I N D E P E N D E N C E ! !

The land of my ancestors has voted itself out of the European Union.  The result was 52%-to-48%, a margin of over a million votes -- not as big as I would have liked, but certainly enough to put the decision beyond dispute.

Next comes a period of complex negotiation over the exact terms of departure, something that is supposed to take two years according to the Lisbon Treaty (the EU's "constitution"), but will likely take longer in practice.  Prime Minister David Cameron, a fervent supporter of the EU as most mainstream politicians in Europe are, has declared his resignation effective this autumn; it's likely that Boris Johnson, a leader of the Leave campaign, will replace him and thus handle the actual negotiations.

Expect a few days or even weeks of agitation in various financial markets, fluctuations in the value of the pound, and predictions of doom and gloom of every kind from politicians, pundits, and the MSM.  The financial parasite class and the would-be opinion-shapers on its payroll absolutely hate it when we ordinary people get ideas of our own and start thinking outside the boxes they've carefully drawn around us.  You can expect similar reactions here in the US if and when, for example, Hillary puts Elizabeth Warren on the ticket and she becomes VP and then, God forbid, runs for President in a future cycle.  It's also likely that EU leaders will be as harsh and vindictive as possible in the terms of departure and future trade relations they seek to impose on the UK.  But as I discussed here, the UK is too large and has too much economic clout to be bullied easily.  And Johnson will be a tougher opponent than the Brussels oligarchy is used to being up against.

The vote is a victory for democracy; independence will restore full authority to the elected British government, reversing the steady drain of power away to the unelected institutions of the EU.  It's a victory for nationalism too, of course, and some will not like that -- but nationalism is a very powerful feeling among great masses of people all over the world, and tends to be inflamed by attempts to suppress it.  The left needs to learn how to accommodate it. The vote also means that the British are "walking away from Omelas".  They will no longer be complicit in the economic devastation that the EU's austerity policies and its misbegotten common currency (which the UK never adopted) have for years been inflicting on the southern member states from Greece to Portugal.

And the EU oligarchy's bluster and posturing toward the departing UK masks an existential weakness in its own position -- this referendum is likely to be just the first of many.  Pressure has been building for similar in-or-out votes in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden.  France's National Front has long advocated such a vote there, where the EU is even less popular than in the UK.  There are similar stirrings elsewhere.  The British victory will embolden and intensify such sentiments -- and public support for the EU is already in sharp decline across all the member states.  Even before the two-year period of negotiation is up, the EU oligarchy could be facing the wholesale disintegration of its empire.

Again, when this happens, don't be fooled by the lurid apocalyptic wailings of the punditocracy.  Countries all over the world trade with each other and maintain good relations without benefit of some gargantuan supra-national crypto-state bossing them around.  The end of the EU will simply mean the restoration of normality in Europe.  And the rest of Europe will owe the British for taking the first step and showing the way, making the unthinkable into the inevitable.

The dogs will bark.  The caravan will move on.