Shocked by the Britons’ (however rash and uninformed it might be) choice of exiting the EU, most pro-EU journalists, commentators and politicians picked a leaf from the Brexit camp playbook and lashed out with vicious vitriol against both half the UK’s voters and the general notion of not wanting to be a part of this particular version of a United Europe.
 
More than 17 million people in the UK voted in favour of leaving the EU; if you listen to the pro-EU voices in the aftermath of that vote, all of those 17 million people are old, uneducated racists, who-knew-nothing of what they were voting for and were en masse duped into a choice that is not in their best interests by the powerfully lying words of Nigel and Boris. But can that narrative have any connection to reality?
 
If Nigel Farage’s words, however full of lies, had that kind of power, shouldn’t he be elected in the british parliament by now? Even if we surmise that the number of people lured by UKIP’s anti-immigrant, nationalist message doubled since the last British elections, that number still looms far away from even being half of the Brexit voters.
 
Without doubt, a large percentage of Brexit voters, probably more than half, did vote with an anti-immigrant, “Britain to the British” message in mind; and the increase in verbal and other racist attacks on the streets of Great Britain since the result, shows that racists are indeed emboldened. But is that newfound boldness simply a direct result of the Brexit win, or does it stem from the fact that every pro-EU pundit gifted those 17 million voters to Farage, Johnson and Gove?
 
With one voice, politicians, journalists and public figures have been crying before and after the referendum vote: “The EU is a wonderful land of opportunity, it has given Europe 60 years of peace and bridges divides across the continent. To leave it would be crazy”. That sentiment might be beautiful at first glance, but ultimately it can be lumped into the same sack of lies as those peddled by Nigel Farage.
 
If the EU is such a wonderful institution, then why does it draw the hatred of an ever-expanding number of people all across the continent? Why would people choose to jump ship into unknown and quite possibly dangerous waters, if the ship itself wasn’t a dangerous wreck? Are all those millions of people just uneducated, nationalist slobs, swayed by the whims of lying right-wing politicians?
 
There’s so many problems with the pro-EU narrative, that even if it’s completely true, it would still mean that the problems stem from the EU’s failure: a failure to educate its citizens and counterbalance populist lies. But the narrative is obviously not true; though each and every pro-EU pundit seems to not understand it.
 
European citizens see their public health and social services underfunded, due to the EU’s preference to corresponding costly private services; they see other public services privatized and becoming both more costly and less qualitative. They see the EU as an institution hell-bent on enforcing austerity, while its heads, like Jean-Claude Juncker, created elaborate tax avoidance schemes for big corporations. They see the EU supporting far-right and neo-nazi groups in Ukraine and bow down to the whims of an undemocratic, free-speech restricting Erdogan regime in Turkey. They see their jobs become more low-paying or vanish completely (and that’s where the populist right comes in to offer the narrative “it’s the foreigners’ fault”) due to corporations’ insatiable desire for even bigger profit margins.
 
Above all, they see that democracy is not enacted inside the EU; the European Parliament is a farce of elected officials pretending they have a say over something, and all decisions are made behind closed doors by a cabal of appointed bureaucrats or by unofficial bodies with no accountability. They see that their choices make no difference, that their wants and needs are pushed out of sight, while corporations and banks are made kings of the new Europe.
 
On top of all that, EU citizens are offered no alternative; social-democratic parties talk a bit about “a change needed in Europe”, but they never offer a plan, a road-map, a way for that change to be enacted, or even a concrete picture of what that change might entail. More leftist parties might be more concrete about their vision of the future, about the need to bring down the EU and rebuild a real people’s Union, but they also have never offered a plan. The example of the past year and a half in Greece is telling; a leftist party, seemingly determined to challenge austerity politics, inspired the Greek voters and got elected with a mandate to offer an alternative way, both for the Greek people and those of Europe in general; to become the example that the rest of Europe could follow, in order to disentangle itself from the ever-expanding yolk of neoliberalism. After seven months of EU pressure, blackmail and economic asphyxiation, SYRIZA caved in and the alternative way it was supposed to offer was gone; the Greek people were left numb and frozen.
 
Since the left fails to offer any alternative in Europe, people logically turn to the other outlet of different rhetoric; far-right populism. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Those people are not lost, they are not owned by the Farages and Johnsons and LePens of Europe.
 
The only way to change yourself is to look in the mirror and not like what you see; since the EU is unwilling to even look in the mirror, it is the job of progressives all around the continent to have a look at theirs, decide on the changes needed, on a way forward and offer that way to the disenfranchised and disappointed European citizens. Crying over the spilt milk of the Brexit vote is no way forward for anyone. The people that voted for a change of policy must not be left alone with only UKIP to express their angst; change must come from the other side.