Folkestone beach/harbor …. Brexit? (#0341)

Folkestone harbor, from the top of the cliff. Unfortunately there are plans to build condos along the coast that would fill much of the space between the road and the path. Maybe with risk of economic downturn from Brexit, those plans will not come to fruition.

Though taken earlier in the day, I’m moving this picture to the end of the Folkestone pictures because it provides a good opportunity to bring up Brexit. Trying to get at least some sense of the reason for the 2016 vote to leave the EU (the Brexit vote) was a goal of this trip – I wasn’t going to do research, but just talk to people and to see what my own observations might suggest. Though I didn’t come away with any clear answers, Folkestone turned out to be a good starting point since 62.2% of the Shepway district (which includes Folkestone) voted to leave and 59% of Kent county (which includes Shepway) voted to leave. (The area of London that I stay in, Kensington, went 68.7% Remain.)

Based on the research that has been published, it seems that the Leave vote in the UK had many similarities to the Trump vote in the U.S. – some portion being nationalistic, small government, conservatives but a large portion of the vote being people from the rural and fading industrial parts of the country that were feeling ‘left behind’ by the successes of the urban centers and the corollary of feeling ignored by the a government (EU in the UK, Washington in the US) that is perceived as remote and bureaucratic.

There are two factors that would seem to contribute to a sense of ‘falling behind’ in Folkestone both of which are evident in this picture – the severe downturn of port traffic ever since the opening of the Eurotunnel in 1994, and the decline in resort usage which dates back to probably the 1960’s. However, nearby Dover voted to leave at the exact same 62.2%, yet Dover’s port traffic and tourism remain strong. Another explanation might be ‘relative deprivation’ – that the proximity to London and its excesses as a European financial dynamo contributed to anti-EU sentiment in nearby areas. It’s an explanation I haven’t heard, but it fits with the conservatism often found in the U.S. in areas near major urban cores.


Sources:
Kent: www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/live-eu-referendum-results-97758
BBC: www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36616028


(Part of a documentation of 2018 exploration/reflection on Brexit and populist movements in Europe, keyword Europe2018)