#Brexit, #Bremain, and Britain’s political cannibalism
Fact appears to have nothing to do with Thursday’s referendum. So here’s an attempt at a non-fact-based argument for remain, and why the UK may have caused irrevocable damage to its international image.
This Thursday, the UK electorate will make the biggest decision in recent history about our country. The referendum on continued membership of the European Union, known widely as #Brexit, is not just a decision about how integrated the UK wants to be with the continent, but a decision about the UK’s future as a post-empire, modern European nation.
As a Brit living in the USA, I’ve faced a barrage of questions from my co-workers, friends and random strangers here: What is Brexit? Why are you guys having a referendum? Is it a good/bad thing to be in the EU? Don’t you want to reduce immigration? Why would you even consider leaving? Surely leaving would be utterly moronic? Why is your country self-destructing? Since when did Britain get its own Donald Trump? (I’m taking that last one as a comment about Boris’s own brand of populism, perhaps).
A major point I’ve taken away from the debates leading up to the referendum is that there is surprisingly little understanding of what the EU even is, let alone how it functions or Britain’s role within the 28-member state block. In some ways, the referendum has fueled a nationwide, healthy debate about the shortcomings of the EU (of which there are many) and what our role even is within the EU. What I have overwhelmingly seen promulgated in this debate, however, is sheer ignorance and utter contempt for expertise or fact-based reasoning.
For me, last week was the final straw in what has become an autolyzing, jingoistic, face-clawing shouting match between fact and ignorance.
A combination of grievously misused facts, utter contempt for rationality, and nationalistic stoking — apexing in the brutal and tragic killing of Joe Cox — have dragged this already nasty debate to new depths. Whether this is owing to a spreading of anti-centrist populism, a growing confidence of voicing racist opinions in public, or a cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face attitude is up for other people to decide. But the tone of the debate has not gone unnoticed abroad, especially in the United States where I currently reside (as an aside, I have tried to make as many links for further reading in this post to US-based articles to emphasize precisely this point).
What was most telling for me in the past few weeks was a series of conversations I had with strong Trump supporters who had not only heard of Brexit, but fully supported the UK’s leaving the EU. To put this conversation in perspective, in comparison to the prevalence of US politics in the UK media, there are very few instances where British politics becomes a talking point in the United States. The fact that these Trump supporters were fully supportive of Brexit — based mainly, though not exclusively, on anti-immigration rationale that aligns with Trump’s own calls for tighter immigration —poses a host of questions about how the leave campaign has framed their arguments. Besides the fact that Brexiteers cannot vote in the US presidential election and vice versa, has the rise of Trumpist populism encouraged the Brexit campaign? Has the debate around Brexit even encouraged support for Trump?
That’s when I really realized that this referendum has nothing to do with facts. This referendum has everything to do with nationalism.
Like many voting in the referendum, I posted my ballot a few weeks ago (yes, I did vote remain). But for those of you questioning which way to vote on Thursday, perhaps it would be best to consider the leave campaign’s advice to ignore fact and expert advice. Because this isn’t a short-run decision to be made about whether you like Boris, or want to cut down on migration. It’s a big-picture decision about what kind of country you think Britain should become in the future: a scared, inward looking Little England, or an open, forward-looking United Kingdom that engages in making decisions that affect us all — from climate change, to economic development, to improving access to markets.
In particular, what kind of message does the outcome of this referendum send to friendly (and not-so-friendly) states around the globe? That Britain is open for increased trade? (A key argument seems to be that by leaving the EU we can expand trade with other countries such as the US — which Obama helped put paid to in his “back of the queue” speech in London — or China, which, to be frank, is bollocks, although to explain why here would require facts.) That Britain is a welcoming, tolerant country with some of the brightest minds and cutting-edge research, a great place to visit, an excellent place to study, and embracing of new ideas? Or an isolated, scared nation held at ransom by the internal squabbling of our Conservative party and the rise of UKIP, with an increasingly racist and xenophobic atmosphere and a celebration of anti-intellectual fear-mongering?
Perhaps we should be looking to the United States to see how Britain may be viewed as a result of this referendum. Samantha Bee’s take-down of Trump’s Nazi-sympathizer-echoing “America First” (and his “Make America Great Again”) slogan may appear to have little to do with Brexit, until there start to appear eery similarities between one racist-fueled campaign with “isolationist paranoia and fascist leanings” and the campaign to “Take Back Control” from those “others.” If you’ve watched with mild horror at Trump’s campaign throughout the US presidential primaries, reflect for a moment about how similar sentiments in Britain are probably being viewed right now by someone not so different from yourself in a another country. Then ask yourself again what kind of country you want the UK to be.
#Bremain.
