Oh Britannia: Great Britain’s Exit from the European Union and Its Impact on Globalism and Nationalism

Abstract

Globalization unleashed trends such as the free movement of capital, people, and goods; trickle-down economics, and diminished stature of nation-states. While largely embraced by most countries in the WTO, a growing tension within the European Union to push back went largely ignored until recently. Britain’s exit represents such a push back, a rejection of a single banking system, a single budget, and a single political entity. This article examines the historic 2016 British referendum that saw 52 percent of voters favor England leaving the EU. This research serves four purposes: one, to identify the origins of this important referendum as well as the positions of both its supporters and detractors; two, to analyze the fallout of the vote and its impact on other European nations; three, to correlate the results of this referendum and the rise of populist parties on the left and right in the EU; and four, to discuss briefly what the future holds for globalism.