One thing is beyond doubt, it's an idea whose time has come the dawn is breaking On an independent United Kingdom.

This isn't something that just happened, but the world witnessed last Friday was the culmination of a pressure movement that started over 20 years ago.

The movement that has evolved and devolved across the years and bided its time exploiting every national and political crisis to achieve its end, of course, choosing a starting point for this is a bit arbitrary.

There have been so called eurosceptics since 1973 when the UK first joined what was then called the european community, but if I had to pick a date, I might pick september 20th 1988 when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher gave a famous speech in bruges laying out a number of the ideas that would influence euroscepticism for years to come.

We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them re imposed at a european level with the european superstate exercising a new dominance from brussels.

The result of the speech was something called the bruges group, a conservative think tank that promoted rolling back the use trend towards centralization.

Remember this was at the end of the soviet union and the world's great experiment with socialism, any form of one party centralization was a feared prospect by many.

One member of the bruges group, the historian Alan Skid took the idea a step further and launched his own political party.

It was called the Anti Federalist League.

And it's one aim was to remove Britain from the EU.

We can't run our own affairs.

Nobody can.

This should be all too obvious.

But Skids party had problems from the very start.

In 1992 the Anti Federalist League went up for only one seat in parliament and only got 10.2% of the vote and it was the same in the european elections in 1995.

The young movement just lost faith and skids ability to lead them.

And there were internal arguments about whether the party which was soon renamed UKIP or the United Kingdom Independence Party, should remain a single issue pressure group or expand into other issues and become a real party.

Then, in 1994 arrival eurosceptic party called the referendum party exploded onto the scene.

Led by billionaire James Goldsmith who had no such problems with infighting.

All he wanted to do was have a referendum about leaving the EU and once they got it, they would disband.

We can only stop our politicians betraying our trust By holding a referendum, which is legally binding on the government.

The referendum party trounced Ukip in 1997.

But both were trounced by Tony Blair and the rise of new labor which would hold the country for the next 13 years.

And yet for those who were looking closely, it was possible to see Elaine opening up for doubt about the Eu in 92 only 9% thought Britain should leave the Ec by 97 that number had risen to 14%.

And if you added to those who thought the Ec should at least reduce its powers And you have 66% of the electorate expressing some form of euroscepticism.

There are a number of reasons why europe was brought into voter's minds, but the most significant has got to be the signing of the mastering treaty and the adoption of a single currency, something that in 1997 only 16% of britons were in favor of.

Despite these trends, UKIP looked dead in the water, but it was about to hit a few strokes of good luck.

Well, bad luck for James Goldsmith who passed away only three months after the 97 election, effectively disbanding UKIP's only direct competitor, Alan Skid was replaced by more aggressively populist figures like Nigel Farage who won himself a seat in 1999.

And ironically, the european parliament by 2000 and one.

Despite not winning any parliament seats in Westminster, UKIP had become the fourth party in the U.

K.

After Labor conservatives and the liberal democrats, their profile rose even more when robert, kilroy Silk, a former mp and chat show personality joined the cause as you know that in May this year politicians in London decided to open our doors to a potential 73 million migrants from eastern europe.

That 73 million kilroy Silk was a controversial figure, stemming mostly from an article he wrote called We owe Arabs Nothing Silk delivered UKIP's largest victory in 2000 and four as european parliamentary elections coming in third above the liberal democrats.

But more infighting eventually ousted him from the party within that year.

Yet, his example shows the willingness of UKIP to engage in the worst forms of populism race baiting nationalism and fear throughout the two thousands and into the 20 tens.

You kept capitalized on a growing sentiment among the british people of national decline in the post colonial era, most keenly felt by the oldest citizens who made up the core of the vote to Brexit and they capitalized to on crises like the financial meltdown in 2008.

The riots that swept the country in 2000 and 11 and now the migrant crisis and international terrorism, UKIP and the far right assigned folk devils too many of these cases like immigrants, Muslims, minorities and welfare recipients.

All of these things can bolster resentful nationalism, but they have to be triggered by something closer to home in this case.

A lot of the research points to the idea of class trajectory.

I have no G.

P as all powerful in my area.

I can't get onto the housing ladder and have three kids in one room.

The place where I grew up is now was a lovely area but is now a no go zone.

How are you?

Might I can see my standard living in my family stand living going down because of this influx that we can't control.

You can't say that UKIP is the soul force behind Brexit.

But they've been there throughout the years to help link these real feelings of falling trajectories.

Two emotions about national decline and moral panics that group, the public and fear growing from miniscule roots into a significant player in the country's politics.

The United Kingdom is not a far right state with a nationalistic, anti immigrant and racist people, But their decision last week to leave the EU one by a 52% majority of 72% of the population Can be viewed as an expression of a reactionary far right politics.

And that's the point about far right political organizations.

They use the fulcrum of populism and fear to lift many times their weight in people.

The ideas that animated this vote are there in Thatcher's speech from 1988.

Of course, the irony is that Thatcher herself campaigned for Britain to join the E.

C.

The first time around in 1975.

Even greater irony is that the unchecked capitalism she championed as Prime Minister, led to a form of globalization that has ravaged the middle class.

The real cause of the frustration that UKIP exploits to advocate a leave vote.

But that's the difference that 40 years can make Brexit.

Re contextualize is all these small phenomena threads a string through them and shows that transformation doesn't always have to move forward.

Mhm.

Yeah.

Hey guys, thanks for watching.

Sorry, this is a day late Vidcon pushed me back, but hank Green took responsibility for it on twitter, so you can blame him for that.

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