0: 0 - The last day in Europe
Today is Brexit day. It's been a long time since the first step in that direction, the unexpected result of the referendum. In our calendar of that year, on the month of June, case 24 June of the timeline (the referendum was on the 23), we keep trace of this event with the following picture that shows Elena's surprise upon first hearing the news (from me, also taking the picture)
and today, following much opposition, delays, coercion, the ineluctable finally came to be: today, the UK gets out of the EU.
What next? In the history books, it will seem as obvious as WWII following the 1933 events. Today, all the spectrum of feelings is covered. To me, as recorded in this blog, it was quite clear that Brexit was going to happen, unless even more drastic things would inevitably happen instead. So that's Brexit then, and not the collapse of the UK, a civil war or the explosion of Europe as a whole. At least not yet. But a civil war now seems a remote scenario. Scotland could now vote leave for its independence in the light of Brexit, if given the chance, but it won't be given that chance, so I don't see that happening either. Remains the most likely catastrophe scenario: EU will fall in the wake of UK getting out. It is not compelling because UK never really was deeply into the EU anyway. It kept its own money, it always kept a deeper national identity (being an island among other things), it even actually kept a good practical, if not legal, control of its frontiers. I never could step in or out the country without a full ID check and records. It thus still remains significantly more difficult for, say, France or Italy, to follow them.