There is a disaster brewing.  Brexit feels very much like the run-up to the Iraq War, when the authorities reassured sceptical citizens that they had everything in hand.

Outwardly, the British government in 2003 projected an air of competence. They were in charge, and they knew precisely what they were doing. Speaking to Parliament or the media, they appeared cool, calm, and collected.

The result was the biggest foreign policy cock-up since Suez. There were no weapons of mass destruction, Iraq collapsed into civil war, and Islamic State was born.

For the UK (though obviously not for Egypt or Iraq), the stakes are even higher with Brexit. If Suez was the last gasp of the British Empire, then Brexit might well be the last gasp of the United Kingdom.

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