The European apparatchiki will have the face of Britain for their two-minute hates, I guess.
After Brexit, Britain and the European Union face the Gore Vidal trap. As the waspish American writer once said: "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail." There is now a powerful political logic pushing both sides to make the relative failure of the other the measure of their own success.
I don't blame Britain for wanting the EU to fail, at least relatively. The British did decide to escape the proto-imperial body before Brussels can strip away the prefix.
But the EU wants post-Brexit Britain to fail absolutely. It took many decades before Britain admitted that its American colonies were independent. Europe has a way to go in denial and its search for punishment.
The EU spent four years trying to trap the British in a tangled web of a thousand cheese regulations. A local fifth column who wanted to Remain despite the referendum collaborated with the EU. Britain nonetheless escaped. Naturally the EU doesn't want that contagion to spread.
