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"It reminds me of the Mel Brooks comedy 'Blazing Saddles', in which the sheriff sometime puts a gun to his head and says, 'If you do not do what I say, I'll blow my brain out.' ' "
Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, in January 2013 to propose a Brexit referendum
January 23, 2013 will be the day of historical stupidity in the history of the United Kingdom. At the time, Tory Prime Minister James Cameron said, "That's why I'm in favor of a referendum and I firmly believe that we should take up this issue, shape it, lead the debate, not just hope that a difficult situation will go away again."
This with the difficult situation, which some hope will somehow leave, fits better than ever. Only the difficulties are far greater today than they were then. Thanks to Cameron.
The windbag
His promise, we know today, was a mistake.
It was triggered by two factors: the anti-European MPs in Cameron's own party; and the then growing success of the right-wing national "UK Independence Party" (Ukip), at this time already led by the puff Nigel Farage. He made himself known after the chaos was perfect, from the dust. Today, he earns money by "declaring Europe to Americans" on Fox News.
Cameron thought back then that he could promise the referendum, and then negotiate the exit threat more comfortable terms of EU membership. What's more, he promised.
That promise, too, proved, and that was foreseeable, as a mistake.
Putin again
One thing must be left to another state leader: Vladimir Putin always knows exactly what is good for Europe and the West - and then does everything to prevent the opposite. In the UK the mountain of evidence for the intimate relations between the Russian Ambassador in London and the key figures in the "Leave" campaign has long been growing. Not to mention Russia's industrious bot army. Journalists working on the subject are attacked by Brexiteers and Russian diplomats alike. A remarkable alliance.
Nigel Farage himself has repeatedly said that he admires Vladimir Putin. Today he calls the unequivocally proven accusation that Russia has made a great effort to influence the result "ridiculous".
Putin's and Farage's transparent motivation could have been a warning to the Brexiteers. Instead, they let Russia help them with their kamikaze mission.
Another serious mistake.
Leon Neal / Getty Images
Nigel Farage
Does not that look slow, as if there's a pattern? A pattern that professionals know working with brain damaged people. But to the same.
It works!
Cameron's concession to the populists and their Russian friends worked well, as any political scientist would have predicted, from the point of view of populists. In the 2014 European elections, Ukip became Britain's strongest party.
This is what happens when you try to take over the positions of populists: you strengthen them. Another serious mistake (best regards to Horst Seehofer).
When they finally voted, the British had a grueling campaign of transparent lies behind them. Virtually every central promise the Brexiteers have ever made is long since broken or exposed as unrealizable. Not just the 350 million pounds a week lie for the British health system.
Lies to truth, filth to gold
But the real motivation for Brexit was not rational either: it was about xenophobia, fear of the future, the long-term consequences of the insults of a former empire, blunt nationalism, post-megalomania of megalomania. Lots of miserable motivations for a historic decision.
In the end, the narrow majority of voters preferred to believe the liars. That was the most serious mistake of all.
It is not possible to turn lies into truth, even if many of those involved continue to pretend that it is. As if Theresa May could make gold out of filth in a few weeks or months.
"Unable to learn from his mistakes"
At this point the promised excursion into neuropsychology. In a much-cited study from the nineties, published by Antoine Bechara and colleagues, the following description appears: "Patient EVR is a prototypical example of this disorder, often deciding against its own interests and unable to learn from its mistakes."
The disorder suffered by EVR is not called "Brexit". It was a lesion in the ventromedial area of the prefrontal cortex. Patients with brain damage in the prefrontal cortex have "certain difficulties with realistic planning tasks," according to another study.
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In the case of Patient EVR, for example, this simply meant that in a simple card-receiving game, he simply could not figure out which stack of cards would give him higher profits. As often as he played, he always made the same mistakes - and lost.
Actually, there would be only one consequence
It is true that patients like EVR could "design action options and future scenarios," according to the study by Bechara and colleagues. "Your deficit appears to be in keeping with this knowledge."
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Fortunately, there is a fundamental difference between brain damage and policy decisions: the former are usually irreversible. The second one can often be corrected.
If the British and their representatives were able to learn from the mistakes of the past, there would be only one consequence: a second referendum. This time without lies.