Not too long ago, I heard one of the leading Brexiteers describe his political philosophy to a room full of CEOs and senior politicians. He began by speaking to this elite group about the great divide between “elites” and “the people,” the winners and victims of globalization, the haves and have-nots of modernity. The longer he spoke, the more his words began to seem rote, distant and outdated. The energizing slogans of the 2016 Brexit campaign sounded hollow and clichéd in 2022.
In part, this is because the slogans were not true. Globalization was indeed bad for some people and good for others, but these groups did not divide smoothly along the rural-urban or rich-poor divide, or along any other easily defined demographic line. Some farmers in the far countryside have turned out to be huge beneficiaries of Britain’s membership of the European Union. Some of the poorest Britons benefited from foreign investment. Also, many of the people who vociferously attack the “elite” are not actually among the losers from globalization. Boris Johnson was the notable example of this phenomenon: he attended Eton and Oxford (just like in America, where all the loudest “anti-elitists” seem to have gone to Yale or Harvard Law School), and his campaign was paid for by hedge fund managers and billionaires.
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More importantly, Brexit, the solution to the problem described by Johnson and his supporters, was based on a series of lies. The electorate was promised that leaving the EU would not only lead to fewer immigrants, but also greater prosperity, more welfare spending, less overcrowded hospitals. Instead, six years after the vote, Britain is less prosperous and more unequal. Brexit reduced UK GDP by at least 1.5 percent even before it took effect; The UK has the highest inflation rate in the G7; small businesses, especially importers, were crushed by the red tape and supply chain problems associated with Brexit. Although committees have been set up to look for the ‘benefits of Brexit’, little is available. Instead, Brexiteers crow about Britain’s vaccine campaign or Britain’s support for Ukraine, both of which would be perfectly compatible with EU membership.
Of course, Brexit is not the reason Johnson has now resigned, or the reason his cabinet has melted down, or the reason his popularity has plummeted. But it’s an essential part of the backstory. If British politics were a Faulkner novel, Brexit would be the long-ago tragedy that haunts all the main characters, even if they weren’t born when it happened. Why did a story about a boozy boozing session his office held during the COVID lockdown do Johnson so much damage? Partly because he was already suspected of dishonesty over Brexit and ‘Partygate’ reinforced his image as a liar. Why did his Conservative colleagues ultimately decide not to remove him as prime minister when they voted last month? Partly because Johnson is so closely associated with Brexit that rejecting him looked like rejecting Brexit, the policy the party still claims is its greatest achievement. Why are Conservative and Labor politicians alike shocked by his admission that he met a former KGB officer, now a wealthy oligarch, at a private party in Italy while he was still Foreign Secretary, with no other officials present? Partly because the role of Russian money and influence in the Brexit campaign has never been fully explained.
No one will argue that Brexit is the reason the Conservative Party has just lost two by-elections and the crowds at the Queen’s Jubilee Service booed Johnson as he arrived at the church. But Johnson’s perceived dishonesty is a by-product of Brexit. The perceived failure of the Tories to deliver on economic promises is a by-product of Brexit. The shaky economy itself is a partial by-product of Brexit. All these things are hovering in the background, whether the Tories want to admit it or not.
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None of this necessarily bodes well for the Conservative Party’s opponents. If Britain follows the pattern of other countries, then the failure of Tory populism may not lead society back to some predictable centrism. In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – a kind of proto-Johnson who did and said outrageous things – held the public’s attention for years but achieved very little real reform. After he left office, many Italian voters did not want to elect sober politicians to tell them what the real, hard elections were like. Instead, the failure of populism led them to the extreme left and extreme right, to the eccentric Five Star Movement, to the pro-Russian leader Matteo Salvini, or to the Brothers of Italy, a party directly descended from Mussolini’s disaffected post-war supporters. As in the United States, the electoral system in Britain limits the range of options presented to voters. But that doesn’t stop people from feeling more alienated from politics and politicians than ever before.
Since we are talking about Westminster and not Washington, it is extremely unlikely, even unimaginable, that Johnson would now stage a coup, encourage a violent march on the House of Commons or support the public hanging of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But Johnson has already broken many unwritten rules, and probably some written ones as well. British norms and traditions – no lying in Parliament, for example – grow weaker every day while he remains in Downing Street. Johnson’s appointees have deliberately chipped away at non-partisan institutions such as the judiciary and the BBC, undermining the few areas of national unity and agreement that remain.
These officials did so because they too were products of Brexit. No previous Conservative government would have allowed many of these mediocre people into cabinet at all. Public loyalty to Johnson and the lies he told is what got them their jobs, whether they originally believed in Brexit or not. Now we can watch them jump ship. Before long, they will no doubt swear an equally passionate loyalty to someone and something else.
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