What is PostEuropean?

At its heart, this site is a response to a shock: Brexit.

Having spent well over a decade reading and writing about Britain’s relationship with the European Union, the Brexit result somehow wasn’t a surprise, despite still being a shock.

What it made me realise was that — as much as I’ve been saying for years that the EU itself is merely a symptom of ongoing trends (globalisation, relative European economic decline, an attempt to preserve wealth and old ways while preventing further conflict due to increased competition for dwindling resources) — I’ve not been exploring the fundamentals.

For years I’ve said I’d ideally like something like the European Union — a coalition of likeminded countries working together for the common good of the People — to spread globally.

But I’ve not been exploring what that would take — nor even if it would be a good thing for the disadvantaged around the world. My assumption has always been that globalisation is fundamentally a good thing, with some negative side-effects. But I’ve never properly explored those negative side-effects, nor worked out how to address them.

Do I think leaving the EU is going to be bad for Britain?

Of course.

Do I think we should still be fighting to Remain?

Until Trump’s election — which has just changed the nature of the game — my answer was a simple “No”. The best way to learn is from experience — we need to learn for ourselves if life outside the EU is as bad as I think it’s going to be.

And, at the same time, an EU without Britain — and with the shock of Brexit giving it the kick up the backside it’s needed for years — could (just) have a chance to reform. Unlikely, but possible.

Because many of the criticisms of the EU are valid.

Its current structures do make serious reform extremely hard (witness the fun with the Canada-EU trade deal, briefly blocked by a Belgian regional assembly).

It has failed to properly address the Eurozone crisis, the migrant crisis, and umpteen other lesser crises — not least of which is the steadily declining turnout at European Parliament elections ever since their establishment.

It is overly inward-looking, which has led to EU approaches (inadvertently) causing harm in less developed parts of the world.

Now, with Trump?

I’m seriously worried what the world could end up like without the US as global police force, if Trump goes through with his isolationist threats.

The only potential replacement that shares similar broadly liberal values is the EU. To succeed in taking on that role, the EU would need Britain. Not just for the good of Britain, but for the good of the world, it may now be better for Britain to Remain.

But I’m undecided. There are too many unknowns.

The second post-Brexit shock: A greater appreciation of the extent of racism

In 16 years as one half of a mixed-race couple, before the Brexit vote we’d experienced one explicitly racist situation. In the month following the vote, we experienced two.

With both, my response was disbelief and anger.

This showed nothing more than how privileged I am — a white, straight, privately-educated, average-build, average-looking male, earning comfortably above the national average and living in a nice part of London.

I am out of touch.

I hadn’t appreciated that my cozy liberal metropolitan worldview wasn’t as widely shared as I optimistically thought.

I hadn’t appreciated how much bullshit so many of my non-white, non-British, non-male, non-straight friends had still been having to put up with on a daily basis.

I hadn’t appreciated how much the old, traditional worldviews — that I lost when I moved to London and met people of all kinds of different backgrounds — are still prevalent.

So I decided to try and work out ways to do more. To understand more. To shake my own preconceptions — and those of other people. To challenge racism — but also to look to the root causes of racism, and seek ways to address them.

So what is PostEuropean?

The realisation I had after the Brexit vote was that Britain was entering a post-European age, just as it entered a post-Imperial age 60-odd years ago.

But it’s not just Britain that’s becoming post-European — so is the world. The election of Trump makes this even clearer — the election of such a blatantly populist, racist, exclusionary president is a rejection of the lessons of European history.

We are seeing a rejection of both economic and social liberalism.

It’s a revival of nationalism — the single worst gift Europe has given the world.

And it’s a pattern we can see around the globe — Duterte in the Philippines, Zuma in South Africa, Putin in Russia.

When this happens, minorities and the poor tend to suffer disproportionately.

I’ve never been a persecuted minority. I’ve never been truly poor.

So my first thought was: How can I use this position of privilege to help those less fortunate on a day to day basis?

But at the same time, I am the personification of Europe: White, wealthy, privileged, and largely surrounded by people who are similar.

The EU is the global equivalent of the white, straight, privately-educated, average-build, average-looking male, earning comfortably above the national average and living in a nice part of town.

The EU, like me, has been too complacent.

The Post-European age needs to see us privileged types shake off this complacency — getting the privileged to use that privilege for good, to see the world through others’ eyes, to empathise and seek to understand, to address root problems in faraway lands of which we know nothing to help address the problems closer to home, because globalisation means it’s all in our backyard.

To solve the problems of racism in our own cities, we need to address the problems of racism that we see globally. The exclusionary approach of the UN Security Council and other global institutions. The patronising assumption that what worked for the West works everywhere. The refusal to accept responsibility for the impact our own countries’ imperialistic pasts are still having on so many parts of the world today — and to seek to address these problems for the benefit of all.

The personal is political. The personal is global. The past still affects the present.

As you can tell, I haven’t yet ordered my thoughts

For now, this is what this site is intended to do. Help my spew out half-formed ideas. Shape them. Evolve them.

A scrapbook. A jotter.

And probably a bit rubbish.

But I hope it will evolve into something more.