At first glance, the formal and long-standing procedure for voting on the UK's exit from the European Union has recently become the subject of very active discussion.
It would seem that there is nothing to talk about here, since the results of the referendum have long been summed up, the supporters of Brexit have already celebrated their victory, and the British who wanted to remain in the European Union, having come to terms with the results of the vote, can slowly plan their future in the changed country or consider moving to one of the almost three dozen nearby states that are not going to leave the EU. However, in this case, a simple and understandable democratic procedure gave rise to a development of events that was not expected by the laws of logic, but a protracted dispute in which more and more participants are being drawn in.
It is enough to note that in the so-called subreddit dedicated to Brexit, that is, a section on the discussion site www.reddit.com, since about mid-summer, many new participants have appeared, and their number continues to grow rapidly, promising to exceed four thousand by the New Year. Today there are 3,766 of them, which speaks of the heightened interest of society in what Britain will be like after March 29, 2019, when it will part with many of the familiar and comfortable conditions of life within the framework of one large country, which the European Union in many ways already is today and which, apparently, it strives to finally become in the foreseeable future.
Surprisingly, the desire of Catalonia to leave Spain resonated with Brexit. This is no longer an exit from the political and economic association "European Union", which is still perceived more as a convention than as a historical reality, but a real redrawing of the borders of a long-existing European country. The steam of separation from Spain has long been accumulating under the lid of the Catalan boiler, but for some reason it burst out in the form of a referendum on independence this fall.
More than 90 percent of people who came to vote answered "yes" to the question of whether they want Catalonia to be an independent state in the form of a republic. 7.83 percent voted against this development, which suggests an almost unanimous desire by Catalans to become citizens of a country separate from Spain. This is no longer an almost equal number of those who voted for Brexit and those who spoke out against it - here there can no longer be any doubt about the alignment of opinions - Catalonia simply does not want to be Spain.
As often happens in such cases, Spain also does not want Catalonia not to be Spain. However, the results of the referendum did not convince the Spanish authorities that they are no longer on the same path with the Catalans, and the movement for separation encountered violent resistance from the police. It would seem that there is nothing simpler than to part in a civilized manner, as required by the famous European refined customs, while maintaining trade and business relations, and to continue to live in harmony, but no longer within common borders, but as neighbors.
Alas, for some reason this simplest and most natural decision was not accepted by the Spanish ruling elite. Seeing how persistently they suppress the general desire of the Catalans to become residents of a separate country, one can expect with great probability that this action will cause indignation and no less opposition, and therefore even those Catalans who have not yet decided on their territorial and administrative preferences, at the sight of the police entering the historical scene, will certainly change their views in favor of an independent Catalonia.
It can be said that in Europe, which was long presented by propagandists as a single and indivisible political organism, acting under the guidance of one idea for all its subjects - economic prosperity and the primacy of democracy, tendencies towards disunity and isolation have emerged. The British are not satisfied with the policy of the "center" in matters of immigration, the Catalans are not satisfied with the idea of being citizens of Spain any longer.
These phenomena, significant for modern political life, may seem somewhat strange to an observer without sentimentality. After all, neither Britain nor Catalonia will be able to physically separate and move away from the European Union and Spain - they will continue to be in their eternal geographical places, which they probably occupied even before the appearance of the first homo sapiens on Earth. These are not compartments of a space station that can, if necessary, undock and go their own way into the vast Universe. Britain will have to continue to be a neighbor of the mainland, and Catalonia will have to be a neighbor of Spain, which does not want to let it go.
Outwardly, everything will remain the same, but the relations between these entities will change, which, as both referendums showed, have reached a dead end at best, and at worst have become aggravated to the point of insurmountable contradictions. And it is difficult to say, against the backdrop of sarcastic talk about how Britain, which wants to preserve the benefits of EU membership during the transition period, "wants to have its cake and eat it too," and also at the sight of Catalans being beaten by the Spanish police, that Europe is a model of a civilized society from which the rest of the world, or at least its unreasonable and "younger" representatives from the camp of developing countries, should follow.
Europe is not united, and its subjects are striving for isolation. Different views have emerged in it on how to live on, and opponents do not at all show a burning desire to quickly find a compromise so as not to offend each other and lay the foundation for mutually beneficial relations within the framework of the new political reality. Europe is not a showcase of a democratic social system, since representatives of its ruling circles use force to suppress socio-political movements that do not suit them.
As Brexit and Madrid's reaction to the Catalan referendum have shown, Europe is a tangle of contradictions, and they are not always resolved democratically. Beautiful words about a civilized Europe have come up against reality in the form of the stubbornness of European politicians who are unwilling to meet requests to provide Britain with the opportunity to make a soft exit from the European Union, which would significantly simplify the terms of cooperation between Britain and EU member states.
Even though Britain will remain an important trading partner of the European Union after March 29, 2019, and after March 29, 2019, Brussels politicians are in no hurry to lay the foundation of relations that will allow them to easily and quickly resolve numerous current problems of political and trade-economic interaction.
In a more severe form, the same unwillingness to negotiate is shown by Madrid, for which Catalonia, under any form of its political structure, will remain a very important business and trading partner. This means that the propaganda speeches about Europe becoming almost the new center of the world, the legislator of political morality, the standard of democratic relations turned out to be untrue.
In reality, Europe consists of rather self-interested political entities that are in no hurry to make concessions in negotiations that promise future benefits, but prefer to defend their current interests, including by using brute physical force, arresting opposition politicians, ignoring the results of an almost unanimous referendum. Based on all this, it can be assumed that Europe will enter an era of internal struggle, sometimes ruthless, for both economic and political interests.