Brexit: The Rise of Right

brexitFlagging Support by Dave Kellam

In the matter of five hours, after the popular United Kingdom referendum on withdrawal from European Union or Brexit, the world fifth largest economy, the United Kingdom, slips to the sixth place behind the growth-less France. The value of Pound Sterling (GBP) depreciated to the lowest levels in the history of 31 years against the US Dollar. And the people started coming out against Brexit, and voiced how it is going to affect the future generations of United Kingdom.

As if now, a petition on the official UK parliamentary website calling for the second referendum on European Union membership has fetched 3.86 million signatures since its launch. The number which is 38 times the number required for petition to be considered in the lower house of the UK parliament, and the number which is likely to grow.

In a popular news running on British media shown a lady who voted in favor of “leave” without knowing what does Brexit means? And the aftermath. She voted for the sake of voting. Now, she wants to vote in favor of “remain”. And if UK chooses to exit from European Union, remember, it’s only referendum, the actual bill will passed through UK parliament, and then Scotland is threatening to have second referendum on Scottish independence from UK.

But it is not the real problem. The real problem is somewhat more than Brexit, it’s the rise of xenophobia, and more than that, the rise of extreme right. Though, Brexit is just a small example of what is really happening, right now. If we examine the bigger picture, not the Europe, but throughout the world, the extreme right is on the rise.

In United States, the US presidential candidate Donald Trump, is using the hate speech against the ethnic communities, not from Asia and Africa, but also from Americas. His supporters will hang you if you try to question his policies.

In case of Europe, an article published on BBC “Is Europe lurching to the far right?” lists out some quick facts on the rise of right-wing politics. For example, in Austria, for the first time since World War II, neither of the Austria’s main centrist parties made it to presidential run. The Denmark’s government relies on the right winged Danish People’s Party. In France, the extreme right candidates fetched nearly 6.8 million votes in 2015, the highest ever.

And now if we consider India, the situation, as I have told you earlier is not bit different. Majority of political parties, whether they are national parties or state parties, are playing with right-wing topics, one can easily learn this by looking at the headlines in major newspapers or news channels on past few elections in the last three years or on upcoming Uttar Pradesh legislative election.

One can say the rise in corruption in the centrist politics have resulted into this. And one cannot deny this allegation. The centrist and their allies have turned into the pack of wolves who are only concerned about wealth accumulation. The other reasons which have contributed to this phenomenon are rise in unemployment, and crash of great housing dream.

Not in India, but on global scale, according to various country level reports, there are more young people aged between 18 to 24 unemployed in this decade than ever. The great housing dream, of having one’s home, have come down all crashing, thanks to rising housing prices. Ultimately which allowed right to spread its wings.