We Need to Talk About Brexit

Just spent the last ten days in France and Belgium where people are upset about Brexit. It’s a tempered frustration, though, as they emphasize that Britain has always been on the periphery of Europe, literally of course, but also through preserving its own currency and negotiating many special deals for itself with the EU.

One interesting thing is that there are now serious proposals with a lot of backing for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom (as it almost did a few years ago) and rejoin the EU and even of Ireland reuniting and joining the EU. The vote broke down greatly on regional lines even more than by income or any other factor. Scotland and Northern Ireland have been economic engines for the U.K., and it has already been announced that many finance jobs will be leaving London. So the consequence of the U.K. vote might be, effectively, the union losing its California and Massachusetts and keeping its Texas but with a weakened energy industry. Bang up job there, England. Guess you’ll still have Wales?

One of the leaders of the “Leave” movement has admitted he lied about the amount of money the country was sending to Europe, and scads of Leave voters have announced they want to change their votes as the economic consequences the hated “elites” warned of are actually occurring already. There is even talk of Brexit not even happening since the vote was technically only advisory and has no legal implications.

A few comments on the issues in Britain and Northern Europe generally that are part of what’s driving this: Immigration, assimilation and equity is a real issue in these countries. The plight of the Syrian refugees is particularly acute and tragic, and you see many of them begging in Paris (though fewer than the homeless people you see on American city streets). But countries always have issues, and one thing that was very telling was that the younger generations, folks younger than 50, were much more optimistic that these issues can be resolved and that the different ethnic groups would eventually live in greater harmony. Not unlike the age-based differences in attitudes in the United States.

There are definitely neighborhoods with more concentrated Muslim or other minority populations and, again, figuring out how groups live peacefully alongside or with each other with equity is a major issue. But so will be adapting the labor policies of these countries to allow for economic growth which has stagnated with very high levels of unemployment. Issues abound as they do everywhere. These countries aren’t socialist paradises where everyone is taken care of equally and there aren’t massive equity issues. Their social safety nets and labor laws work for some and not for others, and there’s even more overt and covert racism in these countries than in the United States. And the economic and social issues and tied up with each other as they always are.

But Brussels looked and felt almost exactly as it did when I lived there twenty-five years ago. There were signs on some shops downtown saying that a certain people weren’t welcome, but it was actually some bureaucrats who had closed off parts of the tourist areas to traffic, which the merchants say have hurt their business. And there are terrorist acts that have occurred and hence more soldiers around but no new security checkpoints or anything like that. Overall it remains quite a lovely and welcoming place to be. The union strikes were much more disruptive to travelers than anything else but that’s just the way of life in Europe. Another big difference versus 25 years ago was that people were much quicker to switch to English when they heard my family speaking it even when I was speaking French well.

Regarding the Brexit vote, it is also important to understand that the UK is almost 90% Caucasian ethnicities while the United States is nearer to 60% and falling. Not a good analogy, therefore, to Trump since he would have to overcome a majority coalition of almost all Latinos and African Americans, most women, and most male liberals (not to mention Mitt Romney, both Presidents Bush, George Will and Henry Paulson and an increasing number of high-level Republicans). Can’t take it for granted and still must work hard on the election, but it’s a radically different context.

Inequality and poverty are huge issues, here as there, though, and as someone from rural America I understand the concerns about the elite economic consensus that global trade and integration will lead to better economic outcomes for all. For a lot of people, especially in the short term, it won’t , which is one of the many reasons (along with gay rights and gun control) that I am a Democrat in spite of seeing the good reasons to be a Republican too. We need a smarter, better social safety net in the United States. A Sanders “protest” vote makes a lot of sense in this context. A protest vote for a tax cutting Republican businessman with a history of exploiting workers? Maybe not so much?

But just because the economics of the New World Order have been bad for many, that doesn’t mean that the economics of isolationism will be better. I can’t say that I know for certain what would be best for the economy in spite of running an “economic institute”; anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something and doing so dishonestly. I don’t think isolationism is the answer, but I don’t have blind faith in free trade, or anything else. Whether it’s questions of immigration or global trade, we must figure out how to take care of everyone better than we do.

I don’t think that Trump would have won anyway but the intense buyers’ remorse around Brexit and the economic misstep it already appears to be for England may help convince those on the fence to come off and repudiate nativism even more broadly in our country, which would be good to see. We were, after all, a country founded to go in a different direction than England …