Editor: The vote in the referendum a week ago, which resulted in a decision that the UK should exit the European Community (EU), has so shaken the world that even some well-known and respected commentators have predicted that it represents a turning point in international affairs — economic and political. Many have gone so far as to predict that the EU has been given almost a “mortal blow” and that the UK economy would be in tatters. {{more}}However, notwithstanding understandable initial shocks, my knowledge of the British compels me not to share such pessimism, given their historically proven resilience and self-governing instincts, even allowing for the position being taken by the Scottish leadership.

This pessimism is based, to a large extent, on the assumption that all has been well with the EU itself; however, recent tensions point to the possibility that the EU may have now reached the point which does not allow for sound management and that “diminishing returns” may be setting in. Here I postulate that the EU may, very well, have reached the point of maximum growth potential. Have we forgotten the history of the USSR and the commencement of “rotting from within” due to oversize?

Prime Minister David Cameron did “the honourable thing” when, in recognizing the fact that British society had been “split down the middle,” he called the referendum and his action was even the more honourable when, having taken what has proven to have been the “wrong side,” he has stated his position to demit office. In consequence of the forthcoming “exit” :

1. I can see attempts being made to strengthen the traditional “special” Anglo-Saxon relationship with the US.

2. I can also see attempts being made to rejuvenate and to strengthen Commonwealth “connections”.

There have been speculations as to the source of those who may have voted for “exit”. My own view is that they comprised, in the main:

a. residents of small and medium-sized towns and villages, who had not been “touched “ materially by the results of membership in the EU;

b. what I would term the “typical” Englishman who had looked questionably at the possible erosion of what, to him, were traditional English values — a situation which was confirmed by the somewhat uncontrolled immigration into Europe from Southern Europe and North Africa;

(c) “Monarchists,” whose loyalty to their country could not be called into question.

Here note should be taken that, as an expression of sovereignty, the British had never surrendered British pound notes in deference to the EU currency.

And now back home!

The reaction in CARICOM seems to be one of despair and bewilderment at BREXIT. This is not surprising as:

1. After being in existence for almost as long as the EU itself, the members of the organization have failed to weld themselves into a genuine Common Market with genuine currency convertibility, far less a common currency. What Common Market is this?

2. Indeed, members of CARICOM have been acting as though, rather than being independent countries, they are still tied to the coattails of the “Mother Country”.

3. In consequence of item 1, they behave as though “manna” will not be forthcoming anymore.

4. What therefore is the benefit to be derived from the six-monthly “treks” by Prime Ministers of the region at which, year in, year out, the same rhetoric of “intentions” is being bleated out (and this at taxpayers’ expense), but with very little concrete results?

Errol OC Cupid