This Week in Brexitland, January 19, 2023
The five types of Brexiters - and how they explain why Brexit is such a mess
One of the things leading Brexiters in the media like to say a lot is that everyone who chose Brexit in the referendum knew exactly what they wanted and what to expect when they voted in 2016. The implication is that everyone who voted for Brexit did so for the exact same reason, which is strange given how many different - and often conflicting - views on what Brexit should be are out there amongst Leavers these days.
I’ve figured out that there are five kinds of Brexiters:
The Sovereignty Nuts
This is sort of the ne plus ultra of being a Brexiter. The other four types I will go on to describe often have members who retreat into being a Sovereignty Nut when the going gets tough because it is the easiest Brexit position to both explain and defend. “I don’t care if we have to eat nothing but sand-infused porridge and drink filthy water for the rest of our lives, or even have to live in a nightmarish dystopia where roving gangs rape and pillage, it was all worth it to be an independent country once again”. I mean, there really isn’t any way to argue against that, other than to say that living in a dystopia for the sake of a principle is not only idiotic, it’s also authoritarian by its very nature. A reasonable interpretation of Orwell’s 1984 is that the Inner Party thinks everyone suffering through an unbearably horrible world is worth it for the sake of ideology. I’m just saying, this way of thinking never leads anywhere particularly good.
It’s important to note that while they can retreat into being a Sovereignty Nut at times when they can’t make a better case for Brexit, most Brexiters are not actually Sovereignty Nuts for real. If you believe in Brexit, you generally feel it will yield something tangibly good for the country at some stage. There also tends to be something that animates most Brexiters beyond simply “Brexit, just because, mate”, which is what the Sovereignty Nut position boils down to in the end.
Having said all that, there is undeniably a small but vicious group of Brexiters who solidly fall into this first category. They insist that whether Brexit was good, bad or cataclysmically awful is complete beside the point and therefore, not even a meaningful topic of debate. As one particular Sovereignty Nut told me recently on Twitter: “Brexit meant leaving the EU organisation. Isn’t that enough?”
Good Points about Sovereignty Nuts: At least they aren’t hypocrites. There is also a certain thing to be said for people who are this devoted to an abstract concept (there is also a lot to be said against people this devoted to an abstract concept).
Bad Points about Sovereignty Nuts: I don’t like the Taliban. I’m going to leave that for you to interpret as you will.
Examples in public life: This is extremely tricky as almost no Brexiter pundits or spokespeople comfortably sit in this category. It’s more your run of the mill, pro-Brexit obsessives on social media who fit in here - but there are thousands and thousands of every-day Brexiters who are solidly in this category and no other, so they are important to recognise. And again, they form the base for all Brexitism.
The Libertarian Trussite Brexiters
These are the people for whom the whole point of Brexit was to be able to break free from the EU in order to have a “bonfire of regulations”, one that would allow Britain to abandon the social democratic model and transform into a libertarian utopia of the kind that would make Ayn Rand explode with delight, were she still alive to witness it all.
The libertarian Brexiters like to talk about turning Britain into “Singapore on Thames”, which has several problems going for it as a plan of action. One is that Singapore isn’t what they seem to think it is, in actuality being a pretty centrally planned and authoritarian state as opposed to the libertarian paradise they seem to imagine. Another problem is that the “Thames” bit appears to imply that they only care about London and no other part of the country, which is probably broadly true but not a great model for building democratic consensus across this country for their bonkers vision.
The other problem with the idea of turning Britain into a libertarian “paradise” is that very few voters in Britain want this to happen and in fact, most would actively vote against it if it was presented to them bullshit-free. This is sort of a pressing issue in a democracy.
With the short-lived premiership of Liz Truss imploding within 44 days, this strain of Brexitism appears on the surface to have run its course. Yet don’t be fooled - the libertarian Brexiters will nibble around the edges and do all they can to keep their dreams alive. Take the Retained EU Law Bill, which is the ghost of Liz Truss coming back to haunt Sunak’s hodge-podge regime. One feels there could be a proper attempt at a libertarian Brexit reformation sometime in future.
Good Points of Libertarian Trussite Brexiters: At least they want Brexit for an actual reason as opposed to just “Sovrentee and we had a vote once upon a time, so blah”.
Bad Points of Libertarian Trussite Brexiters: They want a version of Brexit that will ultimately be popular with about 10 people in London, all of whom work on Tufton Street. Also, they thought Liz Truss was going to be their saviour, so whatever else you can say about them, their judgement in people is obviously flawed in a fundamental sense.
Examples: pretty much everyone who works at the IEA, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Allister Heath, obviously Liz Truss herself.
Lexiteers
The flip side to the Trussites above are those on the left, almost always the hard left, who wanted Brexit because they had long seen the EU as a tool of the evil capitalists, trying to force their single market on everyone, preventing socialism in one country. I sort of get this strain of Brexitism, strangely enough. I mean, they do have a point - if you wanted to turn Britain into Venezuela, Brexit would be a reasonable idea. I suppose my problem with that is I can’t understand why any rational human being would want to turn Britain into Venezuela.
Good things about the Lexiteers: At least their vision for Brexit makes logical sense in that what they hope to achieve will actually be aided by leaving the EU, a rarity amongst plans for Brexit.
Bad things about the Lexiteers: What they want to achieve is insane.
Examples: Mick Lynch, Jeremy Corbyn (at least he was pre-2015 and ? since), Grace Blakeley, more figures from the left than either the left or the right likes to admit.
The RedKIP bunch
These are self-defined conservatives who nonetheless lean left on economics, right on cultural issues. It is tempting to lump this group in with the Lexiteers but they are a very separate group with very different ideas of what Brexit should be from the those on the hard left. For a start, they don’t want “Caracas on the Thames” like the Lexiteers do - they tend to be old school social democratic on economic issues and these attitudes don’t tend to inform why they like Brexit so much anyhow, as the cultural stuff is where their love of Brexit enters the frame.
This is the group that by miles is most likely to say that immigration was a large reason for Brexit happening, and being able to control it better a supposedly distinct advantage to leaving the EU. The Sovereignty Nuts think it was purely about sovereignty and tend to downplay the immigration angle; the libertarians don’t actually care about immigration much and in their heart of hearts kind of like it; the Lexiteers are culturally bent to be pro-immigration, despite the fact that it makes little sense in practical terms considering what they want to achieve. Only the RedKIPers can really let loose on the “Ya Boo sucks to migrants” rhetoric.
Let’s put the difference between Lexiteers and RedKIPers into a timely context: you could identify with 98% accuracy which group any individual falls into by their attitude towards Prince Harry and his wife, as the two groups’ fixed opinions on the matter are the exact opposite of each other.
Good things about the RedKIP bunch: I’ve tried hard to think of one thing and have come up blank.
Bad things about the RedKIP bunch: It’s like they’ve taken the worst arguments for Brexit from every possible political tradition and combined them all into one, big ugly mess.
Examples: Matthew Goodwin, Paul Embery, I’m tempted to say Nigel Farage but he’s so all over the place in his reasoning for Brexit that it’s hard to pin him down to any one category here (although this one may apply to him best).
The arse-covering Brexiters
The fifth and final group of Brexiters are those who privately know that Brexit was an awful idea but for political reasons understand that they must talk about how great it is for now, or least how passable leaving the EU turned out to be for short-term political reasons.
The tell-tale signs are always there. In interviews they talk about how much greater Brexit could be while notably avoiding any specifics for how this could be achieved. This group is growing by the day, as the downsides of Brexit become evermore apparent, acting as a holding room while the political class still needs to pretend there’s life in the old project yet. This is the group to watch as they will be the first to peel away and become Rejoiners.
Good Points about the Arse-Covering Brexiters: At least they are aware of the fact that Brexit is a terrible idea.
Bad Points about the Arse-Covering Brexiters: It would be nice if even a few of them were willing to admit this fact in public.
Examples: the majority of the present Conservative parliamentary party. And if we’re being totally honest here, the vast majority of the Labour parliamentary party as well.
One question some of you will have at this point is: which group does Boris Johnson fall into? That’s a good one. And the answer is: none. His political genius lies in convincing a large portion of people from each of the five groups above bar the Lexiteers that he’s one of them. The Sovereignty Nuts love him because he’s the one who actually got Britain out of the EU. The libertarians have convinced themselves he’s one of them, despite the fact that he ran at the last general election on a platform of expanding the state. The RedKIPers think he’s one of them too, despite him not following through on his big state promises and seeming to hold the libertarians close. A lot of the arse-covering Brexiters on the Tory side like him because at least when he was prime minister, covering for Brexit didn’t seem quite so awkward.
As I say, the Lexiteers are the one group who never liked him, but that only makes sense. They were never going to warm to any Tory, ever, meaning Johnson got as many Brexiters to think he was their saviour as he could, a position that, even after Partygate and everything else, many of them still hold. What can I say - Brexit does strange things to people.
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Already this week, my first couple of paid This Week in Brexitland Extra newsletters have gone out, one of them containing a Nigel Farage anecdote from 2013 that I will now give you a taster of below:
It was September 30, 2013 and I was in Manchester for Conservative Party conference. Nigel Farage was speaking at Town Hall, just outside the secure zone, as he had been banned from attending the actual conference itself. It was an event on – what else would Farage be speaking about in 2013? – the UK leaving the European Union. Bill Cash was also on the panel with Farage.
Sir William Cash is a long-standing Tory MP and could be seen as the grandaddy of right-wing Eurosceptics. If you wanted to write a satire about the Conservative Party, you would be upset with reality for Cash being a part of it already; he’s so perfectly on the nose, it’s amazing he actually exists. He loathes the EU in a way even most Tories who agitated for Brexit don’t come close to matching. Whatever it is that animates his fervent Euroscepticism, pretty much no one currently living has fought longer, harder and louder for Britain to leave the European Union than Bill Cash.
I showed up at Manchester’s Town Hall the day of the Farage-Cash event feeling jaded. I worked at the time for a Westminster NGO that organised events at Lib Dem, Labour and Tory conferences, meaning I went to all three of them. By the time Conservative conference rolled around every year – it’s always sequentially the last one – I usually just wanted to hide under a rock and never think about politics ever again, and 2013 was certainly no exception to this. Yet what I found at the Farage-Cash event was special and perked me up a little. It certainly wasn’t what I had expected beforehand. Used to dry political events attended by an odd assortment of earnest and mostly well-behaved political activists, I walked into the large room in Manchester’s Town Hall to find a sea of angry looking people in purple shirts shouting, ‘Nigel! Nigel! Nigel!’ at the tops of their voices. We live in an age of hyperbole, particularly when talking about politics, but I swear to God I am not exaggerating when I say it felt like a political rally from the 1930s. These people were extremely angry at something or someone and they weren’t prepared to take it quietly any longer. In Farage, they clearly saw a man who was going to save them all from whatever peril was riling them up. The whole thing felt desperately un-British.….
An upgrade gets you the rest of the chapter and of course, every other chapter that follows.
I’m guessing this article, which is excellent, is focused on those Brexiters who either inhabit the political circle eg commentators, think tanks, and politicians, but not the ordinary voters, even though they can inhabit those five spaces as well.
What the country has to actually come to terms with before rejoin becomes an option is that the really, really big elephant in the room, actually the invisible mammoth behind the economical-political pachyderm, is immigration.
Immigration is at the heart of the Brexit issue and covers a wide range of spaces.
1. The ‘Too many people’ space
This is the largest group of general Brexiters. They can be from any class, but are largely middle class. They may be immigrants themselves. They work with immigrants, they buy services from immigrants. They even socialise with immigrants. They used to regularly go on holiday to where the immigrants come from. They have friends who are immigrants. BUT you understand they don’t have a problem with ‘those’ immigrants, its all these others coming over and clogging up our public services. Sucking up Daily Mail tropes, finding that the NHS is becoming harder to access (austerity), that their schools have lots of children of immigrants, seeing local services under pressure (austerity) convinces this group that there are too many people in the UK and something must be done. They don’t necessarily agree with the likes of Farage, but they were convinced by good old booster Boris and his ‘had enough of experts’ sidekick that they could have their cake and eat it. We’ll leave the EU, control our borders but pretty much carry on as before, including our twice a year trips to the sun. (Possibly with our immigrant friends)
2. The ‘immigrants are cheating us’ space.
This is the second largest group of Brexiters. Generally they are either working class, or retired working class. They have much less social contact with immigrants and whilst not actively hostile to, for example an Eastern European living next door, their xenophobia is strong and enhanced by what they see as the economic advantage the immigrants hold over them. Immigrants are taking jobs for ‘less money’. Immigrants are claiming benefits. Immigrants are working for cash thus avoiding tax. Immigrants are thereby influencing the economy against us. This group were highly susceptible to the likes of Farage and bought heavily into the idea that Turkey would join and release a fresh horror upon them. Highly dependent on the NHS they were immediately ready to embrace the message on the side of a bus and border control was a must.
3. The ‘we don’t like immigrants thank you’ space.
This group is almost exclusively retired seventy somethings. They worked (hard) all their lives, and have retired, occasionally comfortably. During their working lives they were not exposed to the EU workers, but the Windrush generation and the Asian corner shop. They were in that generation who didn’t like people of colour, because they were different. They didn’t mix with them, and always checked their change twice when served by one. Now they’re retired they find themselves being cared for by a new set of immigrants. White people, nice, but with funny names who suddenly talk rapidly to a colleague in a strange language. This group have children in the ‘Too many people’ space. This means they have many stories to share about the pressure on local services that mean their grandchildren have to learn about Muslims at school. This generation will also tell you that we didn’t fight a war to be….. If you pushed this group into a corner they would be appalled that you might view them as racist, but the fact is they are, either openly or unconsciously. Again they can be very polite to immigrants, and even welcome those that they personally know as carers or providers. But for this group the vote to leave was a no brainer.
4. The ‘we hate immigrants’ space.
A sizeable minority group, across all classes but mainly working class or unemployed (unemployable). Often male, but with a surprising number of women, this group hate immigrants with a vengeance. Almost exclusively racist, they view people of colour as unequal to white people. They also hold prejudices against other faiths, especially Jews and Muslims. They also hold many of the same views as the ‘immigrants are cheating us’ space. Amazingly they often view EU immigrants as brothers in arms against the ‘great replacement’ myth that they subscribe to. Where they have joined a right wing minority, and often minute, political party they will enthusiastically attend events where speakers from the EU holding the same prejudices are the main attraction. However for this group border control was the very, very top issue that they believed could be resolved only by leaving the EU. Many of them also believed that Brexit would mean all immigrants, even those children of immigrants born here, would have to ‘go home’.
Of course these four spaces I personally see are not exclusive and within each space is a spread of intensity of feeling. People in all of the groups are capable of analysing their views and modifying them in the light of new facts, and altering their stance. However this takes time, and needs understanding and nurture to encourage change. The Brexit disaster is focusing almost exclusively on the economic fall out, and the political struggle within the Tory party. Once that elephant has been properly acknowledged or ‘eaten’ we can then tackle the mammoth behind it.
The high profile Lexiteers also include Claire (baroness to you) Fox, Gisella Stuart, Larry Elliot and Bob Crowe (now deceased but prototype for Lynch). Socialist Worker have been long term enemies of the "Capitalist Club" EU, along with the British Communist Party. And then you have the whole Spiked nexus - who in fact are now probably the main pro Brexit media voice - since so many of the ERG have fallen silent, and the Telegraph are having a bit of a wobble. Influential Lexiteers also include ALL of Corbyn's inner circle - Seamus Milne, Carrie Murphy and Andrew Murray - so it's inconceivable that Corbyn (proteje of Tony Benn) isn't also a Lexiteer ! Worth pointing out that Milne is also an unapologetic Stalinist, whose approval of the 1968 Soviet tank invasion of Prague gives him the nickname "Tankie".