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In the immediate aftermath of last year’s Brexit vote, there was much confusion about what pushed more than 17 million people to put a tick next to “Leave.”
The answer, we now know, boils down to one word: immigration. And yet, since the vote, the political debate has consistently failed to take this into account. If the U.K. continues to focus on trade and the future relationship at the expense of immigration reform, Brexit will only be the beginning of our political trouble.
Concern about free movement, immigration and its impact on the country was clearly the main driver behind Brexit: Studies have shown that people who felt anxious about immigration were not only more likely to play down the risk of Brexit; they were more likely to turn out and vote — and to choose to Leave. [...]
Clearly, these worries over identity were wrapped up with broader concerns: a strong sense that the power-brokers and media were not listening to the people; that Britain’s economy, politics and culture lean decisively toward London; and that the country’s political and media class have been too willing to attribute feelings of social and cultural loss to bigotry and ignorance.
Had leaders taken these concerns seriously, the social contract on immigration could have been renewed instead of broken. [...]
Political leaders consistently underestimated the potency of identity politics and thus Tony Blair and David Cameron were left as the unintended architects of Brexit. Immigration unified traditional and more affluent social conservatives on the right with blue-collar, left-behind workers on the left, and in 2016 this alliance — with a push from UKIP — found its full expression in the vote for Brexit. [...]
Prime Minister Theresa May insisted in her January 2017 speech at Lancaster House that she would put an end to free movement, and thus take Britain out of the single market. But no one has talked seriously about how to rebuild public confidence on an issue that almost single-handedly sparked the most dramatic change to the political status quo in decades, if not longer.
The debate has focused on trade, economics and — because Britain relies so heavily on financial services — the fate of the City of London. [...]
And yet we have not had a comparable discussion about what a future immigration policy might look like and how this could be built around a public consensus. [...]