Personal and terminology

That's what Brexit was all about.  It was a personal rivalry between Cameron and Johnson, both alumni of Eton and Oxford, where they competed feverishly on many levels and it all culminated with both taking opposite sides of the EU exit question. 

But I think it was mainly Johnson's fault.  A scholarship student at Eton and two years ahead of Cameron, Johnson could not abide the fact that the privileged Cameron was clearly the superior intellect.  Afterall, Cameron got a first and Johnson only a second upon graduating from Oxford.  And believe me, there is a very significant difference between a first and a second at these schools.  The other thing that backfired on Cameron was his deliberate side-tracking of Boris from a run for the Conservative Party leadership by encouraging and facilitating the latter's successful bid for Lord Mayor of London. Right, that's him out of the way, thought Cameron. 

Wrong.

It was all a prank, a bit of naughty high-jinx and school-boy antics carried way too far to the detriment of the global economy.  It was all very Old School Tie played out by a couple of spoilt children of the partying-hunting-shooting set who can now look in the mirror and congratulate themselves on a disastrous result.  Clearly, any graduate of Eton and Oxford, as Boris is, has to know that leaving the EU was a huge mistake.  He played on the "Jolly Olde" sentiment of the senior set to the detriment of their children and grandchildren, who will now be stuck in a dwindling and ever-eroding economy made up of people who do each others' laundry.  They now join Norway and Iceland as isolated countries, instead of remaining part of an international trading partner.  The Queen will now be Queen of.....what?  A tiny island when Wales and Scotland join the EU.   

But she has her love of The Commonwealth to blame for the disastrous immigration policies that lie at the heart of Brexit.  If you were a member of a Commonwealth country, you could jump on a jumbo jet and emigrate to Britain where you could make L 15s an hour driving a bus or collecting garbage.  And millions did just that. 

B's English relatives are a perfect microcosm of what went wrong.  Living in Leister, his middle-aged cousin and her family decided to vote "no".  Why?  Because they don't like immigration.  Plain and simple.  Never mind that their children will have to leave a now-isolated island to get ahead.  Who cares?!  "We have our country back," they declare.  It's so self-centred to see a bunch of white-haired seniors waving the Union Jack in pubs amid bunting and declaring victory.  But what do they care?  They still have their pensions and the national health, so don't give a toss for the future.  B actually called them to try and talk some sense into their heads, but to no avail.  These are the descendants of relatives who had to leave India in 1947 and opted to settle in England, as opposed to B's family who struck out for Canada.  That's the basic difference.  Guts versus no guts.

For Johnson and Cameron it's simply another version of The Eton Wall Game.  Google it, very "special" and unique to this snobby place. 

One other vital element in all this is terminology.  When Britain entered the EU, it was called the "Common Market".  That was palatable because it was a mercantile term, not a flag-waving one.  The French -- naturally -- wanted to smack Britain and pushed for the "European Union" nomenclature.  Germany, not to be outdone by France and to one-up Britain, went along with the change.  So a commercial union suddenly became a European nationalistic one, which did not sit well with the Brits.  The Brits have never thought themselves part of Europe, so began to bristle at being lumped in. 

Why couldn't they just leave it as the Common Market?  What's in a name?  Lots.