Suddenly Brexit

The first SMS woke me up at five in the morning. It was Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister at the time, asking me if I had "more data". I immediately understood that all the calculations, the exit polls, the forecasts and the data of the previous night meant nothing.

Brexit had just happened.

It was at that time on 24 June 2016 that I realised, for the first time, a member state had decided to leave the European Union. I immediately spoke with my friend Ed Llewellyn, then David Cameron's chief of staff at No 10. He confirmed that what seemed impossible just the night before had indeed happened, represented by the smirk of Nigel Farage and the rejoicing of Michal Gove and Boris Johnson.

That day I was in Luxembourg for the general affairs council. Brexit was on the agenda: based on the forecasts, we were supposed to be evaluating how to 'reset' the EU in the event of a remain win. But our forecasts were wrong; foreign affairs ministers began to arrive at the informal breakfast before the council, now a pointless occasion.

I remember doing an interview with BBC radio. They asked me what was going to happen after Brexit. I got by with a standard answer, but the reality was different: we knew we were entering uncertain and unknown territory. London did not seem prepared to handle the situation, and neither was Brussels. Obviously, 'Euro-destroyers' from all over Europe were rejoicing and hoping to use the exploit the apparent momentum caused by the Brexit vote.

I had never imagined a member state leaving the EU. My first doubts arose in Stockholm, a month before the referendum when, during a Policy Network conference, my friend Roger Liddle confessed to me that he was concerned about the result. I trust Roger's expertise on British politics and society, and his pessimism concerned me.

On various occasions, I have had the chance to live in the UK. The last time was in 1994. Those were the years of Cool Britannia, during the explosion of Britpop, of Tony Blair and New Labour: an era brilliantly built up by one of the brightest minds in British politics, Peter Mandelson. After the dark days of the 1970s and the conflicts of the Thatcher years, Britain seemed to be undergoing something of a rebirth, its 'soft power' growing. London during the 1990s was innovative and 'happening', acting as a magnet to attract young people from all over Europe.

I was among those young people. I lived in Rosebery Avenue in Islington (20 years later 75 per cent of voters in Islington voted to remain; a small comfort). I studied at the London School of Economics and played squash with Indian and Pakistani friends. At the LSE, my macroeconomics professor was Willem Buiter, who later joined the Bank of England monetary policy committee. I remember he often wore a white T-shirt with the drawing of a European tie, blue with 12 stars, under a black suit jacket. Back then, more than two decades ago, his lessons explained the need to introduce the single currency; but, at the same time, it was already clear that the eurozone was incomplete. All these issues quickly moved from economics to politics.

I witnessed a London that was undergoing a renaissance. Now London is completely transformed: I recently went back to LSE for a conference. The squash courts are now the, construction site of a new student office. I am sure it will be beautiful but at least for me, squash courts were much more romantic.

I have one simple question: what happened to the Great Britain I remember clearly? What has changed in the intervening years to cause a majority of Britons to vote to leave the EU?

NO EUROPE FOR OLD MEN

Right after the referendum, one figure stood out to me. Those who voted in favour of Brexit were older British citizens. 73 per cent of people aged 18-24 voted remain, as well as 62 per cent of those aged 25–34. People over the age of 45 voted leave, with the figure reaching its peak at 60 per cent among those older than 65. But Brexit won because British grandparents turned out in larger numbers than their grandchildren. That's democracy: if youngsters had really cared about the referendum, they could have gone to the polls in larger numbers. We feel lost in the face of such a decision. The results are not only different between young and old, but also between the cities and the provinces, without forgetting the divisions between the nations of the United Kingdom, with Scotland and Northern Ireland voting to remain and England and Wales to leave.

However, this is a somewhat superficial representation of the split between one generation that voted for its past and another that decided not to participate, to let someone else decide the future. This is not the case: the young have demonstrated that they believe in the EU because they were born and raised as European citizens. Because most of them have travelled through Europe, many have studied in universities in the continent and have friends located all over the EU. This is the Europe generation, the Erasmus generation, the generation that discovered the continent thanks to low-cost flights: the easyJet generation. The same easyJet that decided to leave London and move to make the EU, in this case Vienna, its base.

I focus on the generational issue because it is clear-cut. The results of the referendum tell us that among those people younger than 45, remain won. This means that those who were born after Britain joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 support the EU. It was the baby boomers who decided to leave the EU. Maybe because they recall a past that cannot be recaptured, they prefer to wallow in the dream of a 'Global Britain' (to use the words of Theresa May). But, nowadays, if a European country wants to be global, it needs to be part of the strongest union in the world, not on its own. The risk is that, outside of the EU, 'Global Britain' becomes 'Little England'.

However, the easyJet generation now has a great responsibility: too many young people took the EU for granted, failing to defend it enough during these tough moments.

Take back control

So why did the majority of Britons vote for Brexit? It is no secret that an increasing number of citizens feel that the EU is distant, irrelevant and sometimes even the enemy. Other than the differences between generations, Brexit gained most votes from the poorest and least educated. These are the social classes that were most affected by the financial crisis, that most fear the effects of globalisation, and do not hear answers to their problems.

Indeed, nowadays many believe globalisation is the root of all evil. Though the reality is different: thanks to globalisation, the global middle class (taking as middle class those earning between $10-50 per day) has increased by 70 per cent in the past decade. In China alone more than 200 million people joined the ranks of the middle class, in addition to 63 million in Latin America.

The...