Two stories are currently unfolding, in disparate places, with different kinds of developments at present, but it seems to me there's an underlying theme.
Boris Johnson's own Conservative Party turned on him to join with Labor in taking control of Parliament and forcing Johnson to resume talks within the framework of the Treaty of Lisbon's Article 50, which establishes the two-year time frame for an EU country negotiating to leave that body. Boris was hot, pointing out that the move empowers the hard-left Jeremy Corbyn. Hot enough to call for snap elections, a move he'd rather forcefully spoken against.
And Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam has withdrawn from legislative consideration the extradition bill that triggered huge protests that at one point shut down the Hong Kong airport. In recent days, reports of private moments at odds with her public face of steely resolve had emerged. She seems pretty sincere in her heartbreak over what had happened to her nominally independent land.
Particular circumstances in each case, obviously, but the common element is the question of what degree of centralized authority does or does not serve an independent entity's flourishing.
For the moment, it looks like in the latter case, the move is in the direction of greater freedom and sovereignty, while in the former case, the cattle-masses who are fine with submitting to a bureaucracy in Brussels have at least a momentary upper hand.
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