TEOTWAWKI

As with most historic moments there's a tendency to view things as 'the end of the world as we know it'. But it isn't: the birds keep singing and the rain keeps raining.

But it's certainly the end of something - perhaps the end of globalisation as a political and not just economic force in human affairs for a generation or two. Certainly the forward march of the European Union has been halted. But again, it's too early to tell, as it is with most things Brexit-related right now.

One thing I expect future historians will wonder is why so many people were surprised by the outcome of yesterday's UK referendum?  The Pew Research Center recently published a poll showing attitudes towards the European Union from within and without the EU. I've extracted the data and summarised the trend (where data is available) between 2007 and 2016. Only one country has become more favourably disposed towards the EU in recent years: the United States of America. As for European countries? Not so much. I've ranked the results by 'net favourability' (% favourable minus % unfavourable), showing the country that is least favourably disposed first:

Attitudes towards the European Union
	% Favourable			% Unfavourable			Net Favourable
	2007	2016		2007	2016		2007	2016
Greece		27			71			-44
France	62	38		38	61		24	-23
UK	52	44		36	48		16	-4
Spain	80	47		15	49		65	-2
Germany	68	50		30	48		38	2
Netherlands		51			46			5
Sweden	59	54		37	44		22	10
Italy	78	58		13	39		65	19
Hungary		61			37			24
USA	47	53		22	27		25	26
Poland	83	72		11	22		72	50
Q. Please tell me if you have a very favorable, somwhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable opinion of the European Union?
Source: Pew Research Center

Not surprisingly, Greece is least favourably disposed towards the EU right now. But the big surprise is France - they are even less favourably disposed than the British (as I noted before). Nevertheless, the trend is quite stark: in every single EU country for which there is trend data the % unfavourably disposed towards the European Union has risen sharply in the past ten years.

There's no need to panic just yet, but there's no excuse for complacency either.