How British was the Brexit Vote?
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Description
Understandably, the Brexit debate moved quickly from an initial quest to identify causes of discontent and errors of policy and strategy to focus on the mechanics and the terms of exit as well as on the likely terms of future UK engagement with the EU. But an understanding of the causes of Brexit continues to be of central importance, both for intrinsic reasons as well as for the practical purpose of considering what kind of response, or reform, on the part of the EU—and just as importantly on the part of the UK—may be appropriate. An appreciation of the distinctive and local features of the vote as a reflection of the UK’s relationship with the EU, as well as the features that it seems to share with current developments across other democracies worldwide, is therefore worth seeking. Hence this contribution steps back again from the immediacy of the current issues to reflect on the extent to which the vote should be understood primarily as a British decision, caused by persistent concerns and long-standing sentiment within the UK body politic, as well as interrogating more closely the role played by the ‘populist wave’ sweeping much of the Western world. A dominant focus in the aftermath of the referendum has been on analysing and situating the Brexit vote as an integral part of a wider set of political developments across the globe, namely the rise in nationalist sentiment and illiberal authoritarianism, and the backlash against the perceived consequences of economic globalisation and migration, somewhat neglecting the distinctive relationship the UK has had with the EU. Much of the commentary has also emphasised the similarities between the impetus for the Brexit vote and the forces that propelled Donald Trump to electoral victory in the US. The two events have been grouped together as populist political events which expressed and reflected (i) a reaction against immigration, (ii) concern about economic insecurity, (iii) a rejection of internationalism and transnationalism, (iv) a return to inward-looking (economic) nationalism and (v) a rise in authoritarian and illiberal sentiment. This approach to understanding and explaining Brexit stresses the similarities between the issues that were salient during the Brexit campaign and which seem to have animated the vote to leave the EU and those that are fuelling political developments within other democracies, not only in the US election but also across much of Europe at present.
Source Publication
Brexit and Beyond: Rethinking the Futures of Europe
Source Editors/Authors
Benjamin Martill, Uta Staiger
Publication Date
2018
Recommended Citation
de Búrca, Gráinne, "How British was the Brexit Vote?" (2018). Faculty Chapters. 337.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/337
