A comedy of errors?

Keith Archer is concerned about some consequences of Brexit

Was the decision the country made on 23 June for Brexit a mistake? From the look on Boris Johnson’s face when the result was announced that could have been what he thought. And though these are still very early days, there are signs that the economic warnings from the Remain campaign were not so much ‘scaremongering’ as serious and plausible predictions. Many indicators are negative, some jobs have already been lost and a number of investment decisions are on hold.

Though many people say it is worth accepting temporary problems for the sake of ‘taking back control’, those brave visions of ‘broad, sunlit uplands’ still look a long way off. Our economy may break free from Brussels, but it will still be in the hands of foreign investors. Brexit will do nothing to stem the flow of refugees, and it appears that the numbers of EU migrants cannot be reduced drastically without ruinous results. These are still early days; but one result of Brexit has been that a wave of anti-foreigner feeling has been unleashed, and many people, both from the EU and outside it, no longer feel safe here. Is this what we really wanted?

A deeper error

As must be obvious, I voted Remain. So, if things turn out as I fear they may, I can at least claim that it wasn’t my fault. But Brexit has revealed another, deeper error, and for this I, and people like me, cannot shrug off the blame.

It shows up in gaps in the way people voted. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted Remain, while England and Wales voted Leave – which makes the UK look like a disUnited Kingdom. But what disturbed me more were the gaps that were revealed in England. One was between generations: up to age forty-four the majority were for Remain, while those aged forty-five and over wanted to Leave. The other was a yawning gap between social classes. What some call the ‘liberal intelligentsia’ – London and cities with universities voted Remain, while the ‘working class’ in the North of England, the Midlands and the South-West voted for Leave. Clearly, it’s not just the ‘Westminster bubble’ that is out of touch.

This disturbs me personally. I was brought up in a working-class home in the Midlands. My dad worked on the production line in a car factory. But I was educated into the ways of my social betters, and it grieves me now to find that such a wide gulf cuts me off from my origins. It should disturb Quakers, too. One reason why I, a latecomer, feel so at home among them is that so many are as much part of that remote, liberal intelligentsia as I am.

Distant echoes

Much more important than my feelings, though, are the possible political consequences this gap. It has made possible the rise of populist movements and the disregard of ‘experts’ that played such a part in the Brexit campaign. In 2006 David Cameron dismissed UKIP as ‘a bunch of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’, but on 24 June Nigel Farage proclaimed Britain’s ‘independence day’.

History never really repeats itself, but I hear distant echoes here of the rise of the Nazi party in the 1920s and 30s. I am not saying UKIP and Brexit are the same as Nazism, or that anything like Nazism is likely to emerge as a real force in Britain today. Germany in those years was much more fraught than anything we have seen here. But one loose skein in the unravelling of the Weimar Republic was the gap between the liberal intelligentsia and the working class. There may be trouble ahead, particularly if Brexit Britain fails to deliver on the extravagant claims made on its behalf in the referendum campaign.

The rise of populism

But this error is not just ours. Right-wing parties are on the up all over Europe. Most have at least some power – in their national parliaments, in Brussels, or both. All are anti-establishment, populist, nationalist and anti-immigration; some are specifically anti-Islam. Paweł Świeboda, who has established a reputation for his informed writing about European integration and international affairs, once observed in a blog:

‘The causes of populism are often different depending on the country. However, populism is always a reaction to the loss of control over one’s future. It is about weariness with globalisation and neoliberal capitalism, rejection of technocratic and anonymous complexity of policy-making, and angst with the mismanagement of mass migration.’

Snapping at the heels of the more moderate right-wing parties are often openly neo-Nazi groups, but my fear is not a return to swastikas and jackboots. It is that as country after country turns inwards, the solidarity carefully nurtured through the growth of the EU could disappear. Solidarity and the structures that support it have helped keep the peace in Europe for the last half-century, and we could find ourselves facing an unstable world without them.

Comedy or tragedy?

In the 1920s and 30s Germany was humiliated and resentful, Europe lacked unity and the US looked inwards. Today, the Middle East is in flames, Russia feels humiliated and resentful, and Donald Trump wants to build walls. Now is not the time to undermine European solidarity as well.

If there are so many errors, how can I speak of a comedy of errors? (Forgive me, Will, for taking the name of your play in vain.) Might it not be better described as a tragedy?

A colleague once told me how a middle-aged mum in one of the country’s most notorious ghettos said: ‘It’s terrible here – but you’ve got to laugh!’

Think about it. Jesus could have said almost the same thing.

Further information: www.socialeurope.eu/2015/01/will-populism-europe/

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