Remain to Resent: How Brexit Changed Populism
Ally Freishmidt
The June 2016 Brexit referendum was over 8 years ago, our departure from the European Union almost 5. The effects of the stone-throwing Remain and Leave campaigns have left our political sphere in pieces, both privately and publicly; broken plates, democratic backsliding, wine thrown across the table at Christmas, five acts that have restricted our rights to democratically protest. I don’t just mean damage from the metaphorical stones cast by Cameron and Gove — or the ones not cast at all by Corbyn. I refer to the literal stones cast, by anti-immigration protestors who direct their attacks and resentment in misguided directions, often skimming their own feet in the process
The Conservative Party’s preoccupation with carrying out coups instead of working towards a worthwhile exit deal whilst the NHS steadily drowns and the cost of living rockets up, combined with a weak left opposition and a self-indulgent media force has paved the path to a Post-Brexit populism that lauds charisma over substance and rhetoric over truth. A populism that falsely dichotomises the working-class against immigrants and has created an eerie political and social landscape which must be navigated so carefully that it leaves no time or space for nuance.
Populism is Practical
Populism is a practical approach to politics rooted in divisive strategy and rhetoric: “us” vs. “them”. Specifically, “the people” and “the elite”. The populist wears the cape of the people, they are the only one fighting for us — and for this reason the elite establishment is out to get them for daring to be nonconforming, and us for achieving a watered down class consciousness by recognising this division. In essence, the populist is the underdog.
“As evident in 1975, those divisions can and should be relatively civil. 2016 demonstrates that civility and respect for our democratic structures should not be taken for granted. Clearly there were other darker forces lurking in Westminster in 2016.”
In 2019, whilst campaigning for the Brexit party, Nigel Farage accused the Labour and Conservative parties of “trying to build a coalition of the politicians against the people”. This is the rhetoric that resonates with people, it gives them an enemy, and most importantly for Farage, it distracts them from his hypocrisy. Whilst those like Farage manipulate pre-existing divides, ethnicity, class, sexuality, what evidence is there that he is not part of that elite?
After working well for Brexiteers, populism has become a permanent fixture of British politics, bringing with it affective polarisation: a specific emotional kind of polarisation, based on believing in an ‘in-group’ and an ‘out-group’, and that the out-group will undermine democracy to get their way. This affective polarisation is building resentment across our increasingly fragile political sphere.
1975: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, but it Often Rhymes
The 2016 referendum was Britain’s second national referendum on whether to remain committed to a united Europe. In 1975, 67% of the population voted to remain a part of the European Economic Community, which later became the EU. The fallout of the 1975 referendum was entirely different to the more recent one. Perhaps because the result was more decisive with a two-thirds majority. Perhaps because remaining in the EEC did not reveal a rather embarrassing absence of a plan to leave it. We know that after that vote the country did not, with immediate fervour, become overrun with an explosive and accusatory environment.
Although the Prime Minister Harold Wilson himself and most of his cabinet supported the Yes vote, as the governing party in 1975 Labour did not take an official position on the referendum — could this be the secret to a free and fair referendum, where results are respected and politics can carry on as it were? Well, the Conservatives did the same in 2016, but the lack of an official stance is part of what led to more in fighting and cronyism than ever before. In ’75, Wilson actually managed to unite to Labour party, albeit briefly, over Europe.
There are so many other similarities between the two referendums. 1975 even had it’s very own far-right, ethnonationalist, populist figure to muscle into the debate: however, Enoch Powell’s suggestion that the referendum result was a betrayal of British sovereignty by the government did not kickstart a new age of gross hostility and political violence, despite Powell having his fair share of support across Britain.
Divides are normal in a society, friction and debate is what allows us to grow and evolve. But as evident in 1975, those divisions can and should be relatively civil. 2016 demonstrates that civility and respect for our democratic structures should not be taken for granted. Clearly there were other darker forces lurking in Westminster in 2016.
BoJo’s Rise
Usually in a referendum, the governing party will take a unified stand for one option, and the official opposition would campaign for the other, but campaigns during the spring of 2016 strayed from this norm. David Cameron expected the country to vote to remain. This decision was and still is met with confusion; why call a referendum on whether to make an enormous and irreversible change if you don’t want it to happen? His intention was to put down the rampant Eurosceptics in the party like rabid dogs, setting a mandate and ending the debate.
Cameron immediately resigned after the results came in, and who would replace him became a key issue: 24 out of 30 cabinet members were Remainers. It would have made logical sense for his replacement to be someone who supported and believed in Brexit, someone who understood the benefits and the intricacies of the international relations involved. Unfortunately, neither Michael Gove nor Boris Johnson had thought that far ahead when campaigning for Vote Leave.
After five years of divisive Brexit dialogue, the public was frustrated by the dullness and perceived ineptitude of government. After two years of Theresa May’s lacklustre deal passing efforts, it is no surprise Johnson secured a landslide internal victory against Jeremy Hunt and finally settled into power. A shadow within, Johnson spent little time making political relationships in Westminister. Rather, he was busy turning himself into a public spectacle — a national, relatable figure brandished regularly across the DailyMail, trapped on ziplines, making bold claims about leaving the EU, flouting his privately educated charm. Brexit allowed him to work towards his own poorly veiled agenda, which had nothing to do with what was best for the country, rather it was about his own image and status.
In Johnson’s new tell all, in which he tells all of the things he had curiously forgotten to tell at the Covid inquiry, he states that they “had no plan for government, no plan for negotiations, because it was not our job,” he explains generously, “and in so far as the next few days were chaotic, which they were, it is utterly infuriating that we should be blamed”.
In just three years as Prime Minister, he quietly proceeded to put forth bills, policy, and internal mechanisms to erode many of the democratic functions and individual rights we take for granted. One of the most controversial of his bills was the Elections Act 2022, giving the government power with the Electoral Commission. Previously a crucially independent commission, their purview includes campaign finance rules, an issue becoming more salient as we watch politicians affiliated with international donors or even on their payrolls argue for tighter borders.
British democracy is strung together by three heavily interdependent yet independent branches: Government, Parliament, Judiciary. Johnson successfully undermined all three, either in precedence or legislatively. After failing to prorogue Parliament in 2019 he brought forth the Interpretation Bill, which would have let him and other government ministers strike out Judicial Review findings they might conveniently have disagreed with. Judicial Review is a process which keeps the government held to account, the reforms would have seriously undermined the courts function of scrutiny.
Labour, notwithstanding, also experienced a crippling lack of unity, with most supporters believing that Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition, was not strong enough on Remain. Corbyn has a history of Euroscepticism and has previously voted against getting cosier with the EU, but not so much out of a dedication to sovereignty and a laissez-faire economy, but more so as an anti-capitalist, hard leftist. Corbyn’s wavering opinion was obvious during the referendum, and he flip-flopped from declaring that the Labour party would respect the result, to pledging a second referendum if they won the general election; this phantom referendum, curiously, they would never take a stance on.
Brexit set the precedent that a politician’s goal is to grab attention and assign blame, else they are incompetent and non-directed. Standing for meaning and change is not enough. Britain has been free from Tory rule for just over six months, and Keir Starmer is learning the limits of the population’s ever shrinking patience the hard way. Prior to the July 2024 general election, he was touted as the centrist so badly needed to bring balance back to the party after Corbyn, whom Johnson once compared to Joseph Stalin. Labour pledged some radical changes whilst in opposition, but so far Starmer’s compromises as a centrist trying to appease a nation so divided, ideologically and emotionally, has resulted in angering everybody. After some significant legislation and an autumn budget, we are yet to feel any difference of a Labour government in daily life. If Starmerism doesn’t move to include standing up to the far-right rather than half-heartedly ignoring them, the public will soon lose their trust in the establishment once again, which will only benefit populists.
Party cohesion, or lack thereof, is a significant driving factor in setting the foundation for a growth in affective polarization. The Conservative and Labour parties’ divided approach to Brexit led to the fall of the establishment status quo, both in approaches to the referendum and party leadership, which allows Brexit based characters to propagate their growth in full force — divisive, populistic internal actors (Johnson, Patel, Truss). The government’s neck is exposed to more concerning external actors like Farage, who don’t tend to pass up those opportunities. See the more recent Reform party, and the quick progress it’s made in disrupting what remains in British politics.
Populism is Corrosive… Not Just to the Government
The populist’s definition of the elite establishment includes the media, who are either with them or against them. There is no such thing as impartial journalism to the populist, and the media picked up on Vote Leave’s more controversial claims. Right wing sources gave them space and validation, whilst the typically unbiased source the BBC reported them as misleading, and the left wing Guardian reported them as “wrong”. On the surface, the latter is apt journalism that attempts to level the playing field. However, fact checking from the left benefits both the Brexiteers and the populist’s rhetoric: if they are proven correct, they’re exposing the truth the evil cabal is hiding, and if they are proven wrong, it paints them as the underdogs who are under unjust attack from the establishment.
A polarised media force is incredibly dangerous, creating an echo chamber effect which drives negative campaigning and misperceptions; ranging from relatively harmless lies in the DailyMail about policies banning Shakespeare in school, to much more dangerous ones about the ‘out-group’ directly threatening democracy, willing to undermine it to get ahead. The latter kind of misperceptions are the ones that lead to political violence, like the January 6th Capitol riot in the U.S, and the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox a week before the Brexit vote took place.
Negative Campaigning has Always Existed in Britain, We Are a Famously Pessimistic Nation
During the 1997 general election campaigns, the Conservative government released a disturbing looking campaign poster that showed Tony Blair, leader of the Labour party, with Patrick Bateman-glazed, glowing red eyes — it was titled “New Labour New Danger”. The text on the poster also implied that Blair was some kind of demonic entity. Since then, negative campaigning has evolved into a much more subtle and effective way of spreading lies.
During Brexit campaigning, Vote Leave released ads using an algorithm to target people based on factors including their age and where they live. These ads claimed that the UK would receive millions of immigrants every year from Turkey, and that it would threaten the safety of UK citizens. It offers a scapegoat to blame and feel anger towards for the very real problems Britons face: rising costs of food, tuition, bills, housing. It creates misperception. In reality, Turkey was and still is a long way off joining the EU, and Vote Leave spread figures that were debunked by media sources and government departments. The argument that the criminality of Turkish citizens would endanger the UK intended to stoke prejudice, scare the public, and pander to extremists. These are the exact kinds of misperceptions that make people think the out-group, in this case the Remainers, are dedicated to undermining democracy and liberty, ultimately driving up affective polarization.
Referendums and elections do not necessitate cutting off family members who’ve become lost in the paranoia of the echo chamber. But Brexit did, because ideologically polarised elites took advantage of an already divided nation. To alleviate Britain’s resentment, we have to tackle the root of the problem and do away with the incentives for the populist to exploit divides.
The Populist Relies on Distraction
Boris Johnson campaigned so passionately for Vote Leave because he didn’t care about what happened after, only about being a successful ‘disrupter’. Distraction on a national scale, to achieve something that the government is overwhelmingly against, requires outlandish figures with loud voices. Deal or no deal, he was safe as part of the elite.
Loud and outlandish populists lead to outlandish and extreme beliefs, which in turn leads to extreme and radical actions and policies. The problem became immigrants instead of financial mismanagement and corruption. The problem became sovereignty instead of ethnonationalism and domestic power-grabbing. The anti-immigration mindset that Vote Leave promoted into mainstream politics manifested years later in Johnson’s Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the subsequent Rwanda policy, and 2024 riots against refugees. Since being out of power, top Tories are criticising their own record on immigration as being far too generous and liberal.