When looking back it could be said that 2004 represents a hybridity of emotions depending on who is asked. On one hand the expansionist project undertaken then to bring Eastern Europe in from the cold can be seen as positive for the whole European project and needed. However, for certain members especially in Western Europe there is large consensus that enlargement had been rushed and so the westward movement of people is actually key to the growing euro-scepticism which drove Britain into voting ‘no’ on the 23^rd June. That is the main argument put forward by ‘leave’ voters, but there are other possible explanations too that deserve their limelight such as the desire for concrete national sovereignty. The rise of the ‘English feeling’ is another factor among many that would seem to contribute to the final leave result. This exact fact that there are so many explanations for Brexit means that the truth is complicated and we must accept a coalition of reasons; primary among which the issue of immigration control leads them all.

 

Instead of referring to immigration as a restrictive issue related just to the movement of people, I am instead going to reconceptualise its meaning to include the criticism of key European decision-making; mostly in regards to then causing mass immigration Westward. The fifth enlargement phase for me was a catastrophic mistake for European integrational prospects. The EU felt the need to take in a large amount of countries for a range of reasons, most of which were driven with the promise of increased economic benefits now it could exploit Eastern markets and also increase the total consumer market size. There were other reasons of course too such as strategic political positioning; failing to take the members in would leave them vulnerable to Russian influence and thus lose European legitimacy. The move in hindsight proved to be destructive actually, it was expected that there would be negatives associated with the intake. The East was underdeveloped and just assessing the cases of Bulgaria and Romania we can see this illustrated- they were meant to be a part of the original phase but actually had to join in 2007.

 

Communism in Eastern Europe was a situation essentially run as a satellite of USSR influence, meaning that economies were state planned. By the time communism had run its course the economies and more importantly the workers in these countries were very poor in relative terms to the West. The 15 years after democratisation is a questionably low amount of time for them to manage economic growth, and to actually lift their people out of poor finances. What can be taken from this is the lopsided nature of the EU organisation once these new members actually joined, you had the divided Germany scenario but in a scaled up version. The West through budgetary assistance had the opportunity to build up the East; of course they got benefits too otherwise the incentive to help would not entice. Yet in return the mass migration we saw starting from 2004 mainly constituted of poor, working class people who would work low skilled jobs. The economics involved when introducing a large amount of supply into any scenario dictates lowering of cost and thus we had the real wage deflation that first led to immigration being spoken out against in addition to the rise in competition for employment.

 

Almost as soon as the members joined the European Union there has been a growth in Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom, of course this was less evident when economic growth could maintain it. However once the crisis of the later years hit, the reality was obvious that immigration would rise to the surface one more. The readiness of political parties to acknowledge this and try to use it to their advantage is enabling to the argument. The David Cameron pledge to keep net migration lower than 100,000 per annum may have bought him some time and a higher vote share but it was a completely unplanned promise. The principles of free movement severely restricted the governments hand when it came to delivering the necessary reductions in order to achieve those figures; and this even more stark when we realise that the majority of migration was from within the EU as a cause of the enlargement policy.

 

The actual referendum though as mentioned earlier was fought essentially on two issues, immigration which was just discussed and also the question of sovereignty- exerting British control for UK issues. The poll taken after the referendum by Lord Ashcroft gives the desire to control immigration as the second most popular reason for voting leave. In contrast the most popular is supposedly ‘the sovereignty question’. Doubt should not be cast on the credentials for a public wanting localisation rather than globalisation- a lot of perils in today’s world have been laid at the feet of this new interconnected mind-set ranging from fundamentalist shifts to disenchanted native working classes. I do understand why the poll separates the two reasons for voting leave into separate categories but for me they are almost the same thing. The desire for more control definitely does integrate with a seeming need to control our borders and the amount of people that come in. The answer that could help in this case is that immigration is a specific issue, whereas sovereignty is a catch all solution- if you have more sovereignty then you can control migration easily and thus this is why it came out on top in the poll. The attempt by some leavers in trying to characterise Brexit as anything other than a vote on immigration is wholly wrong, it was certainly presented as a solution to those quails. This is highlighted perfectly in the following YouGov poll where nearly 60% of those asked understood that a full Brexit would reduce migration, even remain campaigners were largely pacified to this claim. The only issue was whether you lay the blame for the shortcomings of this country at the hands of Eastern migrants or rather at a confused elite attacking societal structures like the NHS through systemic underfunding.

 

English national pride or nationalism if it can even be called that is certainly peculiar. It deserves some passing attention as a final point in assessing Brexit. Whereas classical senses of nationhood creation have always relied on this hypothetical struggle of a common people through the ages, the English identity is much stranger. It builds itself against things rather than on foundations. We can characterise in one word ‘scepticism’ so this entitles it to be a form of Euroscepticism and also as a backlash against other regional nationalisms like the recent resurge in Scotland. The unique setting of England makes it inherently confused; its people stuck between English localism or the more liberally-global identity of ‘Britishness’. The statement that English patriotism has always needed to be embedded in a larger organisation to be effective is definitely true. The so labelled working classes arguably ate up the stream of material the leave campaign spewed in regards to this with the popular ‘get our country back’ slogan driving the campaign forwards, and the data supports this with polls stating that those who identified themselves as English instead of British were more likely to be Eurosceptics and thus vote to leave. The fact that leave won serves to prove the existence of a rise in ‘English nationalism’ before and after the referendum was held.

 

The concluding points are somewhat indecisive but Brexit was never meant to be a straightforward decision; if it was we would not have received such a close cut difference in vote share between the two campaigns. The interesting aspect for me at least is understanding the demographics of leave voters because it was such a strange coalition of disenfranchised working classes joining forces with their rich landowners in putting a metaphorical middle finger up at the political elite who were accused of being ‘out of touch’. What drives these voting behaviours is yet to be discovered exactly, however it is obvious that the answer resides simply around ‘control’. This word can be used to satisfy all the reason for leaving, first among which is immigration. Immigration is what drove the rise of this Euroscepticism that in turn caused not only English nationalism but actually the real desire to claim back decision-making power. Here we return to the first few points mentioned, the EU and its policies. It is absolutely clear that the EU has been responsible for its own demise. It caused Brexit indirectly, through its rushed enlargement in 2004 it created the pretence that created sufficient reasons for Europhobia and eventually allowed immigration to be the dominating factor for Britain leaving the European Union. As a final point, factually immigration played a massive part in Brexit, but a better planned and more thought out integration policy which did not rush Eastern countries into joining before they were actually ready would have most certainly changed the outcome of this vote.