Tranquillus in Exile
New member
From an op-ed by Lionel Shriver in the Sunday Telegraph:
The views of American liberals on Brexit are as one-dimensional as they are unassailable. It's a hate crime. Thus in a phone interview for a Boston NPR station during the Trump visit, I found myself talking to a brick wall.
“Isn’t it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?” the interviewer asked.
“Sure,” I say. “But you don’t have to be in the EU to cooperate. On security, climate change - no one advocates that the UK shouldn’t continue to engage with other countries on a range of issues.”
“But isn’t it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?”
“Yes,” I say patiently. “But this Trump visit is a good example of two countries conferring over their common interests, and the US isn’t in the EU.”
“But isn’t it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?”
I attempt to maintain my equanimity. “Especially in the last year or so, the rhetoric of Brexiteers has been entirely outward-looking, about forging trade deals with the EU and countries further afield —”
“But isn’t it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?” I don’t exaggerate: this guy hit me with the same question at least five times.
My interlocutor cannot fathom how I can possibly be both anti-Trump and pro-Brexit. I say they’re completely different issues. I think Trump is dumb, and Brexit is smart. I don’t see the contradiction.
He observes that the sole purpose of Leavers is to halt immigration. I beg to differ. Polls repeatedly confirm that the central concern of Leavers is sovereignty - which was once a big liberal cause. The right to national self-determination was a beloved mantra for human rights types. Suddenly wanting a country to control its own affairs is rightwing?
On the heels of the referendum, when I was in the US, America’s mainstream media uniformly portrayed the Leave campaign’s victory as a triumph of racism and xenophobia. Thus a once-civilized nation had been overcome by barbarian hordes. Brexit was the second coming of the Dark Ages. To this day I’ve seldom encountered any more nuanced a view in the States. It never enters my compatriots’ heads that they wouldn’t have the United States join a high-handed supranational organisation whose laws override our own in a million years.
Maybe it’s the shared history and language, but East Coast liberals’ attitude towards Britain is so bafflingly possessive that it borders on colonial. Before opting for this self-inflicted mayhem, so much at odds with your understated stereotype, you upstarts should have asked permission from your patrons across the pond. The answer would have been 'no'.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...-remainers-bad-try-explaining-brexit-liberal/
I posted this because it almost exactly mirrors my own experience. Brexit is not antithetic to "liberalism". It isn't a plot by sinister string-pullers to make billions when (or if) Brexit ever happens. It isn't all about keeping immmigrants out. "But isn't it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?" Yes! Next.
The views of American liberals on Brexit are as one-dimensional as they are unassailable. It's a hate crime. Thus in a phone interview for a Boston NPR station during the Trump visit, I found myself talking to a brick wall.
“Isn’t it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?” the interviewer asked.
“Sure,” I say. “But you don’t have to be in the EU to cooperate. On security, climate change - no one advocates that the UK shouldn’t continue to engage with other countries on a range of issues.”
“But isn’t it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?”
“Yes,” I say patiently. “But this Trump visit is a good example of two countries conferring over their common interests, and the US isn’t in the EU.”
“But isn’t it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?”
I attempt to maintain my equanimity. “Especially in the last year or so, the rhetoric of Brexiteers has been entirely outward-looking, about forging trade deals with the EU and countries further afield —”
“But isn’t it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?” I don’t exaggerate: this guy hit me with the same question at least five times.
My interlocutor cannot fathom how I can possibly be both anti-Trump and pro-Brexit. I say they’re completely different issues. I think Trump is dumb, and Brexit is smart. I don’t see the contradiction.
He observes that the sole purpose of Leavers is to halt immigration. I beg to differ. Polls repeatedly confirm that the central concern of Leavers is sovereignty - which was once a big liberal cause. The right to national self-determination was a beloved mantra for human rights types. Suddenly wanting a country to control its own affairs is rightwing?
On the heels of the referendum, when I was in the US, America’s mainstream media uniformly portrayed the Leave campaign’s victory as a triumph of racism and xenophobia. Thus a once-civilized nation had been overcome by barbarian hordes. Brexit was the second coming of the Dark Ages. To this day I’ve seldom encountered any more nuanced a view in the States. It never enters my compatriots’ heads that they wouldn’t have the United States join a high-handed supranational organisation whose laws override our own in a million years.
Maybe it’s the shared history and language, but East Coast liberals’ attitude towards Britain is so bafflingly possessive that it borders on colonial. Before opting for this self-inflicted mayhem, so much at odds with your understated stereotype, you upstarts should have asked permission from your patrons across the pond. The answer would have been 'no'.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...-remainers-bad-try-explaining-brexit-liberal/
I posted this because it almost exactly mirrors my own experience. Brexit is not antithetic to "liberalism". It isn't a plot by sinister string-pullers to make billions when (or if) Brexit ever happens. It isn't all about keeping immmigrants out. "But isn't it important for nations to cooperate to solve global problems?" Yes! Next.
