The divide is still more complex than that in both the U.K. and the U.S. Many big-city residents in the U.K. are feeling the pinch as much as anyone else, while plenty of areas considered deep in the country in Britain are wealthy, well-connected, and close enough to London to be considered exurban by American standards.
The divide between metropolitan elites and regional discontents has nonetheless been successfully established as a fault line for debate—the public has largely bought it because, though flawed and polemic, it’s not completely divorced from reality. Pro-Brexit voices have succeeded in creating two monstrous scapegoats in the public mind that supposedly congregate around London: the rootless, wealthy cosmopolite and the shifty, job-stealing foreigner. If that funhouse mirror rhetoric doesn’t ring a bell to American readers, I suggest you try cleaning your ears. [...]
It’s not that racism suddenly appeared overnight. British minorities have frustratedly pointed out that the abuse many have received is just a more intense expression of an ongoing problem that’s been disregarded too long by the white and powerful. The problem is that, with a vote for Brexit being interpreted by many as a vote against immigration, racists felt emboldened that the majority was now on their side. Many non-white or non-British-born friends of mine reported being verbally insulted or even pushed out of subway trains. [...]
The Daily Mail branded the judges who ruled “enemies of the people” and in a comment since deleted, damned one for being an “openly gay ex-Olympic fencer,” as if that were a source of treachery. Meanwhile the Daily Express preposterously suggested the case was as serious a crisis for the country as the Second World War. This hyperbole has actually become pretty standard post-referendum fare. Brexit supporters have been screaming traitor at anyone who cast any doubt on the handling of the Brexit process or its likelihood of success, in part because they know their international hand is indeed very weak and loathe having it pointed out. With many Trump policies on key issues pretty hazy and/or tough to deliver, don’t be surprised if this pattern repeats itself across the Atlantic.
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