"Let Me Try"
You know what fascinates me about the UK's buyer's remorse over Brexit? The fact that several independence movements still thrive within its own borders - primarily in Scotland, but also in Wales and even Cornwall.
The recurring theme across all of them is a desire for self-determination, a sense of being exploited, and an underlying attitude of: "We can do this better on our own."
While I don't want to dismiss their very real concerns, the fallout from Brexit highlights why this framing is fundamentally flawed.
The UK left the EU because it was frustrated by "unelected bureaucrats in Brussels." But if you keep pulling on that logic thread, you eventually get: "The Senedd is dictated to by Westminster, and London doesn't care about Wales." Pull a little further, and you get: "Cardiff doesn't care about Conwy. They don't even speak Welsh. Let us be independent."
It's a recipe for infinite fracture. Practically every local county in England could use the exact same logic to claim Westminster ignores them.
What this separatist mindset ignores is that union membership provides immense collective bargaining power when dealing with the rest of the world.
The goal of local representatives should be to fight for the best possible deal within that union's governance. Fix the democratic deficit. Reform the funding formula. Push for greater devolution. In somewhat well-functioning liberal democracies, "going it alone" is rarely the silver bullet it claims to be.
Brexit was sold as taking back control. What it mostly took back was the ability to feel aggrieved without anyone else to blame. The independence movements within the UK risk making the same trade.
The title is from a (now lost media) tiktok.