Donald Trump is in Scotland today, and he has some opinions about Great Britain’s vote to leave the European Union:
Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back, just like we will take America back. No games!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2016
This tweet is yet another example, as if we needed one, of how Trump is often uninformed on the major public policy issues of the day.
Scotland isn’t the reason the Brexit vote succeeded. Far from it: 62 percent of Scots voted to remain in the EU.
Scots back Remain as UK votes Leave. The #EURefResults from Scotlandhttps://t.co/MBSjHKXKfr pic.twitter.com/VgMkZNLmrI
— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) June 24, 2016
Beyond all that, the idea of Scotland "taking their country back" is a fraught and complicated one. In 2014, Scotland held a referendum on whether to leave the United Kingdom, and the measure failed.
But after the Brexit vote, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, says it’s "highly likely" that there will be a second referendum, as it is "democratically unacceptable" for Scotland to be pulled out of the EU against its will.
So Trump could end up being right about Scotland — by accident, and for all the wrong reasons. Plus, the reason he’s in Scotland today in the first place has nothing to do with Brexit. He’s there to promote a golf course he owns.
However, as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp has explained, this doesn’t mean that Trump knows nothing about Brexit. He may not even know the word "Brexit," but he does know that it’s motivated by the kind of anti-immigrant sentiment he supports. He understands the parallels between the reactionary nationalism in Britain and the reactionary nationalism of his own campaign, and he wants to see those same forces triumph in America.
