At the heart of the campaign that led Britain to vote to leave the European Union was a desire to regain independence lost amid a globalized world. It’s the same kind of feeling that Donald Trump rode to become the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S., where he campaigns to put “America first” and “make America great again.”
“I love to see people take their country back. And that’s really what’s happening in the United States,” Trump told reporters this weekend during a visit to his golf resort in western Scotland.
The anxiety that drove the stunning “Brexit” decision has been brewing for at least a decade in the United Kingdom, as waves of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe arrived as the global economy plunged into recession. In the years since, right-leaning leaders have stoked populist concerns about their impact on wages, as well as fears about the loss of ethnic identity, which runs deep in parts of largely white rural England and Wales.
“There’s a real feeling things have changed and they’ve changed too fast,” said Muriel MacGregor, filling up her car at a BP station on her way to work as a clerk at a hotel in Aberdeen, Scotland.
MacGregor, 52, said that, unlike many of her friends, she proudly voted for “leave.” “This isn’t the country I remember from growing up. I don’t know exactly what happens next. I don’t think anybody does. But I really feel like we needed something different, because this isn’t working,” she said.
Britain’s vote shattered the stability of continental unity forged after World War II and sent markets across the globe tumbling. But the move to divorce the U.K. from the 28-nation bloc and its government in Brussels was celebrated by those who felt the changing country has lost its way since linking up with the rest of Europe.
“Absolutely wonderful, best news ever. We want England – or Great Britain – to come back how it was years ago, and it’s going the way that we want it to go,” said Allen Laurence, 65, a vendor at the Billingsgate Fish Market in East London. “I am pleased, very pleased, for the country overall.”
Their voices echo the millions of American voters who have flocked to support Trump. The billionaire businessman has tapped into the same concerns about a too-quickly-changing country that has left too many behind, and he’s pledged to halt illegal immigration and bring back manufacturing jobs lost to factories overseas.
Many see his “Make America Great Again” slogan as a vow to return the country to a time when they believe America was the undisputed world leader. In President Obama, they see an American leader too quick to apologize for his country.