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The Brexit Alarm

The British campaign to leave the European Union is tapping into the same primordial sentiments as Donald Trump is in the US. Exposure to international trade and finance, which is what EU membership entails, may have benefited the UK as a whole, but it has not worked to everyone’s advantage.

BERKELEY – I have no special expertise on the question of whether Britain should leave (or “Brexit”) the European Union. True, I did live in the United Kingdom until a bit less than a year ago. And here in California, we have our own Brexit-like debate, with a movement to place a proposal to secede from the United States on the November ballot. But while the idea of California independence might seem comical, the Brexit referendum on June 23 is no laughing matter.

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