Jay Kuten:This time it's a Brexit redux

FOREBEAR: Henry VIII of England, instigator of the first Brexit. PHOTO/FILE

For at least a brief interval, the media have lost their fascination with the utterances of Donald Trump.

The disaster of Trump has yielded to the speculation over Brexit: the decision of Britain to leave the European Union, the outcome of a referendum of British voters, 52 per cent of whom voted "No" to remaining part of the EU.

While a few economists are whistling in the dark, claiming the consequences won't be so bad, the majority of pundits advise the wearing of sackcloth and ashes. The British economy will contract; the entire European project will unravel; defence arrangements of Europe will be impaired; the European financial centre will shift from London to Paris or Berlin; and trade barriers will be imposed causing worldwide trade to contract.

These and other dire predictions based on little, or perhaps minimal, data and resembling the "sky is falling" warnings of Henny-Penny have been the dominant declarations of the "experts". And the warnings and fearmongerings have had a corresponding effect on world stock prices, which dropped by more than 5 per cent on some exchanges.

I remain sceptical as to the reliability of these forecasts, and perhaps that is due to unconscious bias.

As I read of the Brexit results, by coincidence, I had just watched the movie A Man For All Seasons, the story of the conscience-driven tragic end of Sir Thomas More at the hand of King Henry VIII.

Henry VIII was the charismatic king of England who, in desperation for a male heir to the throne, sought to put aside his marriage to first wife Catherine and marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn.

At the time, all of Europe and England were under the spiritual and - to an extent - temporal rule of the Pope and the Catholic Church. While libidinous impulse played a role in Henry's behaviour, the necessity of an heir had great political importance.

Henry's rival for power was Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, whose consolidation of power over Spain, the Netherlands and Austria made him the dominant power on the continent. England might be a ripe plum for addition, but a Tudor dynasty with Henry's erstwhile son at the helm could pose a proper deterrent to Charles' ambitions.

In 1527, Henry petitioned the Pope, Clement VII, to dissolve his first marriage. When Pope Clement refused, Henry forced Parliament to declare him as the head of the Church, a new Church of England. This led to Henry's excommunication and the beginning of the Reformation in England, and - in the process - it also cost Thomas More his head for his conscience-driven opposition to Henry's assumption of spiritual as well as temporal power.

"Only God, not Parliament could make such an installation," More stoutly declared at his "trial".

While this first Brexit may have imperiled Henry's soul, leaving Europe's thrall, where an Italian Pope could hold hostage an English king, only enhanced Henry's power. Before his own death in 1647, Henry added Ireland and Wales to his kingship - and that Brexit also led later to the Elizabethan Age and its glory.

If you take seriously, as I do, the work of Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) or R H Tawney's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, the shift away from Catholic Europe to Protestant England and also Lutheran Germany made possible the freedom and energy and financial instrumentation underlying modern capitalism.

While that first Brexit had its costs, its generally salutary outcome allows me to remain sceptical of pundits' predictions of impending doom for both Europe and Britain.

The one area in which I have my own reservations is the future of the Conservative Party in the UK. With the promised resignation of David Cameron, the next putative prime minister could be the odious Boris Johnson. Britons who recently wanted to vote to declare Donald Trump a persona non grata may find themselves with their own populist, preposterous, poseur in the seat of power.

-Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.