Last autumn the French magazine Le Point published an article with the ominous headline "Whenever the British Leave, There's Chaos."
The article described how India and Pakistan, Cyprus, Palestine, and Ireland all experienced how Great Britain, the colonial power, could no longer cope with their problems or no longer wanted to cope, and hastily withdrew without worrying about the consequences of a badly-managed exit.
In all these places the B...
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Caroline de Gruyter is a Europe correspondent and columnist for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. This article has been adapted from one of her columns in NRC.