An Interesting Contradiction in Brexit

One thing that has very much surprised me about the nature of Brexit as a political narrative, is the self-supporting but entirely opposing trends that have defined it around the most recent election. When I talk about Brexit here, I do not mean the discrete project of actually leaving the EU, rather I mean the cultural-political object that it represents.

The really interesting contradiction that this election has exposed is that Brexit is firstly an entirely totalising political event, which has the power to warp many people’s entire relationship with politics and culture into a position of complete subjugation to being either pro or anti-Brexit. Look at how for continuity Remain, it becomes an expression of cultural cosmopolitanism and paradoxical national shame and pride. The hardcore remainer sees Brexit less as part of a deeper trend, and more like some outside context problem from some scifi book; something completely indecipherable and alien, defying any common sense.

The hardcore Brexiteer however, sees in the project not as one of leaving a trading bloc, but rather as a part protest, part reactionary nostalgic retreat. It is a political panacea for all they dislike, be that smug liberals, be that brown people, be that the youths. So long as some project can inhabit the skin of Brexit, no matter what that project actually means, it will be one that they will support, and everything becomes viewed through said lense.

For both sides attempting to take part in this nascent culture war, Brexit becomes the single defining lense through which all else is viewed. There are whole papers devoted to pandering to this discourse, just as in America, if one wants to ruin one’s brain with hysteric Trump/Russia/Ukraine nonsense, one can tune into MSNBC and see Rachel Maddow have a continual breakdown over every minor twist in a very obvious tale.

Secondly, though, and most importantly in my view, is Brexit as a totalising anti-politics. Brexit becomes a complete drag on any other actual politics, it flattens all and to a lot of people, appears pointless, procedural and completely disconnected from their lives.

For a reasonable number of people, they just want this to be over already, they want to stop having to hear about this backstop or that one, they want to never have to hear the acronyms again, they want to not have the Brexit jokes on every BBC show. Get Brexit Sorted then, becomes a way of fusing both the politics and anti-politics into a single project.

These two stands play off one another, strengthening each and allowing the two to complement a reactionary political coalition. Anti-Politics are usually the terrain of the right, although usually do not find expression in electoral politics in Anglosphere countries.

When I think of this anti-politics as an electoral coalition, I am reminded of President Zelensky’s New Year’s Message which me and my wiewatched the other night, where he focused on a core of Ukrainian people who just want the war and the instability to be over. “It doesn’t matter whether we say “I love you” in Russian or Ukrainian” was what his speech centred on, which coming from a Ukrainian President these days is honestly very heartening.

Zelensky’s electoral base has generally been centred on Southern Ukraine, with ethnically Ukrainian or mixed ethnicity Russian speakers like my wife who do not have a clear part in a sectarian conflict. But it also absorbed people with clear political commitments on all sides, Zelensky appears like the modern aspirational European Ukrainian, he also is a Russian speaker with a history of support for Russian speaking rights, and ultimately, he is famous and charismatic.

Ultimately, his message was not a progressive one, it was a call to “be nice, stop worrying about politics.” The coalition around Johnson is to a degree now a similar one, only perhaps being “be a dick, stop worrying about politics” instead.

It will be interesting — and almost certainly horrifying — to see what the realignment will be following the end of Brexit as a political battle, and the start of it as a political reality, but I think it is important to think about how disenchantment from politics can be funnelled into left wing movements, and how we can approach it in the new year.

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