PDQ Mobile wrote:
In my view the main roots of Brexit lie in the 2008 financial crash.
IMV the roots of Brexit lie in the settlement of 1688 and I'm not joking.
That gave us Dutch economists coming over with William of Orange and a complete turning upside down of the understanding of the source of wealth: trade or land. Britain seized the lead by establishing a mercantile empire and later the first industrial revolution based on the same principle.
Although you could argue that the national identity of England as distinct from Catholic Europe was laid down by Henry VIII, it was in the eighteenth century that the idea of Great Britain as a world player rather than as a European one became absolutely dominant.
Throw in the Union Jack, WW2, India and a couple of Spitfires and you ask a question: are you British or European? Ramp it all up with some east Europeans living down the road and, silly you, what did you expect for an answer?
In my classroom in my primary school in the early 1960s we had a map on the wall showing most of the world painted red. Brexit is an existential question not an economic one.