Isaiah Berlin and Brexit: how the Leave campaign misunderstands “freedom”

摘要

The Leave campaign’s understanding of “freedom” as the absence of external constraints is one-sided, writes Alexis Papazoglou. The UK has autonomously decided to be bound by EU rules and so compliance with those rules does not make it a less autonomous country. Similarly, the freedoms that the UK gains from being an EU member are greater than those it gives up. More importantly, if a Brexit were to happen, external constraints might indeed disappear but so will the UK’s power to freely act in the ways it wants.