They dressed up a horse and tore two flags: how the UK celebrated its exit from the EU. Torn on the British flag Where did the expression tear on the British flag come from

Rip on the british flag

whom. Jarg. they say Shuttle. To scold, to scold someone strongly. Nikitina 2003, 750.

Big dictionary of Russian sayings. - M: Olma Media Group. V. M. Mokienko, T. G. Nikitina. 2007 .

See what "Tear on the British flag" is in other dictionaries:

tear up the british flag- idiom. be beaten hard so that the clothes turn into torn pieces (the British flag looks like it is made up of many small fragments) ... Universal additional practical explanatory dictionary by I. Mostitsky

White flag on a dark background. Jarg. they say Shuttle. iron. About a man who is very different from the rest. Maksimov, 420. Throw out / throw out the white flag. Razg. Admit yourself defeated, ask for mercy. NHS 70; Mokienko 2003, 132. [Red] flag ... ... Big dictionary of Russian sayings

Sir George William Buchanan Sir George William Buchanan British diplomat, ambassador to Russia. Date of birth: November 25, 1854 ... Wikipedia

Wikipedia has articles on other people with this last name, see Buchanan. Sir George William Buchanan Sir George William Buchanan ... Wikipedia

- (Great Britain) state in the West. Europe, located on the British Isles. Official name B. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; often all of V. is inaccurately called England (by name ... Soviet historical encyclopedia

CCCP- (USSR) History of the USSR, periods in the history of the USSR, republics of the USSR, Constitution of the USSR Information about the history of the USSR, periods in the history of the USSR, republics of the USSR, Constitution of the USSR Contents Contents 1. History Pre-war (1923-1941) How was the External ... ... Encyclopedia of the investor

“Tear on the British flag” is a set phrase. It means to tear to pieces, tear, destroy completely. Where did the expression rip on the British flag come from? How does this relate to Britain and why is it said so? Let's try to understand the article.

Origin of expression "Tear on the British flag"

There are several versions of the origin of the expression "tear on the British flag". But the exact origin, like many other phraseological units, has not been established. The fact is that the drawing of the flag of Britain is very unusual. It looks like a blue canvas, visually torn by white and red stripes.

Hence the first version of the origin associated with the colors of the flag and its design as a whole.

Another option explains the origin in this way. Today, the flag of Great Britain is a flag that combines the flags of several countries: England, Ireland and Wales. Sometimes there are situations when these countries want to secede - and symbolically promise to tear the British flag, as they think that their flag is more important. Therefore, the united kingdom is periodically torn. The expression has forever entered the minds of people and is actively used in Russian speech. It means to tear it apart.

Boris Kagarlitsky

After the first shock caused by the results of the British referendum, all parties began to gradually recover, trying to figure out the new situation. The victory of the opponents of the European Union was so unexpected that it took by surprise not only its supporters, not only the British and Western European elites, but also those who agitated the British for leaving the EU.

Exactly what no one planned, what no one saw as a real possibility, happened. Of course, there is a great temptation to interpret what happened as a kind of accident, a deviation from the main direction in which events are developing. But there are far more reasons to believe that Brexit simply showed us the direction of a process that has been going on for a long time, albeit not recognized, and the logic of events has changed radically.

There has been a turnaround.

The first and only so far referendum on leaving the EU took place in Britain, not at all because there were much more Eurosceptics in the United Kingdom than in other countries. Just the opposite.

There are much more positive illusions about the Brussels system in the British society than in France, for example. In general, almost always, when the principles of the EU were submitted to referendums, it ended with a popular vote against such projects.

True, in such cases, documents and decisions were either adopted anyway, ignoring the will of the people, or citizens were forced to vote again and again until they resigned themselves.

The peculiarity of Britain was not that there were more Eurosceptics here than on the continent (there are just fewer of them compared to France or Holland), but that the elites were split here. On the continent, opponents of the EU among the ruling class and the official intelligentsia are practically not represented, and therefore the opinion of the rest of the people can be ignored without any problems. In England it was the other way around.

However, it was precisely the confidence in the victory of the supporters of the European Union that led to the fact that David Cameron agreed to a referendum with relative ease. In other countries, the ruling circles would not have taken such a risk, but the conservative prime minister was confident in the outcome and hoped to use the popular vote not so much to clarify the question of Britain's future in the EU, but to suppress dissidents within his own party. They demanded a referendum!

Cameron thought he had taken them at their word.

After the country voted, the blow fell simultaneously on Cameron's conservative party, and on the European Union, and, paradoxically, on Eurosceptics, who were as confused as their opponents. After all, now they no longer knew what to demand and what to fight for.

The election of a new leader of the Conservatives had to be held as soon as possible in order to avoid a public split and mutual accusations in the spirit of the American primaries. At the same time, the old party establishment has not disappeared.

The parliamentary faction unanimously made it clear that they do not want the victory of the leader of the Eurosceptics - the former mayor of London Boris Johnson. Politics was forced out of the race. Prime Minister Theresa May which more or less suited all factions of the party.

But it was no longer possible to ignore Johnson either. Having failed to achieve the post of prime minister, he was able to take the post of minister of foreign affairs, which guarantees that the result of the referendum will not be canceled. Negotiations for Britain's exit from the EU will begin.

Any other solution would mean the actual abolition of democracy.

It is indicative, however, that this is exactly what the liberal intelligentsia and the creative class demanded, who tried, a few days after the referendum, to arrange some kind of “Bolotnaya Square” in London.

The mood of the demonstrators was simple and understandable: the advanced modern elite should not submit to the will of the unkempt common people. If the majority of the people do not agree with this, so much the worse for him.

In parallel, Scottish nationalists also came up with their own initiatives. For a decade and a half, European officials fueled regional separatism through a number of institutional programs, the most important of which was the Europe of Regions. Its meaning was to, if possible, weaken the ties of the regions not only with the central government, but also with the neighboring territories of their own country, linking them directly to the EU bodies.

The situation of Scotland in this sense is more than indicative - it accounted for most of the EU programs in Britain. All the Scottish counties, without a single exception, were involved in these programs, a whole galaxy of functionaries was raised who could do nothing but masterfully manage Brussels money.

Moreover, the neighboring English regions, which do not differ at all in socio-economic or cultural parameters, did not receive assistance. A few years later, the Scots themselves wondered where the rapidly growing, seemingly out of nowhere nationalism came from. Of course, the oil factor, the unwillingness to share income with other parts of the United Kingdom, also played a significant role here. But the political and institutional nourishment of nationalism came precisely from Brussels.

And yet it is one thing to break up the United Kingdom on the sly, on the sly, and quite another thing to support such processes in public. The very possibility of such a turn of events caused outrage in Spain and Italy, where regional separatism has also become a serious problem - not without the help of European officials. And in Belgium, where European officials are sitting, they were not happy about this. After all, the threat of splitting the country into Flanders and Wallonia hangs like a sword of Damocles over the heads of local politicians.

As a result, the Brussels authorities were forced to urgently back up. In addition, Brussels and Berlin realized that it was impossible to seriously destabilize Britain without provoking serious problems on the continent.

So serious that they will outweigh the benefits of punishing the recalcitrant English many times over. When the First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon came to the capital of the EU, hoping to get support there for her initiatives aimed at breaking with England, an unexpectedly cold reception awaited her there. She returned to Edinburgh empty-handed and the severity of the crisis subsided somewhat.

One way or another, but after a surge of emotions, some calm comes. It can be said that the ruling circles of Britain and the European Union coped with the consequences of Brexit in the short term, preventing the spread of a political crisis. And they succeeded to a greater extent than their opponents. In the Labor Party, the revolt of deputies against its leader continues Jeremy Corbin. The leader of the party is accused of not being sufficiently radical and clearly insincere in defending the European Union. They accuse, in fact, justifiably: Corbyn has always been an opponent of the policy of Brussels, and spoke out against Brexit only after the deputies actually twisted his arms, threatening to split the party.

So Corbyn showed weakness not when he unenthusiastically defended the country's membership in the European Union, but when he succumbed to political blackmail and compromised with his supporters.

Corbyn's story shows the futility of such compromises. By yielding, he not only failed to save the party from a crisis, but also deprived himself of the laurels of a victor, which he would undoubtedly have got if he had been more resolute.

But the attack on Corbin is choking. The leader of the party, after a vote of no confidence passed by his own parliamentary faction, refused to resign, because he was not elected by the deputies, and it is not their business to remove him either. Unfortunately for the conspirators, the polls show that anyone who now runs as a candidate for leadership against Corbyn will be ignominiously defeated by the rank and file of the organization. In addition, the upcoming parliamentary elections will be accompanied by a re-cutting of constituencies. And this will give the leadership of the party, together with the primary organizations, the opportunity to select new candidates, removing deputies who opposed the will of ordinary Laborites.

In fact, the uprising of deputies against Corbyn and the demonstrations of EU supporters in central London had the same meaning - one should not reckon with democratic principles if they run counter to the wishes of the neoliberal elite. However, the open speech of a part of the public minority against democracy encounters a rebuff not only from the "wrong" majority, but also from a significant part of the ruling class itself, which is very well aware of the threat of destabilization.

The question is whether this threat can be blocked in the medium and long term. After all, it was generated not by a random coincidence of circumstances (as some Russian observers may still think), but by processes that have continued for many years. The neo-liberal economy has not only reached a dead end, but has also given rise to large-scale contradictions, which it is no longer possible to cope with within the framework of existing institutions. And the English crisis is inevitably a prologue to the pan-European one.

One of the leaders of the German Left Party - Sara Wagenknecht- Declares that the only way out is to reformulate the European Treaty and recreate it anew on democratic grounds as a genuine and equal continental association, impossible without negotiations with Russia and Turkey. However, such calls are unlikely to be heeded. Even if this happens, it will be much later, when the irreversibility and depth of the crisis will finally become obvious to everyone.

Meanwhile, Europe is worried about another terrorist attack in France, trying to deal with the threat of fundamentalist Islam, without giving up the demands of political correctness and multiculturalism... So far, these processes are running in parallel.

But in essence, these are just different manifestations of the same systemic crisis that is undermining the foundations of the European Union.