Brexit in Ten Quotes

I collect quotes. I find the best way to have interesting ways to liven up your talks and articles is to have your own quotebook. I read left-leaning papers and find the Brexit case unconvincing and unmade in any way apart from democratically. So the sound you can hear is that of an axe being ground to dust. I just followed back the string of quotes with #Brexit or #EU and it was interesting.

3/2/10
Headline in Daily Express after survey found that 70% of cafe milk jugs are unhygienic

Now EU meddlers want to take our milk jugs

2011
Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens

In 1784 ... each British city and town had its own local time, which could differ from London by up to half an hour.

27/5/16
Richard Osman on Twitter

In most debates we have to listen to people who shout the loudest or are the most certain of their views. That doesn't represent most of us.

5/11/16
Decca Aikenhead, the Guardian

Every time I interview a Brexiteer, I come away more confused than I arrived.

20/1/17
Roger Cohen, New York Times

The vote for Brexit was in fact the moment Britain turned its back on the world, succumbing to pettiness, anti-immigrant bigotry, lying politicians, self-delusion and vapid promises of restored glory.

1/4/17
Natalie Nougayrede - The Guardian 'Opinion'

It's because the EU strives to act on the world stage as a block, however imperfect that exercise, that it can have a say in how globalisation will be shaped.

11/17
Roger Scruton The Times

You can be a loyal subject of the British Crown and also English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh when it comes to other aspects of belonging. You can be a British Nigerian or a British Pakistani, and the future of our country depends upon the process of integration that will persuade new arrivals that this is not only possible but also necessary if they are to make a home here. You can be a British Muslim, Jew, Christian or atheist, since nationality, defined by land and sovereignty, does not extinguish religious attachment.

13/11/17
Ian Birrell - theipaper

...Brexit has left our nation horribly divided, undermining the Union and fuelling nationalism while opening up fissures between young and old, rich and poor, north and south.

22/5/18
Heather Brooke - Journalism in a Post-Truth World, Bath Festival

People have not had the journalistic training to assess the truths on the internet. But you could do a one day course in how to spot bullshit.

29/7/18
Pete Conrad's review of Michiko Kakutani's 'The Death of Truth', The Observer

Brexiteers are nostalgic fantasists, in retreat from a large world; Trumptards seek to uphold America's swaggering dominance in the world, if necessary by destabillising their alliances. Brexit is an isolated act of suicide, at worst pathetic and pitiable, whereas Trumpism fondly contemplates genocide.