So, it has happened. “Brexit” won. The people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have voted (narrowly) to leave the European Union. It will take time to negotiate the actual exit. The economic consequences will be dire for Britain—and we will feel the shockwaves here. It could even aid the forces of Trumpism. I’m no longer panicking in this regard, however. (Unlike last night when I very much WAS panicking.) This was no surprise. The referendum was scheduled long ago and was doubtless watched by both our current administration and the Clinton campaign. They both, no doubt, have contingency plans for this decision that we had no part in, but whose consequences we cannot avoid.
But this morning, I weep because this decision makes the European Union itself less secure and the EU (and its predecessor bodies), whatever its faults, has been a mighty force for peace for 71 years, now. Massive wars were fought across Europe for centuries. Two “World Wars” broke out in Europe in the 20th C.--with a mere 20 years between the end of WWI (1919) and the European beginning of WWII (1939). Yet no one has been able to contemplate a European war for decades. The European Union and its predecessor bodies did not do away with nation-states or their sovereignty (the propaganda of UKIP notwithstanding), but it created ever closer ties of interdependence, webs of connection that made war less and less likely. Kentucky does not go to war with Indiana or Ohio, and neither, anymore, does France go to war with Germany. Less than a decade ago, we seemed on the verge of the EU becoming a kind of “United States of Europe,” and now it is an open question as to whether the European experiment will continue.
For that matter, for how long will Britain be a UNITED Kingdom? Scotland came close to voting itself out a few years ago—and the Scots want very much to be part of Europe. What of Northern Ireland—whose relationship with the rest of the UK has always been precarious? It now will have the only border with Europe, namely the border with the Republic of Ireland. Will this strengthen the forces of Republicanism in Northern Ireland and will that, in turn, threaten the peace achieved in the 1990s with the Good Friday Accords—which put an end to decades of “The Troubles?"
These schisms show the rise of a new tribalism—other signs of which are the growing anti-immigrant feelings around the globe, the resurgence of Anti-Semitism and White Power groups (and even political parties) in Europe—and here in the USA. Trumpism is another form of this tribalism, as was the Tea Party from which he emerged. It was reported on NPR weeks ago that Texas secessionists were looking closely at the Brexit Leave Campaign and, if it was successful, they planned on trying to copy it here. Alaskan secessionists say the same. Fear of the Other is on the rise the world over—in Islamophobia AND Islamist Extremists, in neo-Nazi groups, in “English only” campaigns, and self-appointed border militias. In heterosexist and trans-phobic backlash against recent gains in LGBTQ rights, and the “open carry” extremist gun culture.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan, “Stronger Together” is not simply true of disparate groups in the USA, but for the entire human race. Powerful forces are driving us apart. Institutions like the United Nations, the British Commonwealth of Nations, and, yes, the European Union, help create common cultures that knit us together. So, I grieve this morning for the weakening of the EU and, though the Leave partisans don’t yet know it, the weakening of the United Kingdom itself. David Cameron’s folly in allowing this referendum has made all our lives more fragile this morning. I hope this self-inflicted wound is not fatal—to the UK, the EU, or the rest of us.