Leaving Europe Can Be a Matter of Eschatology

In April, as campaigning for the referendum got underway, a conspicuous slogan urging people to vote for Brexit in the name of that verse appeared on a gable in Tigers Bay, a loyalist area on the north side of Belfast. In a small market town in the west of Northern Ireland, an evangelical group took over a premises on the main street and covered the front in posters urging people to vote "leave" or risk their souls by opting for a political institution which plainly stood for the Antichrist, an impostor whose appearance is a harbinger of the final battle before all earthly things come to end. Along with references to that Revelation verse, there were some secular promises. Britain, freed of Euro-shackles, could strike lucrative trade deals with the world's rising powers. Some readers wondered what purpose such economic projects could serve if the end times are so close.