The whole process of leaving the European Union (‘Brexit’) has sent British politics insane. Support for the two main political parties has fallen drastically, and a once-secure prime minister suffered an unprecedented series of defeats in the House of Commons on her main policy while only resigning after prolonged pressure from her own party. In the meantime, demands for Scottish independence have been strengthened, while both the Good Friday agreement in Ireland and the status of Gibraltar have been imperilled. This disaster is the outcome of a series of blunders unique in British politics:
1. David Cameron never intended to hold a referendum on leaving the EU. Hostility to the EU was for the Conservative Party always a pseudo-policy - one designed to win votes and please the party faithful but never to be implemented. David Cameron was the master tactician here. When competing for the Conservative Party leadership against David Davis, he posed as ‘anti-European’ by stating that he would take Conservative MEPs out of the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament. This pointless exercise alienated the allies in the EU that he would need later. Faced by a growth in support for UKIP, Cameron’s next wheeze was to pledge a referendum on remaining in the EU into the Party manifesto for the general election of 2015. If, as he expected, the coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats was returned, this commitment could be conveniently dropped as part of a new coalition agreement. But the collapse of support for the Liberal Democrats in the election resulted in a government exclusively of Conservatives, thereby forcing Cameron to honour his electoral commitment and hold the referendum.
2. Cameron expected to win the referendum but held it at the worst possible time to do so. Cameron probably faced the referendum with some confidence, having already won two (on the alternative vote and on Scottish independence). But the vote occurred at the worst possible moment for the Remain side, with a major refugee crisis following the Syrian War, and the over-bearing policies of the European Central Bank against Ireland, Greece and other countries using the Euro. The Remain campaign focussed on the practical advantages of free movement of trade and people within the EU and the economic disaster that would follow Brexit. These warnings probably had limited effect because the benefits of EU membership have become so much part of everyday life that they were taken for granted. For instance, many of the British emigrants to other EU countries who voted Leave were seemingly unaware that this would threaten their property rights and access to local healthcare. By contrast, the Leave campaign invented the threat of mass immigration following the non-existent possibility of Turkey’s admission to the EU, and stressed the possibility of redeploying the (much exaggerated) UK payments to the EU into the NHS. A major theme of the Leave campaign was that little else would change - Britain, according to Boris Johnson, could ‘have its cake and eat it’. Others emphasised that Britain would of course continue to enjoy tariff-free access to European markets.
3. Members of the Labour Party are heavily in favour or remaining in the EU, but the Labour Party is a major cause of the drift to a No-Deal Brexit. A key part in the failure of the Remain campaign was the lacklustre participation of the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour Party has been pro-EU since the late 1980s, but its left wing saw the EU as a means of entrenching neoliberal policies. Corbyn, as a follower of the late Tony Benn, espoused the same policies until his elevation to the Party’s leadership. He campaigned for Remain, but it was a low-energy campaign, which produced great anger among Labour Members of Parliament and an unsuccessful challenge for the Party leadership. Since then, the Labour Party has gradually shifted its official position towards a second referendum with Remain as an option. But in Parliament, Labour voted against the Withdrawal Agreement, thus guaranteeing its defeat and the eventual replacement of Theresa May by Boris Johnson.
4. Leaders of the Leave campaign did not expect to win. What Cameron did not anticipate was the defection of some of his keys lieutenants to the Leave side, especially Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. Neither had previously been particularly vocal in favour of leaving the EU, but they probably spotted an opportunity to win support among Conservative members for a potential leadership bid. Once the result was announced, and the Leave vote won, both looked utterly crestfallen. The unexpected nature of the result could be seen in the almost complete absence of any plans to negotiate with the EU. The ultimate symbol here is the single blank sheet of paper on the table in front of David Davis when he was supposed to be negotiating with the formidable EU team. The singleness of purpose of the EU side (comprising 27 separate sovereign states) contrasted with the disorganisation of the UK side, in which there was never any agreement within the government (let alone the Conservative Party) about the aims of negotiation.
5. The treaty to leave the EU failed in Parliament because it was opposed by those most ardently in favour of leaving. Theresa May began the process of leaving with only the most vacuous of objectives (‘Brexit means Brexit’ and ‘a red, white and blue Brexit’). After the responsible cabinet minister (David Davis again) failed to make progress, her office took over negotiations and reached a detailed withdrawal agreement that was then rejected by Parliament. This took place because the Conservative Members of Parliament who were most opposed to the EU voted with the Opposition parties against the withdrawal treaty. They could so in the expectation that the UK would then leave the EU in any case when the period set by invoking Article 50 expired. The rationale for opposing the withdrawal agreement was the so-called ‘Irish backstop’ - the name given to a provision in the withdrawal agreement that the UK would remain in the EU customs union until a solution is found in subsequent negotiations to prevent a ‘hard border’ between the UK and the Irish Republic. Opponents of the Irish Backstop veered between arguing that a hard border could be avoided by various unspecified technological solutions and simply not caring what happened to Ireland.
6. The main political party representing Northern Ireland in the UK Parliament schemed against the wishes of the majority of its population. After losing her majority in Parliament after the 2017 General Election, Theresa May came to a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party in exchange for a commitment to an additional £1 billion pounds of public funding for Northern Ireland. However, this deal did not include any corresponding commitment by the DUP to vote for a withdrawal agreement, which they subsequently opposed. Business in Northern Ireland fears the economic consequences of a customs barrier at the border, while the majority of the community in Northern Ireland fears the danger this would pose for the Good Friday Agreement and voted to Remain in the referendum. But the DUP would probably be happy with a wall around the Province. It resolves this conflict by expressing opposition to a hard border while voting to make it happen. The DUP is virtually the only voice for Northern Ireland in Westminister because the main Nationalist party, Sinn Fein, is in favour of Irish unity and refuses to attend a British Parliament. It thereby empowers its main opponents and ensures that a hard border will occur.
7. Those most in favour of a ‘hard Brexit’ admit that they will need to negotiate a treaty with the EU after leaving. William Rees-Mogg (a financial trader in the City of London who acts the role of a Victorian country gentleman) has spoken of the need to negotiate a treaty with the EU similar to that negotiated between the EU and Canada. If this follows other EU treaties, it would probably involve accepting EU product regulations and tariff-free trade (or a ‘customs union’ as it is usually termed). In any case, British firms wishing to export to the European Union will need to conform to EU product regulations. When the UK leaves the EU, this country will no longer have a say in the content of these regulations.
8. Those most ardently in favour of leaving the EU in all circumstances are also those most willing to sell the UK to the USA. The ardent patriotism espoused by Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party coincides with a close alignment with the extreme right in the USA and its President. The US ambassador to the UK has argued that any trade agreement between the UK and the USA would require the UK to accept debased US food standards and open the NHS to purchase by the rapacious American healthcare corporations. These proposals are supported by many of the most ardent supporters of Brexit, who form a squad of Quislings-in-waiting.
9. Members of Parliament supporting Remain or a negotiated withdrawal agreement have failed to agree on anything else. There were several opportunities during the dying days of Theresa May’ government to agree an alternative to her Withdrawal Agreement that did not involve leaving without any deal. All these were defeated. In early 2019, seven Labour and four Conservative Members of Parliament who supported Remain defected from their parties to create a new party called ‘Change UK’. Four months later, six of these split from the new party to be even more independent (although two have since joined the Liberal Democrats). The new leader of the Liberal Democrats (a former minister in Cameron’s coalition government who was hitherto famous for introducing a measure to charge employees for bringing cases against their employers) refused to work with Jeremy Corbyn, while the various defectors showed an unwillingness to work with anyone else.
How can we explain this insanity? A major factor is ignorance about the EU among politicians, the media and the public. The EU debate had been successfully sidelined as an issue in British politics until David Cameron revived the referendum as an election pledge. This meant that there was no tradition of debate and discussion beyond silly season news about supposed EU regulations (‘straight bananas’ etc). This meant that the public could easily be scared by outright lies, such as the supposed plan to merge the British armed forces into a European Army or the threat that 5 million Turks were about to ‘invade’ the UK.
It is probable, however, that for most of those voting for Brexit, leaving the EU was rational based on the information available to them. Public services under Cameron and May had been starved of cash, resulting in increased crime and homelessness, and the elimination of many local further education, library and youth services. It appeared to make good sense to divert the money the UK pays to the EU to support these services, while avoiding the fate of being ordered around by foreigners. Neither can people struggling to get a decent home and in marginal employment be expected to support unrestricted immigration with any enthusiasm.
But a minority of Leave supporters view the issue with far more passion, as a matter of national identity. They regard the EU as an oppressive alien force which threatens the British nation and which must be opposed even if this involves economic ruin. Opposition to the EU is thus the focus of a new kind of English ultra-nationalism, which, like all forms of nationalism, explains the problems people experience as the work of an external enemy. The EU has thus come to replace Jews, black people, Catholics, capitalists, communists and other devil-figures of the imagination. This focus on the EU as the unique impediment to British sovereignty is strange since the UK is a member of many other treaty organisations - in particular NATO. It was NATO membership, not membership of the EU, that resulted in British troops dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ultra-nationalists of this kind are unlikely to welcome any agreement with the EU, even after the UK leaves. This presents the current Conservative government with a difficult dilemma: leave the EU without any agreement and face the unpopularity resulting from the resulting shambles; or come to some sort of agreement and face the undying hostility of the ultra-nationalists who will split the Conservative vote in a general election. The next few weeks will reveal which of these outcomes will prevail.
1. David Cameron never intended to hold a referendum on leaving the EU. Hostility to the EU was for the Conservative Party always a pseudo-policy - one designed to win votes and please the party faithful but never to be implemented. David Cameron was the master tactician here. When competing for the Conservative Party leadership against David Davis, he posed as ‘anti-European’ by stating that he would take Conservative MEPs out of the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament. This pointless exercise alienated the allies in the EU that he would need later. Faced by a growth in support for UKIP, Cameron’s next wheeze was to pledge a referendum on remaining in the EU into the Party manifesto for the general election of 2015. If, as he expected, the coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats was returned, this commitment could be conveniently dropped as part of a new coalition agreement. But the collapse of support for the Liberal Democrats in the election resulted in a government exclusively of Conservatives, thereby forcing Cameron to honour his electoral commitment and hold the referendum.
2. Cameron expected to win the referendum but held it at the worst possible time to do so. Cameron probably faced the referendum with some confidence, having already won two (on the alternative vote and on Scottish independence). But the vote occurred at the worst possible moment for the Remain side, with a major refugee crisis following the Syrian War, and the over-bearing policies of the European Central Bank against Ireland, Greece and other countries using the Euro. The Remain campaign focussed on the practical advantages of free movement of trade and people within the EU and the economic disaster that would follow Brexit. These warnings probably had limited effect because the benefits of EU membership have become so much part of everyday life that they were taken for granted. For instance, many of the British emigrants to other EU countries who voted Leave were seemingly unaware that this would threaten their property rights and access to local healthcare. By contrast, the Leave campaign invented the threat of mass immigration following the non-existent possibility of Turkey’s admission to the EU, and stressed the possibility of redeploying the (much exaggerated) UK payments to the EU into the NHS. A major theme of the Leave campaign was that little else would change - Britain, according to Boris Johnson, could ‘have its cake and eat it’. Others emphasised that Britain would of course continue to enjoy tariff-free access to European markets.
3. Members of the Labour Party are heavily in favour or remaining in the EU, but the Labour Party is a major cause of the drift to a No-Deal Brexit. A key part in the failure of the Remain campaign was the lacklustre participation of the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour Party has been pro-EU since the late 1980s, but its left wing saw the EU as a means of entrenching neoliberal policies. Corbyn, as a follower of the late Tony Benn, espoused the same policies until his elevation to the Party’s leadership. He campaigned for Remain, but it was a low-energy campaign, which produced great anger among Labour Members of Parliament and an unsuccessful challenge for the Party leadership. Since then, the Labour Party has gradually shifted its official position towards a second referendum with Remain as an option. But in Parliament, Labour voted against the Withdrawal Agreement, thus guaranteeing its defeat and the eventual replacement of Theresa May by Boris Johnson.
4. Leaders of the Leave campaign did not expect to win. What Cameron did not anticipate was the defection of some of his keys lieutenants to the Leave side, especially Michael Gove and Boris Johnson. Neither had previously been particularly vocal in favour of leaving the EU, but they probably spotted an opportunity to win support among Conservative members for a potential leadership bid. Once the result was announced, and the Leave vote won, both looked utterly crestfallen. The unexpected nature of the result could be seen in the almost complete absence of any plans to negotiate with the EU. The ultimate symbol here is the single blank sheet of paper on the table in front of David Davis when he was supposed to be negotiating with the formidable EU team. The singleness of purpose of the EU side (comprising 27 separate sovereign states) contrasted with the disorganisation of the UK side, in which there was never any agreement within the government (let alone the Conservative Party) about the aims of negotiation.
5. The treaty to leave the EU failed in Parliament because it was opposed by those most ardently in favour of leaving. Theresa May began the process of leaving with only the most vacuous of objectives (‘Brexit means Brexit’ and ‘a red, white and blue Brexit’). After the responsible cabinet minister (David Davis again) failed to make progress, her office took over negotiations and reached a detailed withdrawal agreement that was then rejected by Parliament. This took place because the Conservative Members of Parliament who were most opposed to the EU voted with the Opposition parties against the withdrawal treaty. They could so in the expectation that the UK would then leave the EU in any case when the period set by invoking Article 50 expired. The rationale for opposing the withdrawal agreement was the so-called ‘Irish backstop’ - the name given to a provision in the withdrawal agreement that the UK would remain in the EU customs union until a solution is found in subsequent negotiations to prevent a ‘hard border’ between the UK and the Irish Republic. Opponents of the Irish Backstop veered between arguing that a hard border could be avoided by various unspecified technological solutions and simply not caring what happened to Ireland.
6. The main political party representing Northern Ireland in the UK Parliament schemed against the wishes of the majority of its population. After losing her majority in Parliament after the 2017 General Election, Theresa May came to a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party in exchange for a commitment to an additional £1 billion pounds of public funding for Northern Ireland. However, this deal did not include any corresponding commitment by the DUP to vote for a withdrawal agreement, which they subsequently opposed. Business in Northern Ireland fears the economic consequences of a customs barrier at the border, while the majority of the community in Northern Ireland fears the danger this would pose for the Good Friday Agreement and voted to Remain in the referendum. But the DUP would probably be happy with a wall around the Province. It resolves this conflict by expressing opposition to a hard border while voting to make it happen. The DUP is virtually the only voice for Northern Ireland in Westminister because the main Nationalist party, Sinn Fein, is in favour of Irish unity and refuses to attend a British Parliament. It thereby empowers its main opponents and ensures that a hard border will occur.
7. Those most in favour of a ‘hard Brexit’ admit that they will need to negotiate a treaty with the EU after leaving. William Rees-Mogg (a financial trader in the City of London who acts the role of a Victorian country gentleman) has spoken of the need to negotiate a treaty with the EU similar to that negotiated between the EU and Canada. If this follows other EU treaties, it would probably involve accepting EU product regulations and tariff-free trade (or a ‘customs union’ as it is usually termed). In any case, British firms wishing to export to the European Union will need to conform to EU product regulations. When the UK leaves the EU, this country will no longer have a say in the content of these regulations.
8. Those most ardently in favour of leaving the EU in all circumstances are also those most willing to sell the UK to the USA. The ardent patriotism espoused by Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party coincides with a close alignment with the extreme right in the USA and its President. The US ambassador to the UK has argued that any trade agreement between the UK and the USA would require the UK to accept debased US food standards and open the NHS to purchase by the rapacious American healthcare corporations. These proposals are supported by many of the most ardent supporters of Brexit, who form a squad of Quislings-in-waiting.
9. Members of Parliament supporting Remain or a negotiated withdrawal agreement have failed to agree on anything else. There were several opportunities during the dying days of Theresa May’ government to agree an alternative to her Withdrawal Agreement that did not involve leaving without any deal. All these were defeated. In early 2019, seven Labour and four Conservative Members of Parliament who supported Remain defected from their parties to create a new party called ‘Change UK’. Four months later, six of these split from the new party to be even more independent (although two have since joined the Liberal Democrats). The new leader of the Liberal Democrats (a former minister in Cameron’s coalition government who was hitherto famous for introducing a measure to charge employees for bringing cases against their employers) refused to work with Jeremy Corbyn, while the various defectors showed an unwillingness to work with anyone else.
How can we explain this insanity? A major factor is ignorance about the EU among politicians, the media and the public. The EU debate had been successfully sidelined as an issue in British politics until David Cameron revived the referendum as an election pledge. This meant that there was no tradition of debate and discussion beyond silly season news about supposed EU regulations (‘straight bananas’ etc). This meant that the public could easily be scared by outright lies, such as the supposed plan to merge the British armed forces into a European Army or the threat that 5 million Turks were about to ‘invade’ the UK.
It is probable, however, that for most of those voting for Brexit, leaving the EU was rational based on the information available to them. Public services under Cameron and May had been starved of cash, resulting in increased crime and homelessness, and the elimination of many local further education, library and youth services. It appeared to make good sense to divert the money the UK pays to the EU to support these services, while avoiding the fate of being ordered around by foreigners. Neither can people struggling to get a decent home and in marginal employment be expected to support unrestricted immigration with any enthusiasm.
But a minority of Leave supporters view the issue with far more passion, as a matter of national identity. They regard the EU as an oppressive alien force which threatens the British nation and which must be opposed even if this involves economic ruin. Opposition to the EU is thus the focus of a new kind of English ultra-nationalism, which, like all forms of nationalism, explains the problems people experience as the work of an external enemy. The EU has thus come to replace Jews, black people, Catholics, capitalists, communists and other devil-figures of the imagination. This focus on the EU as the unique impediment to British sovereignty is strange since the UK is a member of many other treaty organisations - in particular NATO. It was NATO membership, not membership of the EU, that resulted in British troops dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ultra-nationalists of this kind are unlikely to welcome any agreement with the EU, even after the UK leaves. This presents the current Conservative government with a difficult dilemma: leave the EU without any agreement and face the unpopularity resulting from the resulting shambles; or come to some sort of agreement and face the undying hostility of the ultra-nationalists who will split the Conservative vote in a general election. The next few weeks will reveal which of these outcomes will prevail.
