Brexit: A View from Sweden

Brexit attracted a good deal of attention in Sweden with media, government and industry closely following the events that unfolded before and after the referendum in 2016. While a good deal of that interest focused on the consequences of Brexit for Swedish industry and the many Swedes currently residing in London, there were many media reports on the various  British  celebrities’ interventions in the Brexit debate. My entry on this roundtable seeks to map the Swedish debate on Brexit, in particular the gendered elements to that debate as well as the media hype surrounding British celebrities’ campaigning before the referendum.  In so doing some comparisons will be made with Denmark, another Eurosceptial country. One key argument is that Sweden, despite being somewhat lukewarm in its support for various EU policies, does not situate that scepticism within a former colonial past (like  Britain),  but rather within its self conception of modernity and progress.