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Walking around the complex of rocks, Doric columns and temples of the Acropolis in Athens evokes the debt Western Civilisation owes to the ancient Graeco- Roman world. It was here that the Athenian City State developed the first and most sophisticated philosophical notions of how a democracy should work. It remains remarkable how much of democracy itself is attributable to this world as distinct from to the more modern world where the franchise took root and popular politics was adopted and adapted by nation states. In essence much of contemporary democracy does not reflect modernity and is ill equipped to deal with exploitative populist efforts that cut across its fundaments. For example, the ancient Greeks were so idealistic that they saw no separation between politics and philosophy, culture, the arts and theatre. In fact their notion of democracy saw philosophy and the body politic as inseparable twins. In order for democracy to survive it had to live in close proximity to the world of philosophy and that of the intellect. In the modern world that we now live in this umbilical link between philosophy and the world of politics has been utterly broken. It is hard to be precise as to when these two worlds separated but it is clear that the cleavage is such as to render latter day democracy incomprehensible and irrelevant to many citizens. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall and communism there was a public clamour to declare an unprecedented victory for the forces of freedom encapsulated by liberal democracy and free-market capitalism. The enormous recession of 2008, which leaves a long economic and social shadow and reduced the number of countries that can be described as democracies, has put paid to the heady optimism and ambitious ideas heavily promoted by writers such as Francis Fukuyama. Since the collapse of the wall there has been an extraordinary burgeoning of trade, investment and human contact powered on a global basis by adventurous risk capital and new, seemingly liberating online technologies that facilitate commercial and social transactions within the blink of an eye. The political class, with its associated elites, has been left stranded in the wake of these fast-moving, converging and engulfing technologies like the internet, social media, instant (and sometimes illusory) capital transfer. The political class have a mandate to manage and control these developments but as ever the regulation is chasing after the market reality. Modern democratic states are very unsuited to handling these changes being rooted in the ancient world and the world of nation states – both epochs that are now past. Modern day Greece serves as a good example of how the nation state model of democracy cannot deliver for its citizens. The country has been pulverised by the financial crisis which began in the US and rapidly exported its wealth everywhere. Since 2008 Greece has been subjected to a force-fed austerity programme, multiple bail-out packages, and the near destruction of its entire banking system. The main Greek Parties that dominated politics since the departure of the military, of left and right ( Pasok and New Democracy) have been swept away in favour of a street-led-protest party headed up by Prime Minister Tspiras. Greece has been scarred. The magnificent streetscapes of the capital Athens have been desecrated by vulgar and ubiquitous graffiti – testimony to pervasive radicalisation. There is no public will to remove it and the authorities –animated by Syriza – appear slow to remove it lest it becomes a vivid reminder that the anarcho-revolution they began has now run into the sand. SyrIza promised all sorts of resistance to austerity, foreign diktat, Brussels bureaucracy, the ECB, and of course Germany. Two years on and it looks like they took on more than they could chew. Quite the opposite to what was promised has occurred. Even Syriza’s high-profile former Finance Minister Varoufakis has given up the ghost and formed his own party. A former ministerial colleague of mine from Greece confided in me during my visit that notwithstanding the volte face in the confrontation with Brussels Tspiras has managed to make a connection to the ordinary Greeks public. Nevertheless the ones I have met here remain ineradicably cynical about politics. Many feel that Syriza is simply serving its apprenticeship and that it is only a matter of time before it becomes as self-serving as its predecessors. Greece has witnessed enormous public corruption and bureaucratic incompetence that is almost the civic mirror image of what happens in the Northern European core countries of the EU. The economy also has a huge black economy of private and cash transactions. On a visit eight years ago, precrisis, I was surprised at the difficulty of finding a retailer that would accept credit cards. It is now far worse and if there is a credit card machine in situ, more often than not, the shopkeeper will claim that the machine is broken. A businessman friend informs me it is quite common for a BMW car to be bought with €70k cash as part of the transaction. Given the governments they have got there is a natural reluctance to pay taxes. The miracle is that the Greek economy and democracy has managed even to survive the economic crisis. This, my business friend reminds me, would not have happened were it not for the black economy. When all else failed it was the only capitalist show in town. The events have been a crushing blow to ordinary Greeks, in particular because of their pride in their illustrious past. The Germans and their own political class have taken the lion’s share of the blame. The extent to which debilitating terms and bailout conditions were imposed on Greece shows both the strengths and weaknesses of the Eurozone system. The fight had to be taken to the streets but was ultimately resolved in the joyless back offices of Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin. It was probably a mistake for the Greeks to depict Merkel as a latter-day Nazi but the

Brexit will probably never happen. The news narrative has become one of delay, with the odd Brexiteer keeping the flag flying in the Daily Telegraph but a lot of stasis. Next year, there will be many stories about the major problems that Brexit will cause. Negative economic effects will loom. Village editorialised in its last edition that no one who understands history or economics could vote Brexit and certainly it does undermine fundaments of what many regard as political imperatives. There will be surprise at the huge range of problems involved in taking EU law out of UK law given that an integration of laws has been underway for over forty years. Gradually, a wide-ranging complex vista of Brexit problems will emerge across British social and economic life; for instance, residency, travel, employment laws, training, education, research, and also in business, whether trade, competition, employment or any of the recesses into which the EU has long delved. The probable break-up of the UK following Brexit will inevitably continue as an issue in the media background, because, very probably if Brexit happened, Scotland would become independent and join the EU. Democrats could not ignore if 5.3 million EU citizens in a separate national area, were expelled from the EU against their collective will. Furthermore, there must be a significant chance that the court challenges to unilateral UK Government action on Brexit will succeed and force an early vote in Parliament on the issue, causing further delay and uncertainty about Brexit. But behind the scenes, there are other unreported factors. We don’t know what Theresa May and Angela Merkel said to each other and it would be very hard to guess. We can be much more confident about what the current American Government from Obama to the State Department to the military are saying: don’t leave the EU. While Brexiteers will brush off the partisan advice of a lame-duck administration, the US will have a new President- elect on November 9th next. Assuming it is Clinton, she will reiterate in private the insistence of the current administration. British Government Ministers, officials and army generals will be left under no illusions by their American counterparts that Brexit is a no-no from global strategic and security perspectives and will have to be averted by whatever means. Initial post-Brexit reporting in English language media emphasised how the UK was in a strong negotiating position because of its trade deficit with the rest of the EU and that Germany’s Angela Merkel wanted a reasonable agreement for the UK, partly because of German exports to the UK. In fact, Brits will continue to buy their BMWs. In reality, the dominant market focus of big German exporters is growth of their Asian sales, especially China. More seriously for the UK, Germany, including Chancellor Merkel herself and her closest political allies, is increasingly indicating that it will take a tough negotiating position with the UK on Brexit and that it strongly supports a united EU position towards the UK. Merkel indicated this twice recently including at a high-profile meeting with France’s Hollande and Italy’s Renzi. Even more ominously for the UK, Merkel appears to be supporting an EU strategy to restrict the ability of City of London financial services, especially banks, to operate in the EU after Brexit. That is by far the UK’s most important exporting business. Michael Fuchs, deputy leader of Merkel’s CDU party, said recently that banks operating in the EU must be subject to EU supervision and can’t be run out of London when the UK is no longer a member. “I really think this is something that’s not negotiable, the so-called banking passport”. Germany and France greatly resent the extent of the economic gains and influence that the City of London gets from selling financial services throughout the EU. In the event of Brexit, they would try and repatriate as much financial business activity as possible to Frankfurt and Paris. Moreover, the issue makes a powerful bargaining chip. There will probably be an often lengthened delay before the UK triggers Article 50 and formal Brexit negotiations, if it ever does trigger it. Even if it does, Brexit is still very unlikely; mostly because it would cause too much damage to the UK economy and disruption to social and economic life in the UK. The end result will most probably be an agreement that the UK will remain in the EU, with the UK’s best hope being to maintain the favourable agreement that David Cameron negotiated in February 2016. In reality, internal British, European and global politics all mean that Brexit is a madness that will have to be averted. Brendan Lynch is an Economist and former stockbroker. He is the author of ‘EMU: Ireland’s Dream Start – The Political and Economic Impact of EMU on Ireland’ (2008).