Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for…Imagine all the people, living life in peace.” – John Lennon

If history is to be taken as a marker, the above lines appear to be nothing more than just a pipe-dream. Perhaps, that is why Lennon titled the song Imagine—a distant dream. Lennon, however, would be glad to know that a watered-down version of his vision has existed through the European Union. Twenty-eight countries in Europe have gradually come together over the years and formed a supra-national unit, where there is free movement for citizens of all the member states. Imagine one day, you wake up in Pokhara or Biratnagar and decide to go to China / Indonesia / Sri Lanka and you could just pack your bags and leave.There are no check points to stop you before you cross borders. This is a reality within member-states of the EU today.

It, however, might all change on June 24 for the UK. The article is being penned on the eve of the British referendum when the Brits will decide if they want to continue living inside the European Union. When these words will see the light of the day, the verdict will already be out on British people’s position about the EU. Yet, whichever way Britain decides to vote, the race undoubtedly will be close, with the entire “Brexit” saga tugging at questions that have implications for the entire world.

While there have had been drawn out debates between the “Remain” and the “Brexit” campaign on economic pros and cons and democracy practiced by British citizens within the EU, it seems as though the inner core of the referendum is about Britain’s acceptance of European immigrants. Nigel Farage, the leader of the anti-immigrant UK Independence Party and a major personality in the Brexit campaign, has time and again expressed his exasperation on how uncomfortable he feels while listening to people talking in foreign languages in trains. Major British tabloids in recent years have been the boxing arena where immigrants are knocked about and blamed for economic downturn and even the expenditure cuts imposed by the British government. The British people are understandably hurt by the strain on the universal health care system, schools and other public services. However, that has more to do with an ideologically-driven government cutting expenditure from those public services rather than the influx of immigrants. This imposition of economic austerity, however, has been a breeding ground for highly charged anti-immigrant rhetoric.

At the receiving end of this rhetoric have been the immigrants who continue to come to the UK from the world over. Thousands of non-EU international students have been deported. While the European immigrants, especially Eastern European ones, have bore the brunt of the anti-immigrant sentimets.

Furthermore, the Brexit campaign is not led by leftist Euro-sceptics who worry about the EU side-lining the democratic government of Greece and imposing a technocratic government in Italy. It is led by far-right forces that see European immigrants as scapegoats for almost everything wrong in Britain (yes, even traffic jams!).

It has also been astonishing to see some immigrants, who now hold British passport—including British Nepalis, openly supporting the Brexit campaign. While some are overtly against European immigrants for all the xenophobic reasons, others are enamoured by the reasoning around economy and growth that has been put forward by the Brexit campaign. It is astounding that they have come to buy into the xenophobic rhetoric at all, being immigrants themselves. The British right-wing forces, who can’t seem to even tolerate white people from the same continent, cannot be trusted to sympathise with non-European black and brown immigrants from faraway “exotic” lands.

The European Union clearly has problems, especially around its democratic make-up. Various movements around the continent are now starting to believe that their democratic rights have to be restored from the clutches of Brussels (how the EU is commonly referred to), however, giving in to the anti-immigrant rhetoric would be jumping out of the fire pan to the fire itself.

Yet the anti-immigrant rhetoric, currently rife in the UK, is a part of global wave of intolerance. With the US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump vowing to keep Muslims out of the USA, our nearest neighbour, India, seeing a surge in Hindu nationalism and Nepal’s own extremely entrenched polarisation between Pahades and Madhesis are all manifestations of the highly polarised times that we live in today. Perhaps the world was never completely multicultural, diverse and tolerant, after all. Perhaps, we have always had latent xenophobia bubbling under the thin veil of progressivism. Nevertheless, in these desperate polarised times, one can only hope, and politically act, so that it is respect and tolerance that gains traction rather than the paranoid fear of the “others.” A fear that has seemed to grip not just polling stations in London and Washington, but also the streets of Kathmandu and Delhi. Right-wing nationalists like Farage and Trump mere manifestations of the larger wave of paranoia sweeping through the world. It would serve well for citizens of the world to tune in and take notice.