Brexit: The Scotsman joins MEPs in singing Auld Lang Syne – leader comment

The European Union has helped keep the peace for a lifetime and it is of profound regret that the UK is leaving.

MEPs linked hands and sang Auld Lang Syne during an emotionally-charged vote on Wednesday evening. Picture: AFP/Getty Images

It was a beautiful gesture. After Members of the European Parliament voted to back the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, they sang Auld Lang Syne, Robert Burns’ version of an old Scottish folk song about friendship, as a way to bid goodbye to the United Kingdom.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen quoted George Eliot, saying “Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love”, and told the UK that “we will always love you and we will never be far”. Guy Verhofstadt MEP, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator, tweeted: “It’s sad to see a nation leaving, a great nation that has given us so much: culturally, economically, politically, even its own blood, in two world wars. It’s sad to see the country leaving that liberated Europe twice.”

The outpouring of goodwill was palpable and obviously genuine.

In contrast, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage expressed the hope that the UK’s departure would be the beginning of the end for the EU. “It’s a bad project. It isn’t just undemocratic, it’s anti-democratic,” he claimed, ignoring the fact that Britain was leaving as a result of a democratic process.

The vision of the world espoused by Farage, Donald Trump and other members of what some call the alt-right and others view as the far-right is of entirely separate nations in a state of constant struggle. So Trump, the US President who puts ‘America first’, makes trade war on countries who dare to act in their own interests. After France planned a new tax on tech giants, who pay infamously little, Trump threatened vast tariffs on its goods.

If the EU collapsed and populist leaders in the Trumpian mould emerged across the continent, all promising to put one over rival countries with different agendas, how long would it be before those trade wars turned into something more serious? The EU has helped keep the peace in Europe for a lifetime after millions died in two horrendous world wars. And the fact that the UK and Ireland were both members meant those who were prepared to commit murder in Northern Ireland’s Troubles began to look as foolish as they were callous and brutal.

There are legitimate criticisms to be made of the EU and it should take Brexit as a sign of the need for reform. But it is of profound regret that the UK is leaving and The Scotsman wishes our “auld acquaintance” all the very best.