic, the foreign press does not hide its skepticism. In Israel (left out of the negotiations), the conservative daily Yediot Aharonot denounces a “capitulation to the Iranian regimeâ€. Pour The New York Times, The American president lost a war he should never have started. “It is a humiliating snub for him and the country he governs,” writes the daily in a vitriolic editorial.
The conservative Iranian media are exultant. Close to the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the agency Fars greet “a great victory for the Iranian nation†. “If not having won the war, Iran is once again winning the negotiation†, laments Anthony Samrani in The Orient-The Day – an article to read on our site.
Is the war over yet? Nothing is less certain. The outlines of the agreement are far too vague. This is why we chose not to change the front page. We will return to the crisis in the Middle East all week on our site and more widely in the next weekly.
Also read in this issue
With the banning of some of its AI models, Anthropic is reaping what it has sown
Citing a risk for national security, Washington forced Anthropic on June 12 to deactivate its most powerful AI models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5. An alert for Europe, dependent on these tools. And a victory for China, analyzes this British tech specialist journalist.
Comment Bad Bunny a révolutionné la pop mondiale
It is in Spain that Bad Bunny has just started his European tour, before a visit to France planned for the beginning of July. On this occasion, El País Weekly traces the meteoric rise of this child from Puerto Rico who rose to the top of world pop, by promoting reggaeton and Spanish. And which embodies cultural resistance in Trump’s United States.
David Hockney, the artist who made the sun vibrate
Tributes are multiplying in the British press after the announcement of the death of David Hockney on June 11. Alastair Sooke, the critic of Daily Telegraphsalutes a gifted man as flamboyant as he is a virtuoso, who leaves behind a work filled with joy.
