The events currently occurring across the pond should be of great interest to every informed American citizen. Great Britain is in a pickle and it is one of their own making. They are attempting to extricate themselves from their participation in the European Union and are not having much luck. In fact, at this exact point in time, the Prime Minister and Parliament are at loggerheads and the clock is ticking. You see, if Britain cannot agree on a plan to leave and if that plan is then not agreed to by the EU in the next few weeks, then Britain will be dropped from the EU with no trade agreements in place. Catastrophe. An absolute economic and societal disaster. It is not inconceivable, in fact it is likely, that Britain will quickly run out of some food and medicines, not to mention manufactured goods and raw materials. Everything is at risk and no one has a solution.

How did Great Britain find themselves in this situation? Well, in my opinion, the major culprits can be summarized as ignorance and deceit. You can also throw racism into this recipe. Have you noticed that whenever you mention ignorance and stupidity, racism is always lurking in the vicinity? You see, there were some people in England (powerful people with money) who felt that too many decisions that were impacting their country were being made by EU officials, particularly decisions about immigration. So, these people began a campaign to put England’s participation in the European Union on a referendum ballot. Once the decision was made to have a national referendum, that’s when the lying really began.

Three major lies formed the basis of the “Leave” campaign. Please keep in mind throughout this discussion that a major factor in the voting to leave the EU was attempting to eliminate the influx of immigrants into Britain. In polls before and after the vote, stopping immigrants was given as the primary reason people voted to leave. They really did not like people who didn’t look like them living in their country. That simple. However, this simple level of hatred and ignorance was abetted by the “Leave” campaign’s major lies.

$350 million pounds per week – This figure was presented to the voters as the amount that Britain “gave” to the EU each week to be part of the Union. This figure was plastered on busses and billboards all over the country. Only one problem – it wasn’t true. When you attempt to assess all the trade between the EU countries and Britain, there is about $250 million pounds per week going to Europe from England but of course there is an equal amount coming back to Britain. The figure of $250 million pounds as some sort of EU membership cost is just nonsensical. The $350 million figure was just made up. All of this was pointed out repeatedly, even constantly, to the voters, but was ignored. How could it not be true – it was on a bus for God’s sake!

Britain will not leave the single market – The Leavers told the voters that if they voted to leave they would staunch the immigration of these people into their country, but that they would stay in the EU single market. Of course, this was never going to be true. As soon as any EU country would decide to leave, they would immediately lose the benefits of membership and the main benefit is the market. The rational leaders urging the voters to “Remain” pointed this out throughout the campaign as did the EU leaders, but to no avail.

Turkey is about to join the EU as a member country – This was the combination punch – combining racism and deceit. None of the voters that the “Leave” campaign was attempting to sway wanted Turks moving into their neighborhoods – that’s the racism. The deceit is that Turkey was never going to be accepted into the EU. Never. Angela Merkel said clearly and repeatedly that Germany would block any attempt for Turkey accession. So, did France, Spain, and, in fact, the British leaders. Turkey was not about to join the EU and every leader of the “Leave” campaign knew that. They blatantly lied to scare the voters.

So, those were three of the fundamental lies on which people based their votes. There were dozens of others. People like Boris Johnson lied throughout the campaign and had no plan to put in place when they won the referendum. The day after the results were tallied members of Parliament looked at each other and said, “Now what?” So, far they’ve not answered that fundamental question.

As bad as England’s attempt at Brexit has been, that’s really not why I think concerned Americans should be looking at Britain closely for the last 2 years and, particularly, at the present time. Essentially, what we’ve witnessed in Britain is a complete failure of democracy in the oldest Democracy in the world. In the initial vote, the electorate was lazy and ill-informed; the nation’s leadership was knowingly immoral and deceitful; and the media failed spectacularly. Then, the Democratic infrastructure that has functioned for hundreds of years and through 2 World Wars, proved itself unable to enact the wishes of the electorate. Insane wishes, perhaps, but nevertheless post Brexit, British leadership failed to formulate an acceptable plan for over 2 years.

The parallels between the Brexit referendum and our Presidential election are obvious and frightening. At this point in time, with our Senate abdicating its role, the US democracy is also at risk. Democracy requires more of its citizens than reading the side of a bus or watching Fox and Friends on the tele box. There was almost no effort required by a Brit to realize that they were not sending $350 million pounds every week to Europe nor was in-depth research needed to understand that this orange fool was totally unfit for the Office of President.

We are currently experiencing the results of our foolishness in both Britain and the US. The big questions are: have we learned from our mistakes and can we rescue ourselves?