Is Globalization to Blame for Brexit?

On this week’s episode of The E.R., FP’s David Rothkopf, Kori Schake, Ben Pauker, and the Financial Times’s chief U.S. commentator and columnist Ed Luce, try to make sense of Britain’s shocking and potentially catastrophic farewell to Brussels. Even though the “experts” strongly advised against leaving, and polls almost unanimously predicted that Britain would remain, both fell short.

Is globalization to blame for Brexit? Or were economic anxiety, lack of good jobs, nationalism, and an increase in xenophobia why so many were drawn to the “leave” campaign? And what does the Brexit vote tell us about the current U.S. presidential election? With voter demographics eerily similar, an increasingly fed-up middle-class could hint at a similar outcome across the pond come November.

Ed Luce is the Financial Times’s chief U.S. commentator and columnist based in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter: @EdwardGLuce.

Kori Schake is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where she focuses on military history, and is a former foreign-policy advisor to Sen. John McCain. Follow her on Twitter: @KoriSchake.

Ben Pauker is the executive editor of ForeignPolicy.com. Follow him on Twitter: @benpauker.

David Rothkopf is the CEO and editor of the FP Group. Follow him on Twitter: @djrothkopf.

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