Only time will show effects of Brexit

ACCORDING to Albert Einstein, “the dividing line between past, present, and future is an illusion”. American poet XJ Kennedy put it more succinctly when he said: “The purpose of time is to prevent everything happening at once.”

If so, time must be on strike, considering the speed of seismic global events this year, among them the election of Donald Trump and the decision by the British electorate to leave the European Union.

Yesterday marked six months since the UK voted to leave the EU and a new report in the UK on Brexit has called this the most tumultuous time in British politics since the Second World War.

The report, from the academic group ‘UK in a Changing Europe’, says there has been no moment in post-war British history when so much change has happened almost at once.

The report says the British government’s response to the Brexit vote had been “massive shock and apparent inertia” and points to a hardening of attitudes towards Britain by other member states.

Prime Minister Theresa May insists that Brexit will be offically triggered in March but what happens after that is still very uncertain. The implications for Ireland were considered recently by the British House of Lords which, while accepting that we will be affected greatly, fails to say in what way. Perhaps, only time will tell.