This blogpost was wrtitten on Friday Sept 27th.
Wikipedia defines Stockholm Syndrome as
“a condition which causes hostages to develop a psychological alliance with their captors during captivity. These alliances result from a bond formed between captor and captives during intimate time together, but they are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims.”
However strongly the bond is felt, to the outside observer it is irrational, explainable only by the unreal circumstances created during the time of captivity.
A large part of the UK political class and the wider population now seem to be suffering from “Brexit Syndrome”. This is probably best defined as:
an irrational and emotional commitment to a political project which all objective evidence shows to be deeply damaging to the long-term national interest.
Brexit Syndrome causes many friends of the UK from across the world to shake their heads in disbelief that a previously pragmatic country could become so deluded.