The liberal case for Brexit

You are a liberal.

Here is what you see when you look are some recent European parliamentary election results. This is the percentage of the vote won by the major party in that country that you would call "populist" (or perhaps something even ruder).

Germany (September 2017)                AfD: 13% – 3^rd place

France (June 2017)                              FN: 13% (first round) (and 21% in first round of presidential election) – 2^nd place

Netherlands (March 2017)                  PVV: 13% –2^nd place

Denmark (June 2015)                          Danish People's Party: 21% – 2^nd place

United Kingdom (May 2015)             UKIP: 13% – 3^rd place

Finland (April 2015)                           Finns Party: 18% – 2^nd place

Sweden (September 2014)                  Sweden Democrats: 13% – 3^rd place

Here we have the big rich successful countries of northern Europe displaying pretty similar voting patterns. There are differences between the countries, but let’s forget about them for the moment. (But perhaps note how those dour, respectable, liberal Scandinavians are even keener on the populists that those living further south: the Sweden Democrats are up at 20%+ in polls for their 2018 election.) Equally, I am not going to go into a discussion of the differences between these parties: you treat all these parties as well beyond the pale. (Although in fairness to UKIP, please note that there are many important differences.)

So these results worry you. If you are of the nervy, melodramatic type over-represented in the news media, you might even see echoes of the 1930s. If you are just keen on virtue-signalling your disapproval of the deplorables who vote for these parties then that’s fine. But you are the sort of person who wants to make things better. What is to be done?

Then you see this result:

United Kingdom (June 2017)     UKIP: 2% – 5^th place

Perhaps, you might think to yourself, the UK has done something to lance the boil of this horrible right-wing populism. Well, it has. It had a referendum on Brexit, voted for Brexit, and that destroyed the leadership, hopes, credibility and support of UKIP. And it turns out that there is no constituency for any other sort of populism.

Here’s a modest suggestion for you. Life is about trade-offs. You can’t have it all. At least entertain the possibility that Brexit (or Nexit, or Frexit, or ...) is the price you have to pay, in a rich northern European country, for having a political system 98% occupied by mainstream political parties – for dispelling the shades of the 1930s. Isn't that what the evidence shows you? Maybe you should just grin and bear it: some things are more important than the joys of the customs union and the jurisprudence of the CJEU.

(Or have I made the liberal case for allowing populism? Perhaps the price you are prepared to pay for having the EU is to be constantly goading increasingly large numbers of your compatriots into supporting fringe parties run by, at best, weirdos. Please say it ain’t so.)