BREXIT, Millennials and Multiculturalism. What’s the connection?

Today I awoke to the news of a Great Britain narrowly deciding to exit the European Union. As someone who has always been a bit of an anglophile and admired London for, among other things, embracing multiple cultures and ethnicities, I found this news nothing less than disturbing.

The more I read about it, the less evidence I find that there is some sort of economic rationale to support this change. Rather, I find more evidence that this is, once again, driven by immigration and in the end is a fight about multiculturalism. This is a fight between London and the rest of England (seems like Scotland and the rest of GB wanted to stay) it is GB’s equivalent of our red state/blue state divide, or coasts versus the middle.

Even more interestingly, there is a tremendous generational divide with older voters overwhelmingly voting to leave and a majority of those under 49 voting Remain. In fact, three quarters of Brits under 24 voted against BREXIT.

I can’t help to think of this in terms of past versus future, with older generations voting to turn back time to a more homogenous, simpler society in the hopes that it will return them to a safer more prosperous time in their minds.

Younger generations, led by Millennials are the most technological-savvy, hyper-connected generations in history and, as such, are ready to embrace multiculturalism at an unprecedented rate.

I am fortunate to work at a company that not only embraces multiculturalism but also embodies it. We publish content in three languages that touches 150 million people on a monthly basis and is embraced in dozens of countries crossing geographical, cultural and even gender boundaries, all resting on pillars of the millennial/multicultural generation; inclusion, identification, inspiration, curiosity, and reflexion, to name a few.

We have seen content transcend our differences and connect through our shared values touching the lives of millions of people in multiple languages and across many borders. I am convinced that we have more in common that we often like to admit.

This gives me hope that BREXIT is a last gasp reaction against our new multicultural, hyper-connected world and that as the younger generations become the voting majority we will see more openness, not less. More acceptance, not less. And this will lead in the long run, through many ups and downs, to more safety and prosperity, not less.