Leaving the Union
John Vassallo’s piece ‘Brexit coming – finally’ (December 24) is contemptuously dismissive of the ‘insane’ 17 million British voters (52 per cent of the voting electorate) who chose to leave the European Union. He understandably omits to mention that Brexit (or something very like it) has happened once before.
In the 16th century, both England/Wales and Scotland (then two separate and independent sovereign states) each chose to leave the European union of Papacy and Empire to join the new movement of north European Protestant powers.
Over the course of several centuries, they joined into one political and economic union and established the sovereignty of an elected national Parliament over Empire, Pope and King.