British-journalist-turned-German-citizen Peter Gumbel puts aside the prospect of Brexit's tangible "economic fallout" and instead emphasizes the atmospheric sorrow of the European exit. His is an unsettling read.
"My grandparents, who escaped Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II, found a home in Britain — to them, it was a beacon of light and hope." But in the grip of Brexit mania, mourns Gumbel, it has soured, becoming "inward, polarized and absurdly self-aggrandizing" — "the openness and tolerance that made the country a safe haven for them are in retreat. The … surge of national exceptionalism that accompanied [Brexit] revealed deeply held prejudices about migrants."
Many of these targets of bigotry are once-respected professionals, financiers, educators, medical workers and enterprising businesspeople, notes Gumbel. And last year, many of them also left Albion, as the author has.
He concedes that Britain has scarcely been alone in its striking disunity and boorishness. Much as the U.S. has been riven by Trumpian sordidness, his homeland is caught in the "political rot" of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who "plays fast and loose with parliamentary procedure and international treaties," as well as contributing to Britain's "'diminished' quality of executive and legislative institutions." And by strenuously promoting Brexit, Johnson, like Trump, has exacerbated waves of ethnic intolerance.
But, Gumbel further notes, the U.S. has shaken off its national migraine of Trump, whereas "Brexit cannot be undone. There will be no turning back."
British-Americans who have cheered the liberation of Kiplinglike Englishness, perhaps most notably Andrew Sullivan, have either failed to acknowledge the unseemly underside of Brexit euphoria, or simply don't wish to. And in that, the cheering is sadly transatlantic.