TED Talks: Alexander Betts - Why Brexit happened and what to do next

Hi everyone!

I decided to watch a TED talk about Brexit. Alexander Betts, a British man talks about the choice the British made to leave European Union. He is a “remainer”. The following days after the referendum, in Great Britain, everybody was blaming everybody else about the Brexit and will happened next. Alexander observed a rise of xenophobia and racism in his country. For him, GB became nostalgic of the 50’s.

He explains our societies today are much divided. The politics have a strong influence in Brexit, politic is no longer right or left but for or against globalization.
The “leavers” voted for the Brexit mostly because immigration and sovereignty, Alexander Betts translates this by fear and in consequence the desire to nationalism and protectionism.
He understands that he didn’t know much about the “leavers” areas, and probably a lot of persons like him don’t know how some people lives in their country and so why they voted to leave the European Union. He thinks they have to explain in a different way the globalization to these people because the “leavers” don’t perceive the benefits of European Union.

The main problem is these people don’t feel represented by politicians so they vote for Brexit to protest against their government. He compares that movement with the new popularity of Trump in United States, Le Pen in France and Orban in Hungary.
For him, to build a tolerant and open world, the people who believe in globalization must not leave the other behind. Globalization brings interdependence so it brings cooperation and peace.

To go in that way, education is very important and there is a huge gap of level of education.
The Medias have a big impact of the way of thinking over immigration; Medias don’t reflect the reality and the causes of immigration. Alexander Betts thinks we have to encourage people to interact with other communities; he observes that more an area has immigrants, more people are tolerant over immigrants.