HOUSTON — Brexit, meet “Texit.’’

The stunning vote by Britain to exit the European Union has inspired a flurry of chatter on social media about what it might mean for Texas, that former nation where a devoted fringe element has long advocated for secession from the United States.

Many of the state’s residents may have flirted with the idea, but the news out of Britain revived the debate, inspired a Texit hashtag and raised the hopes of the Texas secession movement.

On Twitter, there were Texas-less maps of America, videos of head-shaking Jedis, and calls for Governor Greg Abbott to take action. Oddly, the Texan who staked his name on the cause — the former Larry Scott Kilgore, who legally changed his name to Larry Secede Kilgore and plans to run for governor in 2018 — has not tweeted a word.

Reached on his cellphone last week, Kilgore, 51, said Britain’s vote had uplifted the Texas movement.

“It was a form of secession,’’ he said. “I think the people of Texas will look at that and say: ‘Man, we can have freedom; we can make our own decisions. We don’t have to have the US empire tell us what to do.’’’

And it’s not just Texas. Brexit has given a nudge to modest pre-existing secession movements in New England, as well. On Sunday, a small group of demonstrators gathered in Manchester, N.H., to support “NHexit.’’

And in Vermont, a secession movement, the Second Vermont Republic, wrote that it had received a surge of inquiries in the days after the Brexit referendum.

Despite the excitement online, there is no formal legal means under federal law that would allow Texas to secede. In 2013, the director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Jon Carson, said as much in a written response to an online secession petition.

“Our founding fathers established the Constitution of the United States ‘in order to form a more perfect union’ through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government,’’ Carson wrote.

New York Times