So no, Muslims have nothing to do with it at all. I think you are confusing many issues. You are also conflating ‘Muslims’ with ‘immigrants’. Most migration across Europe is non-Muslim. There are many thousands of immigrants in Malta, enough to register as a percentage of the population, but they are not Muslim. They are still immigrants.

They have their own shops, schools, clubs etc and retain their customs although feeding on a Western society for survival. The same has happened in France where Marseille, to give an example, is over-run by North African people and hardly anybody speaks French.

In Germany you find millions of Turks, Italy have the Roma gypsies, and we..? This is the reason why nationalistic fever is on the rise but that is not necessarily racist, which is a distinct phenomenon – Nationalism is retreating behind known ‘borders’ in the sense of culture, language and traditions, and surely cannot be branded as evil.

Gone are the days when values were deciphered and then acted upon as a package, with an idea of long term linked community investment and delivery behind it.

Determinant voter segments go for easy-to-grasp modular soundbite.

“Judgement” assumes a basic set of thinking skills. It’s not even been suspended: it’s been foregone. Rational judgement is redundant.

A surge in nationalist fervour could be a reaction to the ‘diluting’ effects of globalisation. The yearning for something akin to nationhood, as opposed to freedom of movement amongst nations (such as the EU), could be seen as need for stability and security in a changing world.

And perhaps the most visible aspect of this change is immigration, which may be perceived as a threat to the ideals of stability and security these people dream of.

People living in the cities were more likely to vote Remain because they are part of the change, and they know. Cities are centres of globalisation.

As for those regions which voted Leave, oh well, they see the change as a threat (notice that they are farther away from city centres).

When people started referring to the UK as ‘Great Britain’, you could read that people were referring to some glorious past that is now just that, past.

Whether it is a glorious past is another thing – ask the countries in the Commonwealth.

So if people were pro-Brexit and are pro-Trump – read ‘borders’, read ‘control’, read ‘slow down the process of immigration’, it could mean that mentally they are not equipped to handle the way modern society is evolving.

Thanks, I’m reading it.

http://www.gc.cuny.edu/liscenter-branko-milanovic

In December 2013 he had a report published in the World Bank’s Policy Research Working Paper series titled ‘Global Income Distribution: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the Great Recession’, and found here:

https://www.gc.cuny.edu/CUNY_GC/media/CUNY-Graduate-Center/PDF/Centers/LIS/Milanovic/papers/2013/WPS6719.pdf

This scientific report which Milanovic co-authored with Christoph Lakner became famous for what is referred to as the Elephant Chart.

This chart, titled Relative Gain in Real Per Capita, reveals how during the years 1988-2008, that is during the globalisation years, the western democracies’ lower middle class sacrificed their standard of living for the world’s mega rich and China’s and other emerging economies’ masses and new millionaires.

In January 2015 distinguished economist Paul Krugman, referring to Branko Milanovic’s report, wrote in the New York Times:

“What you see is the surge by the global elite (the top 0.1, 0.01, etc. would be doing even better than his top 1), plus the dramatic rise of many but not all people in emerging markets.

In between is what Branko suggests corresponds to the US lower-middle class, but what I’d say corresponds to advanced-country working classes in general, at least if you add post-2008 data with the effects of austerity. I’d call it the valley of despond, and I think it’s going to be a crucial factor in developments over the next few years. More eventually.”

This issue was then picked up by the Harvard University Press blog, post Brexit, on the 30th June 2016 and titled: The Elephant Chart in the EU Room:

http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2016/06/branko-milanovic-elephant-chart-brexit.html

This Harvard blog post refers to Paul Krugman’s article in New York Times thus:

“In early 2015, Paul Krugman forecast that the trend depicted in Milanovic’s chart would be a “crucial factor in developments over the next few years.”

Cue xenophobia. Cue Donald Trump. Cue nationalism. Cue Brexit.”

These studies and commentaries by highly qualified experts cannot remain unnoticed.

Branko Milanovic’s Elephant chart:

The percentage increase in poor countries is so much greater because their income WAS EXTRAORDINARILY LOW/MISERABLY LOW.

The comparison made by The Telegraph is false. What you should be looking at is not income growth but prosperity and quality of life. Even working-class Germans have a better quality of life and are better off materially than middle-income-earners on the Indian sub-continent or in China, for example.