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By Andrea Peyser
June 27, 2016
Ignore Daniel Radcliffe when it comes to Brexit
Don’t listen to Harry Potter.
Daniel Radcliffe, the feeble-brained British actor who rocketed to international superstardom by playing the role of the cinematic boy wizard, can’t string together a coherent sentence regarding a matter of extreme global import.
“Brexit is really scary,” Radcliffe, 26, said a few days before a majority of Britons voted to exit the European Union.
The outcome isn’t sitting well with rich and famous folks across The Pond, who enjoy outsize influence in inverse proportion to intellect. Unlike their poorer cousins, these celebs don’t blink at such things as Europe’s suicidal immigration policies.
Radcliffe is among a bunch of insufferable entitled Brits with enough money and bodyguards to ensure they likely have no contact with immigrants other than those who fetch their food or clean up their messes.
“We’re all British, we’re all part of the same country,” the impassioned and tongue-tied Radcliffe told Vulture.com.
“But people in France aren’t that f–king different . . . Similar to the Trump thing, I feel like we started off being like, ‘It’ll never happen. Don’t worry about it.’ And now it’s like, ‘Oh, no, we could not be a part of Europe.’ ”
Like, f–king got it?
Tragically, he’s far from alone. Last month, a group of 282 celebrated performers, authors and leaders of Britain’s creative industries signed an open letter imploring voters to “Remain” in the EU. They included “Star Trek” actor Sir Patrick Stewart, 75, sexy “Sherlock” actor Benedict Cumberbatch, 39 (who has converted untold numbers of females and even dudes into “Cumberbitches”), and hot “12 Years a Slave” movie star Chitwel Eljiofor, 38.
Unsurprisingly, these foes of folks who want to “Leave” the EU made the whole thing about themselves, complaining that the loss of cross-border collaboration — and all-important “EU funding’’ — will hamper “global creative success.”
And they communed with dead guys, too.
“From the Bard to Bowie, British creativity inspires and influences the rest of the world,” the letter reads.
Call me uncultured. (Please!) But making an argument in favor of European unity by evoking the names of departed Brits unable to speak for themselves because they’re, well, gone forever, seems just plain wrong to me.
After the votes were counted, British celebrities took to Twitter like bulimics to toilet bowls. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted magic more,” griped screenwriter, film producer and author of the “Harry Potter” books J.K. Rowling, 50.
“I can’t get my head around what’s happening in Britain,” tweeted the eponymous host of America’s “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” 37. “I’m so sorry to the youth of Britain.”
Lindsay Lohan, 29, the formerly troubled American “Mean Girls” movie actress who lives in London, seemed ready to crack amid Brexit hysteria, issuing, then deleting, a slew of tweets as the votes were being tallied, perhaps the most lucid of which was her last — “#Remain” with a praying-hands emoji.
I’m less disturbed by soccer star-turned-soft-core-porn-model David Beckham, 41, whose declaration that he planned to vote “Remain” was slavishly reported by the news media.
But I have a big problem with those who claimed, outrageously, that the psycho neo-Nazi who allegedly shot, kicked and stabbed to death Jo Cox, the British member of Parliament, was motivated by the same type of nationalism fueling Brexit.
This coup was bloodless.
Yes, financial markets worldwide tanked Friday amid post-vote uncertainty, with a more than 610-point drop in the United States’ Dow Jones Industrial average. Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation from office.
Plenty of folks were mighty steamed. But there were no riots, looting or arson. No one died or was hurt as a result of the referendum. Everyone behaved.
Before long, British citizens will be able to chart their own destiny, rather than march behind members of the European bureaucratic brain trust in Brussels (although more than 3 million people signed an online petition demanding a do-over vote. Political leaders in Scotland and Northern Ireland also want a rematch — warning that the countries could pull out of the United Kingdom in order to stay in the EU).
And yet, the open borders that have made Europe vulnerable to terrorism will hopefully soon become a memory. This is the result of democracy as it was meant to be — messy but glorious.
The hell with the celebriverse.