A day after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, a glaring question remains not only unanswered, but unasked.
Why is there such a high level of discontent among the U.K. voters?
The question has gone unasked because everyone presumes to know the answer even though they have no idea how the Brexit became a reality and the experts predicted that the voters would vote in favor of staying in the European Union. Instead there has been a barrage of insults toward those who voted to leave the E.U. and the political leaders who campaigned in favor of leaving. The insults by and large label those who voted to leave the E.U. as xenophobic and ignorant, lumping them in with American presidential candidate Donald Trump and his followers. Pundits argue that the vote to leave the E.U. reflects a short-sighted, ignorant view of the U.K's relationship with the E.U., and a failure to foresee the numerous negative consequences of leaving the union, which include the possibility that people from other countries working in the U.K. will now have to leave or renegotiate their status, and that British citizens living and working elsewhere in the 27-bloc union will have to leave.
I will not dispute that there are negative consequences to this vote, and trust the opinion of the knowledgeable people who condemn the vote of those to leave the E.U. Without question there is now a great deal of uncertainty about how this decision may encourage other countries to exit the E.U. as well, potentially another ominous development.
But the troubling and difficult question remains: why the discontent?
Apparently, a great many people living the in the U.K. outside of London do not at all see themselves as benefiting from their country being a member of the E.U. Rather than consider this perspective legitimate, it appears that those who campaigned for the U.K. to stay in the E.U. reverted to insults--ad hominem attacks against those outside of London as being unenlightened, rather than a campaign that emphasized the positives of the E.U. for the U.K.
The problem with this approach is that it is itself ignorant. Failure to understand the discontent of those who voted to leave the E.U. does not empower those who disagree with their position. If anything, it reinforces the belief of those who voted to leave that the current governing system does not take their interests or needs into consideration, because they are looked down upon and seen as having nothing to offer the multi-national agenda the E.U. has established. It is also a bit presumptuous to think that other people are so ignorant they do not even understand their own individual quality of life, or their perception that the U.K's participation in the E.U. has benefited a globalized elite within their own country that has favored globalization at the expense of their fellow citizens. The "I-know-what's-best-for-you" mentality does not sit well with those who feel left out and taken advantage of, and it is hardly an enlightened mentality on the part of those who assume such omniscience.
This disregard for people who voted to leave the E.U. ought to be alarming. Stigmatizing them as villains out of a Harry Potter novel, for example, makes no effort to understand why people voted to leave. Obviously, if they felt that they personally benefited from E.U. membership, they would not have voted as they did. And insisting that all of these people are so ignorant that they don't know what is good for them is infantilizing, a sign that there is a bigger rift between those who voted to stay versus those who wanted to go than anyone seems willing to acknowledge.
What if it is the case that the E.U. of the 21st century is really a globalized network of wealthy elites who use the pooled power of member nations to benefit their own economic interests with no regard for whether or not the policies of the E.U. benefit the citizenry as a whole of each individual nation? Right now there is no way to answer that question because any anti-E.U. sentiment is put down immediately.
I will say that for years I have found the anti-immigrant, far-right parties that have become increasingly influential in the E.U.'s nations to be depressing and worrisome. But just because certain politicians and parties operate by exploiting fears simply to push oppressive, xenophobic agendas does not mean the fear and alienation felt by any number of citizens is baseless. They are not the same thing. It may well be that if there were another political party willing to listen to the fears and discontent of people who do not like the direction the E.U. is taking their country, these far-right parties would not have a monopoly on galvanizing their attitudes. But when all other parties are oblivious to concerns over the E.U.'s agenda and the results it produces, such citizens have no other option.
One thing I have noticed from social media threads and Internet articles is there is a great deal of ignorance over the E.U., the euro currency, and the relationship between member nations and the union. In fact, one article even argued that many British who voted to leave the E.U. weren't sure what the E.U. is. I do not pass judgement on the lack of knowledge about the E,U, and applaud the many people who asked questions about it for the sake of becoming better informed. I will point out, however, that this lack of knowledge is exacerbated by an unwillingness to understand the apparently strong dislike of the status quo in England and the perception that the E.U. only benefits a privileged class.
One of the potential dangerous of any trans-national alliance is that it could steer the national government toward an agenda that benefits the alliance rather than the people. Apparently, more people than expected in the U.K. feel that is the case. Putting them down only serves to alienate further a group of people who see the well-to-do in London following the lead from Brussels in order to further their own agenda instead of looking out for the well being of their fellow countrymen. Rather than take an honest appraisal of how well off those who voted to leave the E.U. have been in relation to the prospering of those who favored remaining in the E.U., the response has been an arrogant casting off of those who do not see themselves as benefiting from E.U. membership. Other countries considering leaving the E.U. ought to be asking these questions as well rather than assuming anyone who is fed up with the E.U. just doesn't know any better. I think it is best to assume that grown ups know best the status of what their personal experience and level of well-being are in relation to others--and that way of looking at the world is the basic foundation of politics. People do not like participating in any kind of organization where it is obvious to them others are prospering at their expense. And belittling those who feel that way is a thinly veiled attempt to maintain a situation that benefits one group at another's expense.
From my understanding, the European Union began in 1945, after WWII, with the noble purpose of forging alliances out of neighboring countries that had been fighting wars against one another. The union was a successful effort to end the bloodshed that plagued the continent. To this end, there is no doubt that the E.U. has worked to everyone's benefit: the neighboring nations of Europe have not gone to war with one another since.
But as the decades of the 20th century moved along, the European Union expanded, as did its agenda and bureaucratic reach. The U.K. joined in 1972. Other nations joined after the fall of the Berlin Wall. If one general observation of the E.U. can made, it is that its agenda has morphed from peace-keeping to global financial ambition. I say so because of the advent of the euro currency in 2002. The idea behind the euro was to pool the currencies of European nations for the sake of creating a more powerful shared currency not aligned with an individual nation. The main goal of the euro was to create a currency that could compete with, and perhaps even overtake the dollar as the world's strongest currency.
The U.K. did not adopt the euro and decided to retain its currency of the British pound, a generally strong currency (until yesterday anyway). Denmark and Sweden, also E.U. members, decided as well not to adopt the euro. In any case, the euro has proven a poor move. After the 2008 financial meltdown, the southern members of the E.U. were hardest hit. Unable to devalue their own national currency to encourage exporting as a way of revitalizing their economy, these nations have remained at the mercy of Brussels in terms of economic policy and Germany in terms of imposed austerity measures in exchange for bailout money to stabilize their depressed economies. Thus a significant power imbalance has become entrenched between countries like Greece, Italy, and Spain versus the stronger economies of Germany and others. The E.U. has turned into a money machine with the result of some nations literally being controlled--essentially governed--by others.
When Winston Churchill and the other founders formed the E.U., their overriding concern was to put an end to the bloodshed of world wars fought on the European continent. I seriously doubt they envisioned the E.U. becoming a massive bureaucracy that became primarily interested in economic supremacy, streamlining the economies of 27 different countries. The E.U. has become many things besides what it started out being, and the euro has proven a fiscal wreck. These problems are not going away. They have generated a great deal of discontent across the continent and between countries the union was designed to create harmony between, not resentment. The vote to the leave the E.U. by the U.K. is the first major sign that the problems it is causing for people are outweighing its benefits. The E.U. can either examine the possibility it has overreached its capacity to pool the resources and institutions of the continent for the collective well-being of its members, or risk a future of dissolution and continental fragmentation. And if the E.U. saga teaches us anything, it is that prosperity comes from peace, not avarice.
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