Activist Jasper noted, "I certainly don't think all Brexiters are racist. However, I have never met a racist who wasn't a Brexit supporter." America's KKK endorsed the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump as did other white supremacist organizations --- endorsements which Trump declined tepidly during his campaign.
Leaders of the Brexit and Trump campaigns have denied exploiting racial and religious bigotry in their respective campaigns.
Yet, those denials clash with the realities of the incendiary rhetoric each campaign embraced.
Additionally, persons elevated to ranking governmental posts in the wake of the Brexit and Trump victories have histories of engaging in racially discriminatory behaviors.
Trump selected Steve Bannon as his top White House advisor. Before joining Trump's campaign in late summer Bannon had headed the virulently anti-immigrant/anti-Semitic/pro-white supremacist Breitbart website.
Britain's post-Brexit Prime Minister selected London's former mayor Boris Johnson as her Foreign Secretary -- the position comparable to America's Secretary of State. Johnson's mayoral tenure was marked by racially discriminatory actions. Johnson, like Bannon, shares past service in a key role in a media outlet frequently castigated for racist content.
Respected British journalist, publisher and social observer Duton Adebayo wrote shortly after the June Brexit vote that the anti-immigration emphasis of Brexit campaign rhetoric "allowed" racism to rise again in Britain. Adebayo, a top-rated BBC radio broadcaster of Nigerian ancestry, wrote that Brexit enabled racists to "come out boldly and claim that they are not racist but just anti-European Union immigration policy."
The respective Brexit and Trump victories did evidence similarities in societal sentiments along geographic, economic and demographic fault lines.
For example, voters in America's deindustrialized Rust Belt and voters in England's deindustrialized Midlands provided strong support for the respective Trump and Brexit victories. A majority of the twenty-something age group in America and Britain voted to oppose Trump and Brexit respectively while a majority of the 65-year-old-plus demographic in each nation gave their votes to Trump and Brexit.
Many analysts who rightly identify the class fault lines evident in the Brexit and Trump votes give short-shrift to the fact that One Percenters' everywhere have historically manipulated racism to mask the class-based economic exploitation of the 99 Percent.
British activist/academic Cecil Gutzmore paints Brexit as "fundamentally racist-nationalist, undoubtedly economically foolish." Gutzmore's analysis concludes that Brexit will produce negative economic, social and ideological effects "across the board for years" on non-whites and the poor generally in Britain. "I can't help feeling that [non-whites] who voted Brexit un/consciously voted White in the sense in which I heard a White American say: "I am poor but I vote rich.--
The spark plug behind Brexit, far right-wing British politician Nigel Farage, was the first foreign politician to visit Donald Trump after Trump's election victory. Farage, leader of the UKIP, campaigned with Trump this summer in Mississippi --- the state most identified historically with racist sentiments in America.
Trump recently Tweeted that Farage should become his nation's ambassador to America, a suggestion quickly snuffed by Britain's conservative government.
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