stirringwind:

tbh I can’t help but feel a number of posts about Brexit are Americanising it and projecting US race politics there.

with regards to immigration, you guys need to be aware that this was considerably about EU migration. free movement of EU nationals to live and work in another EU state is one of the linchpins of EU membership you see. Migration from other EU states, not from outside the EU. the racial tensions are not exactly the same as in the US because the resentment towards EU migration has often been about Eastern Europeans not just a white/poc dichotomy and i could go on and on about how whiteness in Europe is constructed differently in Europe from the US. The UK has continued to have total control over migration from outside the EU all along.

now, i should be clear i’m not saying there is no colourist racism in the UK. of course there is, this is where the british empire was founded. i agree there’s an element of the more colourist variant bc of course we non-white ppl exist in Europe and some are also definitely amongst the EU migrants if they’re EU nationals. and that the nastier racists coming crawling out from under their rock likely also had a bone to pick with those of us from the Commonwealth (which is a nicer name for Used to Be a British Colony). there was backlash to Commonwealth migrants in the past. Or such as those false comments that Turkey was about to join the EU or such as when Nigel Farage used that big poster showing Syrian refugees.

but the UK as of now has taken very few Syrian refugees- it’s not the same situation as say Germany. I’m not sure that overall that was the bigger factor in peoples’ minds than the existing EU migrants who are the ones seen as competing for jobs and stretching the social services. which I think is to be blamed more on successive failures of UK govts to address econ equality but many who vote Leave believe it’s on the EU. imo the racial politics of the immigration issue is not as simple as the american white/poc dichotomy I see a lot of posts asserting it as. there is also further complexity in the results because Scotland & Northern Ireland both voted to Remain so clearly, there were considerably different perceptions of EU migration and the EU as a whole there.

so please bear that in mind. the UK is a western country, there are many things in common with the US, but don’t wholesale assume everything is the same. to get started, you can go to the BBC where they are providing extensive coverage about Brexit and why it happened.