I spent some time looking at comments in a number of European, especially UK, online newspapers in response to the latest opinion poll saying that there is now a majority for leaving the EU. I know it is extremely difficult to be impartial but I shall try.
In the UK so much of the pro-Brexit comment is about migration that it is almost too shocking. Some of it touches on racist, certainly a great deal is biassed by particular views on people's belief. There is a contradiction between the past and the present. It constantly reminds us of the imperial past of England, there seriously is emphasis on England to the partial exclusion of the other countries that make up the UK, that appear to include a great deal of denial. That there was an empire over which 'the sun never set' is indeed historic fact. It was in decline when I was born so that throughout my life I have seen its decline and aftermath. It came to be under a shadow of WW2. Europe was rebuilding itself but there were shortages of workers, so immigrants filled the many gaps. Many of them are my contemporaries or a bit older. At the top end that makes a few of them great-grandparents, many of the grandparents, some of their children grandparents and certainly a third and fourth generation are UK citizens who know no other life. They include many Moslems, most of them have been more secular than devout until people began to turn against them. Now they are confronted with a history of their countries of ancestry having been occupied and ruled by the British, used as labour and materials for the enrichment of the centre of empire and, in the passage of time, supply the UK with labour, becoming part of the population and then having the UK appear to turn against them. Yet some of the comments make a point of adding that people know Moslems and that they are not all bad, almost implying that there is a standard that makes many of them inherently bad.
The vast majority of former Empire, now Commonwealth migrants have been in the UK a long time. Even a very large proportion of the immigrant population now come from former or present commonwealth countries, protectorates or countries that the UK had full responsibility or a share in creating. That responsibility appears to be denied. What any of that has to do with the EU who are being blamed for migration is a puzzle.
Then there is the outrage with the number of EU benefits claimants, the legendary Poles who turn up leaving two wives and sixteen children at home for whom they claim every possible benefit (I exaggerate, but just a little) and then all of the others who are taking jobs that leave 'youngsters' with no jobs. That the EU people usually take specific skills with them is often omitted and that skills training that the young people in the UK require is insufficient seems to escape mention. I even read a comment about somebody going to their usual supermarket and hearing French, 'something like' German, Polish or Russian and African (??) rather than the English it ought to be. Well dear commenters try a trip to Eymet in the Dordogne or one of the other 'colonies' here in France and get used to a cosmopolitan world.
So it goes on and on and on. However, it becomes repetitive to the extreme. Pro-EU people are admittedly just as repetitive referring to the demise of a UK alone in the world, more than a few share my view that it will contribute to the eventually splitting up of the UK, some are really concerned about the divisions between rich and poor and how the UK alone will become a playground of billionaires whilst an increasingly economically depressed population will drag the country down as the last remaining industries dwindle (Tata have just announced cuts yesterday, they warned but nobody seems to listen until after the event). They tend to be 'shouted down' by Brexit supporters across the board of the UK media but get a great deal of support in European media. Surely that says something.
Little is said about the fate of UK citizens in EU countries, varying figures show 2.3 million known people up to 2.8 million when others who are not known to be out of the UK are included. Around 1.5 million of people going abroad are graduate level or post-secondary education qualified work seekers moving to places where there are greater economic opportunities. Given the present freedom of movement within the EU, of those at least one million are in European countries. Given a couple of hundred thousand graduate level EU people live in the UK how on earth can one feasibly cope with perhaps 300,000 out but 1,500,000 back, roughly five times as many. Then there are those who are living in France or cheaper countries like Croatia and naturally Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc, where property is cheap. If they can sell up, how can they move back to the UK? There are plenty of houses on the market, but many of them will not be able to afford them and rental property is so expensive what they take back, assuming they CAN sell up, it will use up their money in no time. Many people will go back to no jobs or as low income pensioners, disabled and so on, thus they will put up the benefits bill - assuming benefits still exist or they are allowed eligibility. A few people mention those things, most do not.
It is time consuming but worth the effort trying to get a cross sectional view. My feeling having done what I did is that there is a great deal of bitterness and anger that is driven by some kind of national self-image that relies on the past far more than the present, worse still to the future, that assumes that the UK can remain one of the countries in the driving seat of this world. That shocks me. Perhaps reality is too much for people to bear but there is plenty of information to get a far more rounded picture of the world, the EU included, and the UK's ever shrinking place in any form of influence whether political or economic.
No, I am not scared. In my way I am relieved to know what I have learned. However, I am afraid for people who may be hit by the negative possibilities of what might come of the UK leaving the EU.