BoJo, The Donald and der Fuhrer

A week spent in the UK in the run-up to the "Brexit" referendum proved to be a disheartening experience.  It was hard to avoid making comparisons between the tactics of the Leave campaign and those Donald Trump has used to secure the Republican presidential nomination. 

Trump has based his campaign on a toxic mix of bluster,  insults and racism,  but above all on creating his own "truth" by denying or simply ignoring any inconvenient facts. So too with the Leave campaign,  spearheaded by the equally improbable Boris Johnson -- BoJo, as he is universally known. It's a severe indictment of the media that they've both gotten away with it so easily.

The likely economic consequences of a Brexit are a matter of little debate, at least among those who have taken the trouble to consider them carefully. The UK stands to suffer a loss of GDP in both the short and the long term, along with a deterioration in its fiscal position and a weakening in its exchange rate,  if it votes to leave the EU. The IMF has said this; so has the Bank of England; so have UK business organizations,  labor unions and any number of consultants. 

The Leave campaign's response to all of this has been,  first,  to accuse the Remain campaign of stoking up fear.  In truth,  it's hard to see why that would be unreasonable: if you're about to take a leap into the void,  which a Brexit would undeniably be,  fear is surely not an irrational emotion. Second,  the Leave spokespersons claim that the studies warning of the dire consequences of Brexit are "unbalanced" -- but have entirely failed to produce any more "balanced" reports of their own. 

With the economic case for leaving evidently hopeless,  it was inevitable that the Leave campaign would seek an alternative.  It was obvious very early in the campaign what that alternative would be. The formal campaign was but days old when Johnson saw fit to compare the EU to Hitler,  both of them motivated only by a lust to control the entire Continent.  After that it was straight downhill,  with the Leave campaign focusing almost exclusively on stirring up British fears of immigration,  which are never far below the surface.

There are two ironies here. First and foremost,  the immigrants that most Brits are uncomfortable with are undoubtedly those with swarthier complexions,  but the inflow of such folk has almost nothing to do with the EU; rather, it's the consequence of Empire and Commonwealth,  two things of which the Brexit crowd are in fact inordinately fond. Second, it might be worth recalling that BoJo is himself an immigrant: he was born in New York City and is of Eastern European descent.

Perhaps the most depressing thing of all is this: there's a sharp divide in generational attitudes to Brexit,  if the polls are to be believed.  Younger voters,  who will be saddled with the consequences either way,  strongly favour remaining in the EU. However,  they may well be outvoted by their elders,  who seem to hanker for a simpler, whiter Britain that never really existed and certainly can't be recreated now. As in this fall's Presidential vote, there seems every possibility that the old are going to screw things up for the young.