Public debate is resounding with calls for MPs in general and Ministers in particular to moderate their language and refrain from using inflammatory terms such as ‘surrender’ and ‘traitor’ in Brexit debates. The explicit thinking behind this is that MPs using such language incite division and hostility among the public – they are the cause or source of strong feelings and intemperate attacks on MPs. This has things exactly back to front.
The language used by the PM and other MPs may be calculated but it reflects and derives from feelings that are already present in British society. If that were not the case they would not be using it. The reality is that British society is now divided more deeply and bitterly than at any time since the Home Rule crisis of 1914. It is important to realise the nature of this division. It is not one in society in general.
Rather there are two large and increasingly mobilised minorities who believe they are engaged in a struggle about the very nature of the political order. For these people on both sides Brexit is about much more than ending a trade and political relationship. For roughly a third of voters it is a national independence or liberation movement. As such it is about identity and the very nature of the British state. For their counterparts on the Remain side it is also about the identity and nature of the political community.
Some commentators think that the government, and Conservative MPs generally, are choosing to deliberately polarise opinion and division for electoral advantage. This is closer to the mark but still misses it. In fact, the government is responding to an existing polarisation in society and is trying to head off a development that threatens not only its hold on office but the future existence of the Conservative Party.
There is now a fight to the death over the future of the Right of politics in England and Wales, driven by the way that Brexit has catalysed the emergence of a new kind of revolutionary right wing politics. This politics rejects the institutions of the existing political order and increasingly the social and economic order as well. For the 30-35% of voters who see Brexit as a national liberation movement, what has been happening since 2016 is an elite conspiracy to frustrate the popular will – or at least the will of over 17 million people. As this belief has hardened it has generated a radically disaffected view of the institutions of British government and society.
If Brexit is reversed or even further delayed this will harden into an unshakeable conviction and will find expression in a radical, revolutionary form of popular right-wing politics, currently embodied in the Brexit Party. A belief will become established that the economic, social, and political elite will overrule or ignore democratic votes that they do not like, that the entire system is rigged and hostile to the interests of ordinary people. This plays into and also derives from the new emerging political division over questions of identity and nationalism versus cosmopolitanism.
Brexit is seen by this third of voters as an expression of British (or more specifically, English) national identity. Its opponents are thus seen as opposed to that identity – it does not help that the fifth of voters who are hard-line Remain see their cause as being about a radically different conception of national identity. The most dangerous idea that is taking shape is that if Brexit is blocked it will show that the British are a subjugated or occupied people, ruled by a treacherous quisling governing class and commercial elite. All of this will lead unless checked or diverted to the emergence of a new kind of right-wing politics.
There have been intimations before, notably in the campaign for Tariff Reform before World War I, but this latest iteration would be truly new. It would be a national collectivist politics, seeking a national rebirth or renewal but hostile to the traditional institutions of the state. It will promote a politics of popular will and direct democracy. It will also be hostile to much of the commercial and business establishment, not to mention almost all of the cultural and media institutions.
A politics of this kind is a mortal threat to traditional Burkean British conservatism as well as its institutional embodiment in the Conservative Party. The actions and rhetoric of the government are intended to head off that challenge, in the first place by delivering Brexit - hopefully with a deal but in extremis without one - and secondly by co-opting a milder form of the sentiments and feelings that are already flourishing in parts of British society so that they are channelled through established parties and institutions rather than finding expression in a new, insurgent politics.
There are two obvious questions. Firstly, will this work? That depends as much on what the Opposition do as the Government. Secondly, if you are a Conservative, is this worth it? Are the concessions and adoption of this populist rhetoric too high a price to pay? These are big questions and right now hard to answer but the answers will soon become clear.--Stephen Davies "Blocking or even delaying Brexit threatens to destroy conservatism as we know it." The Telegraph.
l learned from Emma Jones' Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830-1914 that the rise of the British version of modern conservativism was, in part, a consequence of a split in nineteenth century liberalism over the fate of Ireland. To simplify greatly, Liberals that wanted to preserve protestant hegemony in Ireland, and so Union of Ireland with the rest of the U.K, split off and ended up Tories. The Tories, thereby, became the natural ruling party for the next century.
The incipient national liberation movement Davies describes is, fundamentally, an English movement. While it feeds on long-standing anti-European sentiments, it is quite clear that it was galvanized by the Scottish referendum of 2014 (and the long process of devolution that preceded it). That it is fundamentally English can be seen in the proposals of Johnson's government which amount to (apologies for this kind of language) -- due to the imposition of "two new borders on Northern Ireland," -- a retreat from North Ireland.
I say this not to criticize Davies, who has been quite clear, and quite right, that British politics are realigning (see his description of this new division above) in a transformative fashion (recall this post; and this one). But in order to emphasize a point lurking in his account that this realignment is also changing the demographic/geographic base of the main coalitions along 'national' lines. If the nationalist movement becomes the dominant movement in England, it is hard to see how the current borders of the United Kingdom can survive without the use of force.
I don't mean to suggest that I fully agree with Davies that the political class is merely echoing divisions in society. My criticism isn't just the elitist thought that politicians and parties (and their allies in the media) also help shape mobilization, but the more political point that, as Ryan Muldoon has suggested, lowering trust in politics has been an aim by several generations of highly motivated and well funded political agents (i.e., intellectuals, politicians, journalists, political organizers, and business people, etc.) on the (libertarian, free market, anti-regulation, rule of law, etc.) Right.* So, this hostility "to the traditional institutions of the state," has also been shaped.
Part of the underlying problem is that traditional Burkean conservatism has been in intellectual retreat for quite some time. And most of the excitement on the the (libertarian, free market, anti-regulation, rule of law, etc.) Right has been among those that reject ordinary politics (as immoral, or lacking expertise, or as property violations). To be sure, I think non-Right liberalism shares in this problem to some degree.
That is to say this is an unequal fight over the future of the Right. On the side you have pragmatic defense of tradition and privilege, on the other side an insurgent 'politics of popular will." That other more populist side is also being enabled by those on the (Lexit) Left who think they may well have a chance at gaining the upper hand in a contest of wills. Either way, there is no reason to think that the pragmatic defense of tradition and privilege will come out on top on the Right.
If the previous paragraph is correct, then facilitating Brexit is truly dangerous. The Revolution that is Brexit will eat its own children in the way the Republican party has not moderated Trump, but is now thoroughly corrupted. There is no reason to think that a milder form of politics of popular will must prevail in a society with seriously disrupted trade and political relationships that is also ageing and has low growth. A restless, populist Britain -- which we may compare to Poland, Hungary, and, perhaps, Italy today -- that is part of the EU is less dangerous to others and its own structural minorities than a restless Britain outside of it.
*I don't meant to suggest that all libertarian, free market, anti-regulation, rule of law types intend to lower trust in government. I also don't mean to suggest
Thanks Eric. I fear that British (or English and Welsh) politics is damned no matter what happens now. If Brexit is delayed or the increasingly hard line 35% of voters see it as being diluted then a radical populist politics will undoubtedly take shape. On the other hand as you say if there is a nodal Brexit then it will animate the government and we will almost certainly see its current riders devoured by the tiger. It may be the EU can contain this but I am doubtful of that as well I'm afraid - the list of countries you give is getting longer (although Spain and Austria shows signs of movement in a hopeful direction). In terms of viewing all of this from a historian's perspective it's a classic case of structural factors interacting with the personal and contingent in ways that have made the outcome of structural transformation much worse than it need be (the chapter of contingent events that led to Theresa May becoming PM when she was temperamentally the worst possible person for what was needed being one of the biggest).
Posted by: Steve Davies | 10/03/2019 at 03:52 PM