|
David Cornwell, known to the world as John le
Carre, discovered his Irish roots and gained Irish citizenship
before he died aged 89 last year.
His son, Nicholas, told the BBC that le Carre's disillusionment
with modern Britain and Brexit in particular had driven the
quest for Irish citizenship. In one photograph, his son said, le
Carre wraps himself in an Irish flag and grins.
Le Carre's novels cast post-imperial Britain - and its spies -
as incompetent, ruthless and often corrupt, and his later novels
show a growing anger at the foreign policy of the United States
and the actions of its powerful corporations.
On Brexit, le Carre did not mince his words, comparing it to the
1956 Suez crisis which confirmed post-imperial Britain's loss of
global power.
"This is without doubt the greatest catastrophe and the greatest
idiocy that Britain has perpetrated since the invasion of Suez,"
le Carre said of Brexit. "Nobody is to blame but the Brits
themselves - not the Irish, not the Europeans."
"The idea, to me, that at the moment we should imagine we can
substitute access to the biggest trade union in the world with
access to the American market is terrifying," he said.
In the June 23, 2016 referendum, 17.4 million voters, or 51.9
percent, backed leaving the EU while 16.1 million voters, or
48.1 percent, backed staying.
Supporters see Brexit as an escape from a doomed Franco-German
project that has stagnated while the United States and China
surged ahead.
Opponents say Brexit will weaken the West, further reduce
Britain’s global clout, make people poorer and lessen its
cosmopolitanism.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Gareth Jones)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content
|
|
