"Migration “is what lit the flame” of such nationalist movements, the former U.S. secretary of state told The Guardian for an upcoming series examining the rise of the populist right in the U.S. and Europe." - https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-europe-immigration-laws-nationalism_us_5bf6fbdae4b0eb6d930cd4e0
Yes and no. Merkel's insane idea of inviting a million people into Europe in a single year certainly revealed that Germany treats Europe as its own empire. She didn't consult anyone. Thousands lost their lives on the journey. There were no places for the immigrants to live when they arrived. People noticed and responded.
But Europe is and ought to welcome refugees in volumes the European countries can accommodate. Decisions of that type properly belong at a local level.
Brexit is not a nationalist movement. It is about independence and sovereignty, something Britain has chosen for itself for centuries. It has never wished to be a part of a European Empire.
The problem in Europe is the imperial model, which the French and Germans cannot let go. It has been the cause of European wars for millenia. The EU is another mechanism that seeks to create it.
The British people know this and recoil from it. Always have.
Clinton just has no idea. Nor, unfortunately, do most Americans, who simply wish to have a convenient economic partner in the EU. Sorry. That isn't our job. The United Kingdom joins together four peoples in a parliamentary democratic construct that works well enough and will continue to do so.
Why would we want to continue to participate in a new, less democratic system of the sort the EU has been creating? Many folks were comfortable with an economic treaty. A federal European empire, not so much.
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