4 ms·
It's complicated. I know some minority ethnic British people who voted for Brexit for entirely xenophobic reasons ... and others who would swear up and down tha
by w_t_payne 6y ago
It's complicated. I know some minority ethnic British people who voted for Brexit for entirely xenophobic reasons ... and others who would swear up and down that they were not racist one minute, and then spend the next spouting the most hateful sort of lies. Fear and hatred are powerful emotions, and the flames of discontent have been fanned for years by tabloid propaganda and industrialised hate.
- selimthegrim 6y agoOlder South Asians still remember Commonwealth visa free travel and think the EU is racist in favor of white people
- w_t_payne 6y agoI can understand that perspective. On the other hand, most of the people who I know who voted 'Leave' had poorly disguised (and sometimes completely insane) xenophobic rationale for doing so. Also - and significantly - racially motivated aggression and hostility toward my (mixed race) family suddenly increased to intolerable levels in the weeks and months following the Brexit vote. The whole affair has been an undeniable victory for the nastiest sort of hatred, and has demolished the pride I felt in my country as a bastion of reasonableness and tolerance.
- ben_w 6y agoIn isolation this would be a fair point. However, in the context of Brexit, Farage proudly stood before “breaking point” posters that showed the same scenes as a literal Nazi propaganda film picturing large streams of Jewish refugees as a threat: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-the-poster-Breaking-Point-used-by-the-campaign-aimed-at-persuading-the_fig2_317704454 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Comparison-of-the-poster...
- w_t_payne 6y agoAnd it's examples like this which help us to understand Brexit (and the broader resurgence in neofascism globally).