Remember the Brexit as the moment when xenophobia won [View all]

[sufrommich]

Rarely does a single, arbitrary action instantly cause world history to shift in dramatic material ways that affect a large part of the world’s population. The June 28, 1914, gunshot in Sarajevo. The November 9, 1989, breaching of the Berlin Wall. We have now lived through another such moment: The June 23, 2016, referendum in the United Kingdom.

Even if the worst does not occur – even if the full consequences of Thursday’s vote do not extend to a collapse of the British union and further damage to the European Union – it marks a historic rupture of great significance.

It marks the end of the postwar consensus that held that democratic solidarity and free movement is the way to avoid military conflict and anti-democratic extremism. It marks the isolation of Europe’s second-largest economy from its main market. It marks a collapse of leadership in both major British political parties. It means that the only real issue in British politics for many years will be the struggle to reconstitute what once existed.

And, most significantly for the rest of the world, it marks the first time that the xenophobic politics of the far right have managed to win a majority national vote in a major Western country.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/remember-the-brexit-as-the-moment-when-xenophobia-won/article30609024/