Good morning, welcome to the revolution

Good morning and welcome to the British revolution. Riding in to Westminster this morning of Independence Day the streets didn’t look any different. Sweepers leaning against the railings, shopkeepers switching on the lights, passengers waiting for the Easyjet minibus to Luton airport. But everything has changed, utterly.

Just as the events of 9/11 dictated the last decade, this vote and this morning are the starting point of what could become a dark alley for the European continent.

At home, a second attempt at Scottish independence is a given, a second referendum now inevitable. It will be a two-bladed sword for Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish people. The immediate instinct may be to reject Farage’s Britain, but remember half of the rest of Britain feels the same way in a divided nation.

And most Scots do not wake up today as members of Britain’s ethnic minorities, our immigration generations, many of whom will feel this rejection bitterly and personally. 

Quite frankly, the implications are much bigger than Scotland. The Europe Scots see their future in is itself endangered now.

Scotland’s constitutional divisions are nothing compared to Ireland’s historic pain which, after a generation of war, was settling into a generation of peace. Northern Ireland voted Remain, along with Scotland, but the European Union and the United Kingdom they endorsed look like a house of cards this morning.

The Dutch right-wing are already calling for a referendum in Holland. Without Britain the body politic of the European Union may not be able to take the shock.

If a revolution like this can take place in a conservative country like Britain, then anything can happen in the United States this November.

It is ironic that Donald Trump flies into Scotland this morning. He can take the anti-politics, anti-immigration sentiment the British electorate has just expressed and mould that to his purposes. 

If America signals it is turning its shoulder on the world and on immigrants, a fractured Europe will face a decade of dealing with a tide of humanity while being harried by a strengthened Russia and struggling economically in a Chinese-dominated century.

There is the day and the next number of days of politics to get through. We will see resignations, reshuffles, plots and demands as ordinary people go about their business. Tomorrow’s dawn will look and feel like this one, but the old world will unravel and change.