But the decision may prompt other votes. Scotland, where over 60% of the voters favored remaining within the European Union, is ruminating about withdrawing from the UK; and there is talk that Northern Ireland, which also opposed the exit, may seek some type of union with Ireland; and in a sign that the UK’s feelings are not unique, “exit” votes are possible in several other members of the European Union.
The reaction by the European trans-national establishment to the exit vote shows as much as anything why the unionists lost and the exiters won.
The voters who favored the exit are called racists, xenophobes, stupid, ill-educated, and lacking the tools to make the right decision. That’s very unfair, for it denies that there could be any defensible reason for favoring the exit. It also is very familiar, because that’s pretty much the way conservatives in America are treated every day. Conservatives are seen by progressives as driven by greed, hate, fear, racism, sexism, homophobia, religion or stupidity; never by decency or common sense or logic or the national interest – for those virtues are considered the exclusive possession of the left. The average progressive liberal does not even consider the possibility that a conservative position can be justified intellectually, and will never countenance the existence of any proper desire to scale back the power of government. Progressive elites feel the same way in Europe as in America and – as our betters, they don’t want to see the lowly masses make decisions that they disagree with.