Author: Frank Jacobs / Source: Big Think
- Stumbling from one Brexit delay to the next, Britain is paralyzed by its political division.
- Stark new work by Anish Kapoor reflects on the U.K.’s deep internal divide.
- “Archipelago maps” show Britons living in two separate countries — much like Americans.
March 29th was supposed to be Brexit Day. As clocks struck 11 p.m. across the U.K., the country should have departed from the European Union.
Instead, Britain became a country-sized version of Schrödinger’s cat: nobody knows anymore when — or if — the U.K. will actually leave the EU.Following two years of arduous negotiations, Prime Minister Theresa May finally managed to work out a Withdrawal Agreement with Brussels, only to prove unable to get that deal okayed by her own Parliament. This forced her to ask the EU for an extension of Britain’s exit.
With April 12th the new deadline, Parliament took control of the issue. But the House of Commons couldn’t muster a majority for any of the eight options it considered. Only yesterday, the PM admitted yet another defeat: she asked the EU for another extension, and implored Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, to work with her toward a solution — angering the right wing of her own Conservative Party.
A fault at the heart of Britain
Whose fault is this? Image source: The Guardian / Anish Kapoor
Few expect that a solution is close at hand. Faced with the biggest crisis since the Second World War, the British political class has failed to rise to the occasion.
As former Conservative parliamentarian Ann Widdecombe commented on BBC’s Newsnight earlier this week, “We’ve got the worst prime minister since Anthony Eden (…) the worst leader of the opposition in the entire history of the Labour Party (…) and the worst Parliament since Oliver Cromwell.”
To put that into context: Eden was prime minister in the 1950s, the Labour Party was founded in 1900, and Cromwell dissolved the so-called Rump Parliament by force in 1653.
Britain’s current political paralysis reflects the deep divisions between “Leavers” and ‘”Remainers.” This recent work by Anish Kapoor translates the political into the geological: Brexit as the fault that’s literally tearing Britain in two. Created for the Guardian newspaper, the work’s title refers to the nonsensical terrors contained in nursery rhymes: A Brexit, a Broxit, We All Fall Down.
The artist has updated a tilted orographic map of the Britain and Ireland by adding a violently red gash…
The post How Brexit has changed the mental map of Britain appeared first on FeedBox.