There are people who will tell you the reasons for that rejection are complex; two weeks ago, I would have been one of them. For decades, the press here have used Brussels as shorthand for an overweening undemocratic bureaucracy. And there has always been plenty of truth in that depiction, from fruit-and-veg stands penalized for selling their wares in pounds and ounces to a recent European court decision barring Scotland from imposing a minimum price on alcohol as a way of deterring binge drinking. Nor did German Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, the European Central Bank, or the European Commission cover themselves in glory during the financial crisis. It was also horribly clear that whatever lessons might have been learned watching the burning of Sarajevo and the slaughter in Srebrenica were long forgotten by the time Syria’s refugees came knocking at the gates.
But this wasn’t about the economy, stupid. Chancellor George Osborne’s own version of austerity managed to choke off Labour’s moderate recovery—but by now Britain’s economy was indeed growing. Until this morning. And though the Leave campaign’s brilliant slogan “Take Back Control” was designed to suggest otherwise, it wasn’t about sovereignty or democracy, either. If it had been, the Leave-ers would have followed Tony Benn and the old Euroskeptic left in calling for Britain to leave NATO—an entangling alliance that actually requires the country to go to war if any of its members are attacked.
No, this vote was about two things: a chance to register distrust and disgust with the political elites, in both parties, who have been warning against the dangers of Brexit. And a fear and hostility toward “others” and outsiders rooted in racism and xenophobia. A friend from Sheffield wrote that it was “as if 40 years later, a whole swath of the population has discovered the spirit of Punk. ‘When there’s no future, how can there be sin?’ Like Punk’s flirtation with Nazi insignia it attracts not only active racists but those who are willing to tolerate [racism] for the sake of nihilism.”
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