EU Council headquarters, front row French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, December 14, 2017. Monasse Thierry/ Press Association. All rights reserved. The first in a series of eight heartfelt letters to the late European guru, Ralf Dahrendorf (who himself wrote an analysis of the turbulent period following the fall of the Berlin Wall in the form of a letter) – in Jan Zielonka’s new book, Counter-Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat – published this week by Oxford University Press.
Dear Ralf,
Several hours after the Brexit referendum results were announced students and tutors from your St Antony’s College gathered in the European Studies Centre. Most of those present, a pretty international crowd, were depressed, some even had tears in their eyes. They could not believe that the majority of British voters opted for leaving the European Union. They could not understand why a mountain of rational arguments in support of the remain vote fell on deaf ears. Why was a vast body of statistical evidence showing the costs of leaving the EU ignored? How could seemingly pragmatic Brits refuse to trust them: the academics, the journalists, the experts? And why had shady politicians such as Nigel Farage, Andrea Leadsom, and Michael Gove prevailed over the winners of recent parliamentary elections, David Cameron and George Osborne? Most of these questions remained unanswered.
