Brexit is one of those topics that people in Britain don't mention in polite conversation. Unless you know you're in safe, like-minded company it's better to avoid it for the sake of your sanity.
This observation makes for a worrying absence in the national discourse. While Brexit is reported in the media, the slant that comes with it is always dependent on which part of the media is reporting on it: those in the media that support Brexit; those against; and those (like the BBC) who painfully sit on the fence, which helps only the status quo i.e. the incumbent Brexit-supporting government. Much of the British media have long lost the ability to be considered a reliable source of information when in comes to matters on the EU (and much else), having their own agendas to plug.
As a result, many people switched off from this discourse a long time ago, tiring of hearing the same repeated mantras by both sides. And who can blame them? Brexit is "boring" for the average person who lacks the time and inclination to follow the technical details. The problem with this, though, is that this indifference from much of the population plays into the hands of those guiding events, leading to a discourse that becomes static, like a record player on repeat. All the evidence shows that Britain has become "stuck" in a frozen political discourse, where all other issues outside of Brexit have become either forgotten, or somehow shoehorned into that narrative.
This "Year Zero" atmosphere of permanent revolution makes Britain seem an unreal place, where the natural laws of physics no longer seem to apply. "Magical thinking" abounds in government on one hand, while blinkered, autocratic talk of "the will of the people" answers any talk of compromise on the other.
Meanwhile, those "remainers" trying to make others see the folly of what the government is doing, and making people change their minds before it's too late, are in a pathology of their own (this author included...?); there are those (mostly younger voters) who are trying to channel their anger at what is happening into something productive, while others seem to have fallen into a kind of forlorn despair about it all. Then there are the those who seem to have given up completely on Britain - stuck in a fog of fatalism - and are either making plans to escape (for the sake of their sanity), or those incapable to doing so, and have psychologically surrendered to the futility of it all, ready to embrace (and prepare for) whatever comes. It has been said that the rates of depression and PTSD in the general population have increased noticeably since the referendum; one can see where the evidence for this comes from if we look at the psychology of "remainers".
Let's look closer at the pathology of both these sides.
Cheery ignorance/ Defensive hostility
"Leavers" seem to have a psychology of their own.
The phrase "swivel-eyed loons" was a famous moniker attached to UKIP voters several years ago, but this "wilder" right-wing segment of the electorate was always around, long before UKIP came to prominence.
Those of the (typically) older generation who adhere to this perspective usually can be described as "nostalgia" obsessives. The nostalgia they have is, at its base level, one for the era of the British Empire. In other words, these people are misty-eyed nationalists who secretly despise how Britain has become "stained" with the races from the former colonies, how women have become full-time workers and have muddled once-clear gender roles, and how homosexuality has become legitimized in wider society. Their distrust for the EU comes from their historical and cultural antipathy to all things "foreign" and all things continental. And, of course, there is "the war".
Their desire to leave the EU comes with a nostalgia for the days when things were simpler, thus leading to a pithy dismissing of the very practical dangers of leaving the EU with "no deal". As they see it, Britain would be more than capable of managing (even thriving) on its own, because that's what happened during the Second World War and so on. The willful ignorance of how completely different Britain is today compared to 1940 is necessary for this astonishing state of delusion. In short, to have this state of mind is to be completely in denial about the reality of Britain and the world in the 21st century.
Meanwhile, apart from those old-fashioned "imperialists" in a pathological state of nostalgia, there are those who are closer to the Libertarian school of thought. These are ideologues who see Brexit not through the lens of nostalgia for the British Empire, but as a method to radically reshape Britain into something unrecognizable. While "imperialists" look back regressively to the past glories of empire, the Libertarian vision is more revolutionary and - superficially, at least - forward-thinking. The problem is that this "vision" is as fantastical as that of the "nostalgics", just in a different way. While some mock the Libertarian post-Brexit vision as "Empire 2.0", a more accurate description would be to to mock it as simply wanting to turn Britain into a US economic satellite; from EU "vassalage" to American "vassalage".
The government's strategy is heavily influenced by outside actors like the IEA and the Legatum Institute, and held hostage by the same hard-right economic agenda of Jacob Rees-Mogg's ERG grouping in parliament. The Libertarian vision they all share is to remake Britain as an socio-economic clone of the USA, and while they claim this would make the country freer than ever before, the reality would be very different: it is about removing wholesale the human rights that many Britons take for granted.
Apart from a hidden desire by many of these people to align Britain with NAFTA, all their talk of "five-star" FTAs outside of the EU is pure fantasy, given the plethora of economic and legal reasons other countries would have against going along with this. At the same time, more "magical thinking" is required to understand how the logistics with more far-flung countries across the ocean are meant to make it more economic than trading freely with the EU as Britain does currently as a member-state. Outside the EU, Britain's only strategic option would then to be closely economically-aligned with the USA, as many of the Libertarians secretly desire.
The authoritarian "defensive hostility" raises its head when their world-view is challenged in the calm light of reason. The nostalgic "imperialists" ignorance stems from being out-of-touch and living in their own historical fantasy world; the Libertarians' ignorance stems from a zealot's ideology blinding them the reality of how the world works, coupled with an arrogance in their own ideas.
Those then raising perfectly reasonable objections to this are seen in the light of Brexiters' own skewed interpretation of the world. Doubters are "doing down the country" while equally, in the minds of Brexiters, they are also siding with the "other side"(i.e. the EU). This hostility and divisiveness in the face of opposition is the talk of those who are unable to defend their ideas rationally, and have to resort to emotion and belief as the core tenets to hold their world-view together. The desire to then close down and ignore talk that contradicts their world-view betrays their innate insecurity, from which their desire to believe in a fantastical vision, unmolested from reality, may come.
In short, the psychology of "leavers" is the one of pathological insecurity. Their desire to either a) recreate the British Empire, or b) transform Britain through ideological revolution, mirrors the pathology of the perpetual "loser" who needs to prove his manhood through actions of bravado: the archetypal "power fantasy". This explains the nostalgia for the glories of the past by some, and the ideological obsession by others with copying the economic model of the American giant across the sea. At the same time, that chronic insecurity manifests itself as autocratic desires and hostile designs on those perceived as being a threat to that "vision". It is this unpleasant pathology that can be seen from Britain's government.
Anger/ Despair/ Fatalism - Remainers' "five stages of grief"
Turning to "remainers", the psychology of this portion of the electorate seems to be in various stages of trauma. As will be expanded on below, this trauma could be seen as a variation on the "five stages of grief".
As mentioned earlier, there is a mixture of anger, despair and fatalism evident. Given that for those "remainers" under fifty, they have no living memory of Britain outside of the EU (or EEC), having rights they have always taken for granted (e.g. the right to freely travel, live and work across Europe) removed from them is bound to be difficult to accept. Especially, given that this comes with all the other uncertainty yet to come thanks to government mismanagement of the whole process (and as Britain has not yet even left!), the sense of bewilderment and disorientation is unsurprising.
The sense of anger is not hard to fathom. The circumstances surrounding the EU referendum were complex, where the plebiscite only came about due to a conflation of David Cameron's whim to decide an internal party issue (Europe) and the exploitation by UKIP of the political landscape after 2010. Europe was a peripheral issue, until it was used as an excuse for the various problems that Britain's governments have inflicted on the country over the years.
The anger since the referendum seems to stems from a combination of loss (of rights, of control), and a feeling of injustice. The injustice many "remainers" seem to feel now appears a role-reversal of the "injustice" that many "leavers" felt prior to the referendum. If the sense of injustice felt by "leavers" was well-placed (or misdirected) is a moot point now; the sense of injustice felt by "remainers" now is real and is based on how the referendum was hijacked by narrow partisan interests (such as the Libertarians), to the detriment of social cohesion. The country is divided into two "cultures", with the opinions of "remainers" feeling ignored and belittled.
The anger has been channeled by some into campaigns, such as by political parties and wider social movements. The problem is that it all seems for nothing. There is no chance of the result being reversed or, even, of some sort of compromise (i.e. a "soft" Brexit). That creates the sense that the country is heading for "no deal", regardless of the cost to the country.
In this situation, if the futility of channeling that anger into campaigning becomes overwhelming, what is the psychological response likely to be? Mirroring the "five stages of grief" mentioned before, some have moved on from anger to "bargaining": after trying initially to turn over the result of the referendum, they have turned to seeking a compromise, where they have tried to work with those ideologues in charge to find a form of "Brexit" that at least takes into account the close nature of the result.
Alas, those attempts at finding a reasonable solution have equally been dashed at every turn, as the hard-right has been able to hijack events in government and the votes in parliament. Those seeking a compromise, after seeing that their anger has been unproductive, sought a rational answer, forgetting that they are against forces that are inherently unreasonable and irrational. So those efforts have equally been in vain.
After anger and "bargaining", we can see the onset of despair and depression in many "remainers". All their efforts are futile; nothing can be done to reverse the referendum, and nothing can be done to lessen the blow. They can see that the country is being led into a path of seeming self-destruction, with the days counting down to "Brexit day" seeming more like the countdown to an oncoming apocalypse.
What can they do? Nothing it seems. Eventually, the fatalism of this leads to one conclusion: to prepare as best they can. If the possibility is there, "remainers" would be wise to make plans to emigrate, at least until things become clearer, and wait for the time when the political situation is more favorable to rational thought. If that option is unavailable, then the best thing would be to prepare as best they can: acceptance of events being out of their hands.
The difficulty here is the sheer uncertainty; no-one as yet knows what the situation will be like, as things are still undecided. While a "no deal" Brexit seems very likely - and many companies are trying to make some kind of plan for this eventuality - the fact that they hope for some kind of more practical outcome tempers those preparations with hope as well as distraction. Also, how can one sensibly prepare for an unknown outcome? It is the uncertainty that breeds yet more anger, daresay leading some back into the whole cycle of "trauma" yet again.
Therefore, we see that on one hand we have events being controlled by "leavers" who are irrational and delusional; and on the other hand we have "remainers", who are at the mercy of events, psychologically traumatized and trying vainly to understand and deal with an unknowable and destructive situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment