By Dr. David Pearson
I’m shaking my head in shock and disbelief. What has happened in Britain is almost like the revenge of the older generation.
The split from Europe will be negotiated, but the rifts inside the country – Scotland from England and Wales, and above all, the schism between older voters and a younger generation, are beyond negotiation.
I believe they are wounds that will never heal.
I remember the arguments from when I was a boy, back in the 1950s, about why Britain should stay out of the European Common Market. We’d just come out of the Second World War. Emotions were running high and the idea of becoming a partner with Germany was unimaginable.
Then, just as I became a fresh-faced junior professor at Laurentian, a broader view prevailed. Prime Minister Ted Heath led Britain into the European Union that had grown out of the Common Market.
I hoped I would never hear the short-sighted, jingoistic, we’re-better-off-doing-things-our-way arguments again. But now they've won the day.
A younger, internationally minded generation with bright new ideas — a generation for whom Europe was full of opportunities without borders as barriers to exciting jobs and opportunities — have been outvoted by the same short-sighted arguments that almost kept Britain out of Europe 50 years ago.
We are facing global challenges that need us to become better at working out our differences by talking about them, not turning our backs on our neighbours and hoping the problems will stay on the other side of the English Channel … or a wall or a fence.
Dr. David Pearson is a professor at Laurentian University. Do you have an idea for The Soapbox? Send it to [email protected].