It could be argued that the seeds of Brexit go back five hundred years.
British Euroscepticism is an old creed which has usually been a mask for English Nationalism, of one sort or another. But at its heart is a paranoia against Europe, and a particular conspiracy theory that centres on an all-powerful, trans-national ("papist") elite.
The paranoiac, Eurosceptic conspiracy theorists of today (i.e. the zealot "Brexiteers") seem to echo with the same kind of dark delusions as those of 16th and 17th century England. The same could well be said of the ancient roots of modern Anti-Semitism, but that's another story.
The Reformation of Martin Luther five hundred years ago was in many ways about "taking back control" from a over-mighty, corrupt and centralizing elite, based in Rome. This movement also crossed the channel to England. It was the personal whims of Henry VIII rather than Martin Luther that eventually brought about the "English Reformation", and he came to see the power of the papacy in England as a direct threat to his own. One direct result of this was the dissolution of the monasteries, an act of barbarous, monarchical thievery masked behind faith. The febrile atmosphere in the country led to Protestant paranoia against Rome and its ally, Hapsburg Spain, and by the reign of Elizabeth, war.
By the time the Stuart kings came to the throne in the first half of the 17th century, Protestant paranoia had to be tamed. "Splendid Isolation" was also self-destructive. This resulted in a more nuanced and pragmatic approach by the Stuarts towards Catholic Spain and the "Papist" threat; it was a period of English "detente" towards Europe, where relations were improved and connections made. This went so far as leaving some English Protestants into thinking that James, and Charles in particular, were Papists in all but name. Their autocratic actions also fed the view that the Stuart kings were behaving far more like the Papist autocrats on the Continent than the more consensual rulers they had been led to believe in (regardless of the past reality of Henry VIII's reign).
It was this atmosphere of Protestant paranoia over a "Papist", foreign-minded king that led to the English Civil War. The king's forces, the Cavaliers, were seen as foppish, condescending autocrats, while parliament's forces, the Roundheads, were portrayed as sober-minded reformers. The resulting "Commonwealth" of the victorious Roundheads, however, rapidly turned into a virtual Puritan revolution. While the purpose of the Civil war was the restoration of parliament, it actually turned into the autocracy of Oliver Cromwell and his fellow Puritan Protestants where parliament was sidelined; a hard-line faction of parliament had taken control of the country and hijacked its fate. In the end, this situation couldn't last, and we had the Restoration not long after Cromwell's death.
The "new Puritanism"?
We seem to be repeating a variation on the same story centuries later.
Four hundred years ago, while Protestants in England were becoming fed up with James' indulgence of Hapsburg Spain, the seeds were also sown for the Thirty Years' War. This saw Hapsburg (and fellow-Papist) Austria fight against Protestants across the Holy Roman Empire. This Protestant "insurgency" against a centralizing autocracy devastated the heart of Europe.
Ironically, the Hapsburgs also had a part to play in Europe's coming-together after the Second World War. The Treaty Of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War and created a peace in Europe that lasted for generations; The Treaty of Rome created the framework for European peace and co-operation after the Second World war.
The Eurosceptics of today wouldn't have missed the historical irony (or implicit symbolism) of the framework for a centralised, European administration being signed in Rome. For the paranoid conspiracy theorists, the whole thing reeked of centuries-old autocratic "Papism", re-imagined in a modern setting. For the paranoid conspiracy theorists, Hapsburg hands even seemed be on the choice of Brussels (and Strasbourg) as its administrative centres; both cities that once were at the heart of "Papist" Austrian and Spanish Hapsburg lands. Belgium is still staunchly Catholic. Eurosceptics' paranoia that the European Union was simply a reconstituted Holy Roman Empire assailed against "democratizing" Protestantism would have been undimmed.
My point is not to argue if these ideas are based in fact (and regardless of any wider symbolism, European integration is a well-established fact); it is that these ideas have been used by paranoid Eurosceptics for the purpose of their own agenda. That agenda seems to be a form of economic and ideological "Puritanism": a kind of 21st century "Commonwealth", with all the potential upheaval that entails.
As with Protestants' suspicion of the allegiance of the Stuart kings of four hundred years ago, Eurosceptics of today would have had their paranoia fueled by the administrations of Blair and Cameron, who were both innately Euro-phile (and ironically, like James and Charles Stuart, both of Scottish stock). Like how Protestants of four hundred years ago would have yearned back to the times of the staunch Protestantism of Elizabeth, today's Eurosceptics yearn back to the certainties of the Thatcher era; another strong woman, they would say, who did not shy from battling Europe.
Like King James, Blair's fate seems to have been to repair relations with Europe, strained after years of quasi-isolation. He otherwise left a long legacy of mixed fortunes during his time in power. James's successor, Charles, took James' autocratic tendency even further, but with far less tact.
Cameron's political fate as the "heir to Blair", in a manner of speaking, also seemed to have gone the way of Charles'. Some of the historical parallels are striking. Foppish and condescending like Charles, Cameron's career at the top was a series of misjudgments. It was trouble with Scotland that started Charles' troubles with parliament in England; after recklessly thinking he had solved the trouble north of the border, Charles thought his troubles with parliament would as easily be solved. They were not, and neither were his troubles with Scotland. The same could be said of Cameron, when his "victory" over the Scottish referendum led him to think he could as easily solve the problem his own faction had with Europe. By acting in a condescending way towards his enemies and behaving like a reckless autocrat, Cameron's fate came to a messy political end.
After being defeated by the "Puritanical" Eurosceptic faction, Cameron was succeeded by Theresa May. The daughter of a vicar, she seemed to match the Brexit Puritans' demeanor for a mean-spirited, petty-minded form of government. In allowing a hostile political environment for the Eurosceptics' paranoia to grow unchecked, she seems to be continuing this inadvertent "reprise" of the mid-17th century narrative: as a female Cromwell, symbolic head of the Puritan "Brexit" revolution that sought to seek out and destroy the remaining vestiges of "Papist" Pro-Europeanism. For these modern Puritans, "Hard Brexit" is their version of the rapture, with their foreign-minded "Papist" enemies rightly deserving of their fate in the rhetorical flames.
The "Brexiteers" of today share the same paranoia towards the continent that the Protestant Puritans had four hundred years ago. The themes are the same, even if the European institutions they attack are different; once it was Rome that was the enemy, while now it is Brussels. As mentioned earlier, the sharper-eyed (and more conspiratorial) Eurosceptics may point to the symbolic "Papist connection" between Brussels and Rome.
Four hundred years ago, the Puritans' allies in Europe were to be found in the Lutheran states of Northern Europe, as they allied against Rome and its Hapsburg allies in Spain and Austria. Today, the "Brexiteers" find their allies in the Populist anti-European movements. These are ideological descendants to the anti-clerical Lutherans that fought against a centralizing Rome, except now their "centralizing" enemies are based in Brussels, with the support of Berlin and Paris.
This is the narrative that has overtaken Britain's politics. These are the "culture wars" that have been fought in the minds of Britain's population, on behalf of a "Puritan" Brexit agenda. The new "English Civil War" has already been fought in the form of the EU referendum: to continue the analogy, the foppish Pro-European "Cavaliers" lost, and the stern-minded Eurosceptic "Roundheads" won.
For the Brexit "Puritans", a new "Commonwealth" beckons; though what it means for everyone else, only time will tell.
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