Thoughts on Brexit

Thoughts on the Brexit Vote

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            In college I studied history hoping it would give me understanding of the present and how that would help create the future. My youthful exuberance in the ability of understanding the present and the future by understanding history has been modified and humbled. The reality is that the present era is always an era with myriads of themes at play and we see them playing out through mist and fog. In fifty years historians will understand what happened in our times better than most any of us can hope to understand them while making our way through the fog. But I write on the Brexit vote as an American from a distance seeing the vote more in my American context than I ever could understand it as a British participant. I write hopefully in a way that might add more light than fire as we pass through the fog of our own times.

            Many of us try to follow international news and events, although most of us are not experts. We simply try to understand some themes shaping the world in which we live. I would suggest Paul Krugman’s perspective as an article to begin with in understanding the Brexit vote. Krugman feels Britain’s vote was a mistake, but he also believes that the European Union was bound to face a number of exit movements whether or not Britain had voted on exiting the European Union. He points out that a number of decisions made by the European Union from its institution of a singular currency (not for Britain though) to its not always well thought out policies of allowing completely free movement of labor between EU nations has given rise to numerous nationalistic reaction movements. While Krugman comes down hoping the European Union successfully navigates its present problems, he acknowledges the problems were going to plague the union with or without a British vote to remain or leave.

            While most of us speak favorably regarding cultural diversity, there is often a gap in how diversity is treated in theory and reality. We acknowledge cultural diversity as the ideal and we might be ready to see an “All in the Family” rerun with Archie Bunker and quickly see the problems in his prejudicial world perspective. But we less often discuss how the problem of white prejudice is not isolated in human relations. African-American communities seeing significant number of Hispanic people moving into their neighborhoods often feel a sense that their communities are being invaded. The European Union had rising tensions as people from one nation and culture moved towards others in search for opportunity. North Africans in France, people from former Soviet satellite countries, as well as people from historic European colonial lands all seem to be changing societies far more quickly than many in a nation can accept. Nationalistic reaction movements are springing up throughout the European continent. The xenophobia criticized in the Brexit vote is not a uniquely British response to the European Union’s present problems. As some have pointed out, the success of Donald Trump in gaining the support of the Republican Party shows that issues of diversity and immigration and the protection of a uniquely American culture are as much a part of our American present scenario as that of England. Nationalism and xenophobic elements are part of a trending reaction to global integration.

            It seems to me that a second consideration in understanding the Brexit vote was the nostalgic desire for a return to the past. The reality is that the older a voter was in the Brexit vote, the more likely they would support an exit from the European Union. The English and European worlds have experienced dramatic changes especially in the lifetimes of the older generations. As one who has watched most every Bond movie from Dr. No to Spectre one can see the changing self-perception of the Bond character in the movie series with the changing times and changing actors. The Sean Connery 007 was a self-conscious Englishman and part of the free world. The British Empire had been downgraded into the Commonwealth of the Nations, but there was still at least an illusion that the commonwealth mattered. By the time Roger Moore was 007, Britain was increasingly accepting its role as no longer a world power but it did have a role to play in promoting the good of the world and while Bond remained a self-conscious Westerner, he was increasingly a promoter of détente. With Pierce Brosnan, Bond was more of a globalist. He could drive a tank through St. Petersburg, Russia with the help of good Russians against anachronistic Soviets in a world where borders were being erased and a new global society was growing up. With a change in the generations of Broccolis running the franchise and the appearance of Daniel Craig as 007 the bond character was more an individual trying to figure out where he fit in. Perhaps it was fitting that in Spectre, the last Daniel Craig installment of 007 he sees the villain at his mercy and it doesn’t seem to matter any longer. He walks away. Perhaps for older English persons, the changes that had taken place over the decades had left them wanting to walk away with a sense that nothing any longer made sense. Perhaps for the older voters who voted “leave” rather than “remain” there was a tempting imagined belief that the understandable life of the past could be regained by leaving the present where nothing made sense. The “leave” vote was perhaps the surrealistic temptation of nostalgia making its siren’s call to a voyager incapable of resisting the temptation. Nostalgia is seldom a realistic perspective, but it often has a beautiful sense of promise to those of us tempted to believe the past was better than the present. But most often we do well to hear the warning of the author of Ecclesiastes: “Do not say: How is it that the former times were better than these? For it is not in wisdom that you ask about this.” (Ecclesiastes 7:10 NAB) Perhaps nostalgia better explains the patterns of voting even better than xenophobia. For many who wish to go back to the past, it is not for a desire to return to racism or a supremacist colonizing perspective, but simply to reach back to a time when life made sense. There is even an illusion for such as are captured by the nostalgia that everyone would enjoy coming back to the older times if only they could join us. Nostalgia was surely part of the Brexit vote. We can so easily love our former golden times.

            There is one other aspect of the Brexit vote I would suggest is important to be recognized. The European Union represents globalism. In many ways the EU was the attempt to create a new less bordered world where increased trade would lead to greater freedom and prosperity for all the partners within the expanded union. It was the brainchild of diplomats, international industrialists, and international bankers. The promise was prosperity for all. The reality has become tremendous wealth for a few, opportunities for some, economic stagnation for many, and actual decline for more than a few. John Harris showed how the leave vote represented those whose regions were in decline in this excellent article presented in the Guardian.

From my perspective, agreeing with the Guardian article’s assessment I would suggest we can understand the “leave” voting mentality by recognizing that globalization has created greater prosperity for some while creating despairing pockets of those overlooked in the new globalized world. In America it is what we call “fly-over” country. The areas in the USA where Donald Trump received his largest voting percentages were areas where both economic expectations and life expectancy rates have declined. In Britain the “leave” voters were generally older and the “remain” voters were generally younger. There might be a tendency to believe that only the older people are resisting the effects of globalization. But that would be, in my opinion, definitely a mistaken perception at least in the United States. There is a huge difference in perspective in the USA regarding globalization. But the difference is not in viewing globalization as having some unwanted side-effects. The difference of perspective between the elderly and the younger is how to deal with the negative effects of globalization. The elderly in Britain voted leave and in America have a greater tendency to vote Trump. But the younger were voting for Bernie Sanders. Sanders resisted the rush to globalization as he has seen its tendencies towards rewarding a one percent of those in the upper echelons of international corporations and the financial industry. The younger voter is looking for mitigation of the negatives brought on by globalization. The younger voter is not interested in returning to a past golden age but in finding solutions to move forward in the remainder of their lifetimes.

In summary, Brexit to use an antiquated metaphor is the death of the canary in the coal mine. It is an alarm sounding out how globalization’s excesses resulting in immense benefits for a few while leaving many behind cannot be overlooked without creating destructive consequences. Globalization is, in places, intensifying tensions between ethnicities, economic classes, and between locales either connected or disconnected to the globalization process. Without mitigating such circumstances there is a danger that Brexit will represent a beginning of turmoil not an isolated event. This is a time when awareness of problems needs to be coupled with creativity of solutions. Globalization can be beneficial but it has also created a set of problems that must not be ignored.