The British have voted to leave the EU, delivering a heavy blow to the once-popular notion of integration and to globalization. The result also reflects how much ordinary people have been affected by these trends and how they have finally decided to hit back against them.
Britain leaving the EU symbolizes a reawakening of nationalism and ordinary people’s desire to reclaim national sovereignty. People are unconvinced that they are receiving the benefits of integration and globalization, and instead feel that their national sovereignty has been eroded. They feel that they cannot devise laws and government policies based upon the needs of their own country or to solve their own problems.
Despite the result of the Brexit referendum, there was a difference of only 1.2 million votes between “Remain” and “Leave,” revealing a distinct split of opinion within the country. It is difficult to predict the hardships that lie down the road for a post-Brexit Britain, but with terrorism rampant, war refugees swamping Western countries and wealthy nations being encumbered by poorer nations, the frustration and dissatisfaction being felt by ordinary people has led them to reject control from outside governments.
Integration has long been the dominant trend in Europe, just like during the time of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), when there were those who played with semantics, hoping for “integration” with China to address the threat of “unification” and to increase economic competitiveness.
People are now turning away from the superstate model of integrating sovereign European democracies observing the rule of law on an equal footing.
Globalization has held sway for some time, but the entities it has served best have been an impoverished China — before its rise — and major Western corporations. Many ordinary people have been forced out of work by competition with cheap labor in China and are unable to change government policy to promote their own interests. They have been left with the sense that they have been exploited, both politically and economically.
The world has to deal with the new global epidemic of public anger, of the rise of the political right and of a rejection of immigrants. This has been evidenced by the unlikely rise of Donald Trump as the head of a populist political movement in the US and the rise of the far right and the Brexit vote in Europe.
Taiwan has borne the brunt of China’s magnet effect. Some financial groups have benefited from this, but ordinary people have been hit with soaring unemployment and stagnant salaries. There has been a backlash to this model of “integration” with China from the younger generation, who have sought to save their nation.
“Leave” campaigners in the Brexit referendum appealed to the British general public to allow their country to retake control of their ability to make their own laws and taxes according to the UK’s economic needs. This was, in many ways, parallel to the appeals of the Taiwanese youth, calling on Taiwanese to save their own nation.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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