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Exceptionalism Can Be Lonely -- Ask Britain
There is nothing about "exceptionalism" in the headline or the article - Britain of "Rule, Britannia!" has not been "exceptional" for centuries.
Article is "exceptionally" anti-Brexit biased - not surprisingly, reflecting NYT point of view - but, also not surprisingly, plays fast and lose with economic data.
Brexit was supposed to let Britain return to a time when it still counted as a global power.
BS, UK is world's fifth largest economy and on course of overtaking Japan in near future; Brexit was about independence from politics and taxes of "Brussels" and independence of their economy and currency (GBP) from EURo... just like Canada not wanting to be "51st state" of the USA.
Brexit still holds majority of mindshare in Britain: "There is now a mountain of evidence that support for rejoining the EU crumbles when the costs and conditions are revealed. We Brits still value our sovereignty and do not want to hand control back to Brussels."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2216906/rejoin-eu-campaign-faces-nightmare - Rejoin EU campaign faces nightmare - 2026-10-13
Mr. Starmer was the sixth occupant of the office during the past decade. In the previous two decades, there had been just three prime ministers.
Again, sleight of hand comparison - Britain's current social problems wouldn't be any easier had they stayed in EU - EU had and still has their share of turnovers / "flipping" of failed "conservative" and "liberal/progressive" governments and deep divisions in the last decade (see Italy, Greece, France, Germany, Belgium etc.) - this actually coincides more with the issue of "immigrants" and arrival of destabilizing Trump on the political scene than anything to do with Britain or Brexit specifically.
For example, relatively more stable 4-year USA system had 3 two-term presidents (changes of party in power) in 24 years since 1993, and 3 one-term changes during the past 10 years.
Starmer/Labour, in particular, won last election with the lowest number of delegates in the history of UK.
Now, to the real economics of Brexit:
UK's predicted "economic collapse" due to Brexit didn't happen; in fact, their average growth rate since is higher than many in EU, Canada and Japan:
Real per capita compound annual GDP growth rate change - (2016-2025) delta (2007-2016) in USD (data from https://data-explorer.oecd.org/?lc=en):
............... PPP ... nominal
Germany : -5.9% ... -5.4%
Japan :.. +3.2% ... -0.8%
France :. +6.4% ... +4.5%
Canada :. +0.9% ... +7.2%
UK :.... +3.2% ... +9.0%
USA :... +12.1% ... +11.0%
In 2015 UK exports to EU members were only 42.3% of total exports, least of any other EU countries;
Second largest importer of UK exports was the USA, and since 2011, US GDP grew by 40.0%, almost 2x of EU's 20.5% growth rate, increasing nominal value of UK exports.
Sure, UK has problems, their taxes and costs are higher and regulations have not eased, "green energy" policies are hurting their economy, NHS is a wreck... but none of that would be remedied had they stayed in EU.
Brexit (and keeping the GBP) was not the economic disaster many predicted, rejoining is not the solution to internal problems.
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