Europe’s Deplorables Challenge the Liberal Elite
The proverbial Martian who comes down to see how things are done on Earth would find it difficult to avoid coming to the conclusion that the European Union is in serious trouble and, equally, that those who are running it seem quite unable to recognise the crisis. To be precise, these are multiple, interlocking crises and they’ve been accumulating for a while. Some of these are global, like the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine; some are the EU’s very own, like the intractable problem of the euro, Brexit and the future of Italy. But above them all looms the legitimation crisis, the EU’s failure to provide an answer to the questions: Why integrate? and How to create accountability for the powers that have accumulated in Brussels?
To the former, the answers of the past—democracy, prosperity, open borders, peace—are largely exhausted. Even worse, while the EU does indeed offer a means of conflict resolution, this is increasingly being displaced by “human rights”. Conflict…
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