Britain is a world by itself; and we will nothing pay for wearing our own noses.
—Cymbeline, Act III Scene 1
On Thursday, if British voters decide to exit the European Union, it is likely that sentiments such as the foregoing will have proven decisive. The line comes from one of the Bard’s late romances, and the character who throws it in the teeth of an imperial Roman emissary is the comic villain of the piece: the crass, braggadocious, dim-witted son of the queen. Cloten is just the sort of scoundrel for whom patriotism is purported to be the last refuge.
You might say it’s a part Nigel Farage, the head of the U.K. Independence Party, was born to play. Certainly, in no small measure, the emotional support for the “Remain” vote stems from the conviction that if Farage and his fans are for leaving, surely leaving must be a terrible idea that only a bigot or a fool could support. In this view, cleaving to Europeanism is not merely the only sensible choice, but the only idealistic one as well.
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