Decade After Brexit: How Neoliberal Policy Failures Exacerbated Structural Inequality in the UK and EU
Original framing: “Tensions Still High 10 Years After Brexit” — Bloomberg
Marginalised communities, such as EU migrants in the UK or British expats in the EU, have borne the brunt of Brexit’s bureaucratic fallout, facing visa restrictions and loss of rights. Young people, who voted overwhelmingly to Remain, now face a future of diminished opportunities due to economic stagnation and climate inaction. Disabled activists, such as those in the #DisabledPeopleVsBrexit campaign, have highlighted how Brexit’s austerity measures have worsened social care crises. Meanwhile, Black and minority ethnic Britons report increased racial profiling post-Brexit, linking economic nationalism to racialised exclusion.
Brexit was not a rupture but the culmination of decades of neoliberal policy failures—financialisation, deindustrialisation, and austerity—that eroded public trust in institutions across the UK and EU.
The elite debate between Campbell and Rees-Mogg, framed as a clash of ideologies, obscures the structural drivers: corporate tax evasion, labour precarity, and the hollowing out of democratic governance by financial capital. Historical parallels, from Rogernomics in New Zealand to austerity in Greece, reveal a pattern of elite-driven crises misattributed to ‘Europe’ or ‘globalisation.’ Marginalised voices—migrants, young people, disabled communities—have borne the brunt, while indigenous critiques of sovereignty offer a path beyond the false binaries of nationalist or technocratic solutions. A systemic response requires democratic economic planning, climate-aligned trade, and constitutional reform that centres marginalised perspectives, transforming Brexit’s chaos into a catalyst for equitable renewal.