Who do we think we are? Citizenship post-Brexit

The Brexit vote is a mirror to an inability of many to accept the unravelling of an exclusionary core of national citizenship through the two new universalisms of (nationality-law-busting) human rights, and an economic science that promotes and secures the right of passage of the homo economicus. To the degree that the Brexit vote may also be taken as an, admittedly vague, first response of a global public to global cosmopolitanism, a degree of light is also shed on the always vexed issue of individualism, belonging and community, or the public perception of it, in a global age. The contribution investigates our new citizenship paradox, or the tense relationship established between citizenships of cosmopolitan opportunity and citizenships of security within the post-national order. It investigates the new two universalisms of our post-national order, which have played their part in the creation of a new-old tension between individual opportunity and individual security. The contribution concludes with a closer look at how paradigms of citizenship have historically stabilised the conflicts and contradictions of citizenship, asking whether the post-national order might ever find its own stabilising mechanism. The outlook is nevertheless highly uncertain, with regard to the subjects or objects of law.