118 V. Paskalev structures of the state.’ The Brexit referendum provides a wonderful empirical confirmation of this point. Opinion polls suggest that while older Britons are clinging on antiquated ideas about sovereignty, the younger generation – born as EU citizens and in conditions of widespread mobility – are very much at ease with joint decision-making and are more likely to see the Union as empowering rather than crippling their own country.1 There is no similar evidence for the attitudes of older Britons living in Europe, but it is plausible to expect some similarity between the views of the people who actually move and of those who are born with the right to.2 There is ‘reflexive virtue’ to be gained from free movement indeed. Such collateral benefits of free movement notwithstanding, civic virtue is ill served by free movement and it is hardly surprising that Richard Bellamy disagrees with De Witte. On republican accounts citizenship is relational and European mobility by definition loosens the link between citizens and their state. Even in the age of Ryanair and Skype the opportunities of the external citizens to participate in the democratic life of their home state are significantly reduced. Indeed, in most cases they retain the right to vote, and its exercise abroad is often – but not always – facilitated by postal, proxy and e-voting. But democracy is so much more than the ballot box! Citizens who do not move can go on rallies, volunteer for various causes, join political organisations, speak in public or engage in community initiatives. One need not subscribe to Pierre Rosanvallon’s concept of counter-­democracy3 to agree that all this is part and parcel of any democracy. Thus, on the more robust understanding of freedom, which encompasses equal opportunity for participation in the collective system of governance, free movement inevitably reduces freedom. The fact that the mobile citizens have moved out freely may satisfy contractarians but not civic republicans. As long as the link with the home state is not broken completely – which may happen eventually – the freedom of the external citizens is limited in this sense. 1 2 3 A YouGov poll found that the intergenerational gap is immense ‘73 per cent of those aged between 18–29 want to remain in the EU, while 63 per cent of those aged over 60 want to leave’, The Telegraph, 12 May 2016, available at http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/21/ eu-referendum-who-in-britain-wants-to-leave-and-who-wants-to-rem/. Some anecdotal evidence available in Paxman goes to Brussels: Who really rules us? BBC Documentary, first shown 19 May 2016, available at http:// www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07c6n58/ paxman-in-brussels-who-really-rules-us. Rosanvallon, P. (2008), Counter-Democracy: Politics in an Age of Distrust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.