The Truth About Brexit and Xenophobia
The push to leave the European Union was never about anything but immigration
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Despite the government’s statements, it is clear now that everyone who has any knowledge or expertise about pretty well anything agrees that Brexit will make the U.K. worse off. Even the government’s own research reaches this conclusion. The tech sector, the music industry, the games industry, the car industry—all of them, and more, are expressing serious concerns about the economic impact of Brexit.
“Control over borders” is just a euphemism for controlling immigration. And “controlling immigration” is just a euphemism for xenophobia and racism.
Theresa May has fallen back on claiming that her deal will give the U.K. control over its borders, which is “what the British people voted for,” she says. The rest of what she says is waffle, empty verbiage, or just untrue. We have now finally reached the truth about Brexit: It is about our borders, nothing else. “Control over borders” is just a euphemism for controlling immigration. And “controlling immigration” is just a euphemism for xenophobia and racism.
Brexit is about stopping foreigners from coming here. It is a populist agenda that has no place in the U.K., and May is responsible for fanning its flames. This should come as no surprise. As home secretary, she implemented the hostile environment that led to the Windrush Scandal. She made promises about reducing immigration to a level that was totally unrealistic and reached out to the xenophobic right of the electorate because they were migrating from her party to the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP). Her policies as home secretary already set the tone, trying to drive down immigration despite the fact that it is positive for the economy. The only argument for that is xenophobia.
Immigration has of course been challenging culturally. Large numbers of Eastern Europeans, especially from Poland, came to the U.K. after 2007. The British had expected other European countries to open their borders at the same time, but they did not. This left the U.K. as the main destination for a wave of migration that was expected to have been distributed…
