Brexit, Nationalism and the International Far Right
This is the lightly edited text of a talk I gave at Hamilton Third Age Learning on exclusionary nationalism and Brexit. It's a long, illustrated, post explaining the connections between the far right, the rise of nationalism and Brexit, Trump and anti-EU movements in Europe today.
Brexit refers to the referendum held on 23 June 2016 regarding Britain’s continuing membership in the European Union. A relatively simple question was asked:
“Should
the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European
Union?”
Voters had two choices:
1.
“Remain a member of the European Union”
2.
“Leave the European Union”
The Result: 17,410,742 voted to leave; 16,141,241 voted to remain.
The leave campaign thus earned 51.9% of the 33.5 million votes cast – a turn out of 72% of the 45 million people eligible to vote. Thus, 37% of the total eligible electorate cast a vote to leave the European Union [or EU]. This result was widely seen as surprising.
