The Brexit wound continues to bleed the British Labour Party, and by extension, the United Kingdom. The crisis that opened up in Keir Starmer's government last week following the electoral catastrophe of May 7 –and the growing internal pressure to oust him– has once again placed membership of the European Union at the center of the debate, as the tenth anniversary of the referendum approaches on June 23.

British politics has been advancing for decades like a Shakespearean comedy of errors: the characters change, but the pattern repeats. Long before Brexit, which will be a decade next month, Westminster was already chaining together cycles of confusion, miscalculated maneuvers, and governments trapped in their own mistakes. From 1974 –with two general elections, the fall of the conservative government, the winter of discontent, and the unions on war footing–, to the parliaments without an absolute majority in the 21st century, passing through the illegal suspension of Parliament in 2019, the British system has shown a recurring fragility that contrasts with an image of impeccable solidity.