That was in late 2019, wasn't it? I vividly remember how astonished I was that the British were willing to give so much rope to Boris Johnson despite obvious, ethically challenged maneuvers from him.
It was a year of great disappointment from me towards the British voters. They were being invited to lend prestige to patently dishonest people who never even bothered to try to appear coherent nor principled, and took it all hook, line, and sinker.
To the extent that I can wrap my head around those results even today, I can only conclude that:
1. The British public was quite sick of so much discussion of how to execute Brexit (which is very understandable).
2. Particularly given how embarrassing the push-and-forth between the House of Commons and the European Commission had been through the better part of the year (also very understandable).
3. The matter of the trade border in relation to North Ireland was also no small worry and quite a tiresome, frustrating subject matter.
4. Despite what to me seemed rather obvious cues from the results of Theresa May's efforts, the Conservative Party just would not listen to reason, apparently out of some form of misguided pride.
5. To my considerable if shameful Schadenfreude, plenty of voters decided to buy Boris Johnson's line despite a lot of clear reasons not to.
6. That is probably because the myths that sustain the appeal of Brexit still held a very strong pull for many, regardless of facts. It was nationalism in a very pure form. This is not only not understandable, but really very damning.
7. I will never again presume that the UK are politically any saner than Brazil without checking the facts first. Up until then I did.
