BRUSSELS – The EU governing council, meeting in closed session, today decided to one-up Great Britain by expelling it from the Union before it has a chance to resign.

Citing recent incidences of the UK “acting out” and having a “bad attitude” not conducive to the principals of the European Charter, the Council dismissed the issue “with prejudice”, legalistic jargon meaning it can’t be brought up again, as in: So long. Farewell. Auf weidersehen. Adieu.

Reaction from the Continent was swift. The prospect of a dramatic reduction in football (aka, soccer) hooliganism was foremost in everyone’s mind, as stadia throughout Europe outlawed body paint and resumed the sale of beer.

A spokesperson for the Council told this column that they had waited until today for the vote in order not to have to compete for U.S media headlines with Macy’s 4^th of July celebration, Hilary Clinton’s FBI probe results or Donald Trump’s germaphobia.

London, out-maneuvered and humiliated by this unexpected turn of events, blamed Parliament for having gone “all wobbly”, while stiffening its collective upper lip in anticipation of further bombshells.

That giant sucking sound you hear is the vacuum created in Europe by the departure of Great Britain from the EU.

But one nation’s stumble is another’s opportunity, so several putative nation-states, from Ruritania to Svenborgia, are petitioning Brussels to fill the void by granting them membership.

Kyrzbekistan, made famous by the New York Times, and autonomous since the implosion of the USSR, is another contender, but its unfortunate geographic position, somewhere east of the Urals, coupled with its history of peaceful co-existence with its neighbors, belies its claim to echt European-ness.

The Grand Duchy of Käseburger, a microstate founded by flamboyant Freibeuter Ulrich Hackfleisch in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars when nobody knew what belonged to anybody any more, is a strong contender for accession to the Union, given its salutary history of intrigue, duplicity,  perfidy, backbiting, and double-dealing.

On this side of the pond, lame duck U.S. president, Barack Obama, after a few formulaic “business-as-usual remarks” on Brexit, retired to the Oval Office to weigh in on the appointment of Ithaca-born architect Billie Tsien as designer of the $500M Obama Presidential Library to be built in Chicago. Once persuaded that Ithaca is indeed located within the United States, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel sanctioned the appointment.

Asked to comment on Europe’s refugee influx problem, D. J. Trump, the presumptuous GOP presidential nominee, replied: “They’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people”. Questioned on the global economic impact of Brexit, he bloviated: “I knew it! Hadda happen! I pulled out of London just before the Pound tanked. I made millions. Millions!”

Harried British PM, David (“Brits Don’t Quit”) Cameron, pressed by the Daily Mail to explain why the UK had turned its back on Europe, responded cryptically: “Kipling would have understood”.