Lol! I was just about to post this article.

Quotes:

There was a time when “pro-Europeans” were confident that the world would almost inevitably be remade in the image of the EU, as it endlessly expanded its rules and exported its model centred on the “social market economy” and the welfare state. Since the eurozone debt crisis began in 2010, however, Europeans have become more defensive and now see the world largely in terms of threats.

It's not just because of the debt crisis. It's also because of diversity and its negative impacts on social cohesion. Of course the author never mentions that.

“Pro-European” centrists such as Macron increasingly think of international politics in terms of a Huntingtonian “clash of civilisations” – but whereas Samuel Huntington saw the west as one civilisation that would find itself in conflict with China and Islam in the post-cold war period, they see Europe as a civilisation that is distinct from, and which must also assert itself against, the United States.

Good. The US should be seen as Europe's greatest enemy.

For example, one-third of Britain’s black and Asian population voted to leave in 2016. As political scientist Neema Begum has shown, many did so because they saw the EU as a “white fortress” – and even those who voted to remain tended not to identify as European.

Turning the EU into a "white fortress" shouldn't even be controversial.

Continental Europe generally lags behind the UK in terms of racial equality – for example, Brexit dramatically reduced the number of MEPs from ethnic minorities in the European parliament.

And that's a good thing. Probably the only good thing about Brexit.

On the continent, “pro-Europeans” believe they have something in common with other Europeans that separates them from the rest of the world – they think of Europe as what the Germans call a Schicksalsgemeinschaft, or community of fate.

I wonder what that could possibly be? Surely it couldn't be a common ancestry and civilization, right?

In fact, historically, “European” and “white” were largely synonymous – think, for example, of what “European” meant in apartheid South Africa.

Wait a second, what happened to the whole "Europe was always diverse" narrative?

The EU has become more embattled during the past decade as the far right surges throughout the continent and increasingly sets the agenda for the centre right and even some centre-left parties, such as the Danish Social Democrats. This means that the fragile civic identity that emerged during the postwar period seems to be giving way to a more cultural or even ethnic identity – defined, in particular, against Islam. In other words, whiteness may actually be becoming more, not less, central to the European project.

And that's a beautiful thing.