Brexit Lessons: A Failed Community - Introduction

If you've read recent posts on this blog, you will know that I've been thinking about community.  The Oxford Dictionary defines community as:

a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

So, the European Union is a community of sorts.  As I read about Brexit, I am thinking about lessons we can learn about Britain's (not unanimous) decision to leave the community.  After all, if we are not learning lessons from this, why are we spending so much time wallowing in the sordid details?

These are the questions that are rattling around in my brain:

• What went wrong?
• What does it mean to be a member of a community?
• How can we improve our communities so that this doesn't happen? 
• Or should it happen?  Should communities naturally evolve in this fashion?
• If it should happen, how do we make it less painful?
• What are the responsibilities of people who manage or lead the community?  Of people who live in community?
• How big should a community be - geographically or how many "particular characteristics?"
• How will the community respond now? What new communities will form? 

I'm going to try and answer them in a series of short blog posts, for as long as questions keep rattling.  The questions will change over time, I'm sure; some will become irrelevant, some will be added.