Defining Brexitism

It is hard to remember it, but there was a time when the word ‘Brexit’ did not exist. Now, it is one of the most familiar terms in the political lexicon. More recently, the word Brexitism has been coined by a few academics and journalists. Indeed it’s word I’ve used several times on this blog (the first occasion, I think, being in February 2023), and with increasing frequency.

However, I don’t think I’ve ever tried to set out systematically what it means, or at least what I mean by it, since those who have used the term have done so in a variety of ways. This is what I will do here, to accompany the re-titling of this blog as ‘Brexit & Brexitism’.

Brexitism: Brexit’s new domains

In my meaning, Brexitism denotes an approach to politics that derives from Brexit and debates about Brexit, whilst taking them into new or wider domains to the extent that it constitutes a specific world view, or even ideology.

Brexitism as a policy programme

The foundational belief of that approach is that Brexit was desirable and even magnificent. Such a belief certainly need not entail, and very often does not entail, the belief that Brexit has been a success. It just means that Brexit is seen as good in and of itself, and that any adverse consequences are either denied, and/or seen as secondary to the prize of ‘sovereignty’, and/or ascribed to betrayals and failures of the way it was implemented. For the latter reason, Brexitism is likely to entail proposals (whether specific in nature, or just vaguely gestured toward) for ‘doing Brexit properly’, for example through regulatory divergence from the EU, or opposition to proposals to create closer post-Brexit links with the EU.

Holding a belief in the desirability of Brexit is a necessary but not sufficient condition for Brexitism. That is, it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a ‘Brexitist’ who does not believe Brexit was a ‘good thing’ (even if, as with, for example, Liz Truss, they did not support it in the 2016 referendum). However, holding that belief would, in isolation, make someone a ‘Brexiter’ rather than a Brexitist. Brexitism entails more.

In the most limited sense, that can mean supporting policy extensions of Brexit, not just in proposals to diverge significantly from EU regulations, but things which go entirely beyond Brexit, most obviously by proposing to derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights. It is also highly likely to mean supporting policies which seek to drastically curtail immigration, and which are hostile to refugees and asylum seekers, as well as hostility to climate change mitigation policies, and possibly hostility to vaccination programmes, including but not necessarily limited to Covid vaccination.

The point about these and other examples is that they aren’t, for the most part, directly related to Brexit. It is also notable that they are all characterized by ‘hostility’ to something, and this is not coincidental. Brexitism is less about a coherent programme of positive policies than it is an articulation of grievances. So it is more about campaigning and opposition than about governing and delivery, making it unimportant to espouse workable policies. This, in turn, means that if its campaigns are successful the outcome is chaotic. This is precisely what happened with Brexit, and it links with the wider meanings of Brexitism

Brexitism as a way of doing politics

The first of these wider meanings is that Brexitism denotes not just specific policies but a way of ‘doing politics’ which is dismissive of expertise and established institutions, including the civil service and the judiciary. This, of course, was a defining feature the Brexit process, including Michael Gove’s infamous words about ‘experts’, the endless denunications of ‘remainer civil servants’, the ‘enemies of the people’ calumny against judges, and the unlawful prorogation of parliament. But the same way of doing politics clearly informed the Truss mini-budget (in ways I detailed at the time).

Thus, in the words of Timothy Garton Ash, “Trussonomics took the logic of Brexitism to an absurd extreme”, although I would argue that it simply embodied that logic: the absurd extremism is built into it. Either way, this is a good example of why Brexitism is a useful term, as it makes it possible to identify something as growing out of Brexit and a Brexit mind-set, whilst not, formally, being part of the process of leaving the EU. And, just as Nigel Farage cheered the Truss mini-budget, so too do Reform and the Brexitist elements of the Tory Party continue to heap scorn on institutions like the civil service, Office for Budget Responsibility, Bank of England etc.

Brexitism as a world view

Clearly this segues into an even wider sense of Brexitism, one of a world view whereby ‘the ordinary, decent people’ (as Farage called those who voted for Brexit) are pitted against ‘the elite’, in a never-ending battle in which the virtuous majority struggle against the corrupt and unpatriotic liberal Establishment. In this sense, the failure of Brexit itself is not just explained away but actually re-enforces Brexitism, providing yet more ‘evidence’ of the malign powers of the elite.

In this wider sense of Brexitism, it is not just the ‘economic Establishment’ who constitute the elite, but an entire amorphous network encompassing ‘globalist’ politicians, the ‘mainstream media’ and especially the BBC, ‘the medical establishment’, academics (especially in humanities and social sciences), ‘activist’ lawyers and judges, bureaucrats of every hue (from Whitehall Mandarins to Health and Safety inspectors), the ‘lanyard class’ of corporate (especially human resources) managers, and extending even to ‘Londoners’ or just those who live ‘within the radius of M25’. Indeed, so extensive is this elite that it might be wondered just how many are left who can truly be called ‘ordinary people’.

Brexitism as a political psychology

Stitching together all these features of Brexitism is a perverse political psychology that combines aggression with self-pity. Its aggression is obvious in both language and deeds. These encompass angry nationalism and the vitriolic denunciation not only of the amorphous elite I just described but of the EU, international organizations, and, of course, immigrants in general and asylum seekers in particular. This extends to the kind of lynch mob violence seen again this summer outside asylum seekers hostels and to hard-right street politics generally. Brexitism, unlike mainstream right-wing politics in the past, is increasingly indistinguishable from street violence, with even supposedly respectable politicians giving at least tacit support to it.

The self-pity was evident from the start of the Brexit process, but is no less integral to Brexitism. At its most benign, it consists of a hazy nostalgia about the Second World War, perhaps about Empire, perhaps just about a romantic image of English villages. But even those benign forms can have a vicious edge to them, which is manifest in the most obscure of byways. For example, there are endless video clips on social media depicting life in, say, the 1950s and invariably they attract comments saying or implying that such life was much better because of the absence of coloured faces.

More extensively, Brexitism is self-pitying because it is characterized by a perpetual sense of victimhood, a sometimes sullen, sometimes angry resentment, and a perpetual sense of betrayal. Most fundamentally, and most corrosively, I believe that it is characterized not just by a sense of victimhood but by a desire for victimhood, with the consequence that it can never be sated by giving ‘the people’ what they supposedly want, or by ‘listening to their legitimate grievances’. Doing so will never be ‘enough’, because the underlying desire is not for grievances to be redressed but to luxuriate in the feeling of aggrievement.

As such, Brexitism is impervious to normal ways of doing politics in a democratic society, where politicians fashion policies to satisfy voters: how can you satisfy voters whose underlying desire is to be dissatisfied? In this, and other ways, Brexitism is a form of “anti-politics”.

A distinctive form of populism

Of course, Brexitism is an example of the populism and culture war politics which can be seen in many countries around the world, from the United States to Argentina to Hungary, so it might be argued that we don’t need this ‘new’ word, and could just stick with populism. But the term Brexitism is helpful, partly because it is a reminder of the specificities of British, and perhaps especially English, society and politics. These include its class system, its lack of a codified constitution, its distinctive history of war and empire, and the relationship between the four component countries of the United Kingdom.

Perhaps more importantly, Brexitism is a useful term for a reason which may sound trite but is actually very significant. That is, it arises because Britain, uniquely, has experienced Brexit. That inflects British populism in distinctive, albeit contradictory, ways.

On the one hand, the fact of having won a national referendum gave credence to the longstanding idea that the populists speak for ‘the silent majority, and not just about Brexit but about everything else. This did not just embolden the populists. It also served to cow their actual or perceived opponents. In particular, many in the Labour Party have accepted the proposition that the populists speak for ‘ordinary working people’ and this accounts for Labour’s contortions throughout the Brexit process, the timidity of its post-Brexit reset, and its near-surrender to the Brexitist agenda on immigration and asylum. It also seems obvious that the BBC has so internalized the Brexiters’ critique of its Brexit coverage that it now bends over backwards (if not further) to accommodate and even amplify Brexitism.

On the other hand, Brexitism arises because Brexit has not satisfied the impulses that led to Britain choosing to leave the EU. So it is a product of both the success of winning the Brexit referendum and the failure of Brexit itself. And, on third hand, it has been able to take root because Britain chose to leave the EU, giving new impetus and focus to the ideas it embodies (i.e. rather than the Brexiters simply continuing to campaign for Brexit, as would have happened had they lost the referendum).

Understanding Brexitism

In all of these ways, Brexitism is a distinct version of populism, and it is complex and multi-layered, requiring multiple levels of analysis to make sense of it. Although this is not an academic blog, that analysis encompasses the kinds of issues studied in political philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, and cultural studies as well as economics and political science.

Brexitism is both familiar and strange. It is familiar, because, even if the word isn’t widely used, its key ideas have become part of the everyday political language of recent years. Yet it is strange because it has transformed much of what used to be the normal political landscape of left and right, for whilst Brexitism had captured the political right, it is certainly not confined to it, the influential ‘Blue Labour’ group associated with Maurice Glasman being a prime example. It has also eroded previous distinctions between political and non-political issues: the real significance of the ‘culture wars’ is not that culture has suddenly become contested (it always was), but that it has become imbricated with formal, institutional politics.

Understanding Brexitism is necessary because, contrary to the much-mocked phrase ‘Brexit means Brexit’, Brexit has turned out to mean a whole lot more than Brexit. The Brexitism which Brexit has unleashed is still unfolding, and will continue to shape British politics for years to come. Charting and explaining that will be the central focus of this re-titled blog.