There was a time when Britain— or possibly one should say England?— was world famous for its ability to solve any intractable problem by “muddling through,” making compromises, not being theoretical but pragmatic, doing down- to- earth negotiations and talking sense rather than principle. Muddling through was often seen as an innate feature of the English “national character,” like keeping a stiff upper lip, getting down to brass tacks, doing without a written constitution and enjoying your 5 o’clock tea. Or, in the words of George Orwell, “It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar- boxes” (Orwell 1941). Those days seem to have gone for good. Now, as The Sydney Morning Herald sarcastically announced in a headline in its December 3, 2018 issue, “British art of muddling through is one dead parrot,” mimicking the hilarious Monty Python sketch, in which a shopkeeper is trying to sell a stonedead parrot to a customer, who obstinately refuses to buy, because “this parrot wouldn't ‘voom’ if I put 4000 volts through it.”

Indeed, muddling through seems to be defunct, in British/ UK society as well as in Parliament. It might have been underway for quite some time, but when David Cameron, in January 2013, made the fateful decision to let the People decide, in a legally binding referendum, UK's destiny in the EU, this opened the Pandora's Box of immanent contradictions, conflicts and cleavages, which we can now witness play themselves out in a drama that is best likened to a Greek tragedy with an admixture of farce and conspicuous incompetence. Cameron imagined that a referendum with a clear Remain vote would settle the “European” question once and for all, in a final confirmation of the 1975 referendum called— and won— by Harold Wilson.