‘I remember the shock’, ‘It can still be reversed’ – what do Europeans think of Brexit now?
My suitcase was packed – but I stayed to find out what drove Brexit voters Julia Ebner Austrian researcher on counter-extremism, co-executive director of the
My suitcase was packed – but I stayed to find out what drove Brexit voters Julia Ebner Austrian researcher on counter-extremism, co-executive director of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, and a dual British-Austrian citizen What she wrote after the referendum: “I invested all my time, money and energy in a marriage that is now doomed to fail – because no matter what the concrete consequences will be for EU migrants residing in the UK, the atmosphere has changed and I no longer feel welcome here.” What she says now: I remember waking up in shock 10 years ago. My suitcase was waiting to be packed. Emotionally, it felt as if I had just found out that my partner had cheated on me. But once the initial emotions had passed, I did what most people would do in a committed marriage: instead of filing for divorce, I decided to investigate what had gone wrong. I spent a lot of time listening to leave voters and I quickly realised that it would be wrong to judge an entire country based on a narrow majority. Britons had been forced into a life-changing binary decision amid a campaign marked by political instrumentalisation, foreign interference and algorithmic amplification of divisive content. Now here I am a decade later: no longer an Austrian national living in the UK, but a voting British citizen, a mother of two British children, an academic at a British university and a frequent adviser to the British government. I even swore my loyalty to King Charles. Against the backdrop of growing hostility towards immigration, foreign cultures and languages, I am also doing my best to keep my European side alive. I feel privileged because neither my skin colour nor my religious affiliation gives away my non-British roots. Ten years on, it is clear that the xenophobic resentment didn’t end with Brexit. Ukip’s “breaking point” poster and the murder of the British MP Jo Cox in 2016 were early warning signs of a larger trend. From the Southport riots to the Unite the Kingdom rally, from the protests in Southampton to the violent escalations in Belfast, the extreme right has succeeded in mainstreaming its anti-immigration ideas. Yet the loudest calls for patriotism are the greatest risk to those British values that I chose to embrace. The world is different now but Britain’s natural place is in the EU Guy Verhofstadt prime minister of Belgium and former chief Brexit coordinator for the European parliament What he wrote after the referendum: “Brexit will be a sad, surreal and exhausting process. The EU must use the UK’s departure to reform and move forward. Britain can choose to be a partner in this process, or it can be an impediment to it. Let us hope for a future relationship based on trust and genuine partnership.” What he says now: A decade on, Brexit has not resolved Britain’s relationship with Europe. It has merely made it more complicated, more costly and more frustrating. The promises made in 2016 have not matched reality. Trade barriers have increased and Britain has found itself outside the room when decisions affecting its future are taken. The world has changed too. In the face of Russian aggression, economic competition from authoritarian powers, climate breakdown and rapid technological transformation, the case for European cooperation has become stronger. Countries acting alone cannot address these challenges effectively. For me, the lesson of the past 10 years is clear: Britain’s natural place is in the European Union. The EU isn’t perfect. But Britain’s interests, values, security and prosperity are fundamentally European. A generation of young Britons see no contradiction between being proudly British and proudly European.
The BriefWire