As James O'Brien observes, one of the many
oddities about Brexit is its proponents more or less categorically refuse to
define its meaning clearly in anything other than negative terms. Indeed he
argues (I think correctly) that the ERG's eventual movement to favouring 'no
deal' is the ultimate expression of a desire to avoid any concrete policy
proposals.
How did we get here? The ignorance of leading
Brexiteers of the key issues is well known, and surely part of the story. This
is at times even celebrated as either a virtue, or proof of argument. This clip
of two well-known Brexiteers is a recent example. In it, Kate Hoey claims that
her own ignorance of the EU is an argument for Brexit, while David Davis implies
in his remarks that his ignorance
some kind of proof of authenticity and ultimately authority. These particular
individuals are by no means alone in making this kind of argument.
This has frequently been compared to other
right wing populist movements, and not without reason. Ian Dunt, a commentator
I have a lot of time for, argues here that this is the key analogue between
Brexit and Trumpism. This comparison amongst other things also helps make
sense of the anti-elite rhetoric behind right wing populists. If the term elite
is more about education and profession than wealth or power, then it makes
sense that the leaders of these movements could be wealthy individuals whose explicit
appeal is lacking any particular expertise. It equally makes sense that this would
go hand in hand with a rejection of institutional rationality and the rule of
law and the desire to replace these with common sense action. A movement of this sort would unsurprisingly not be too keen on content.
But beyond this, I think there are specific
reasons why Brexit is liable this kind of content vacuity. As has been
frequently observed, this is partly due to the way the referendum was set up. The
referendum was advisory, and the absence of any legal requirement for
implementation meant nobody had to define what implementing it meant. Indeed
Vote Leave made it a strategy to exploit this flaw. As Tony Yates writes here, there
were inherent tensions in Brexit supporters as a group, some favouring Brexit
for the sake of deregulation, some favouring national isolation.
Crucially, the nature of the question itself
allowed for this ambiguity. Taken literally, ‘leaving the EU’ means leaving an
institutional and legal structure for upholding various arrangements and
treaties. Since it is always possible to imagine a different institutional and
legal structure doing analogous things, it is always strictly logically
possible to advocate Brexit without opposing any specific function of the EU.
So whenever a proponent of Brexit wishes to dismiss a possible consequence of
leaving, there is always the retort that such a consequence can be avoided by
setting up a (typically unspecified) method of achieving the same result. Of
course, this should not be a very convincing kind of argument (why leave then?
Shouldn’t the case for Brexit then be about the efficacy of the legal
mechanism, not the principle? How is this reconcilable with any of the
objectives of Brexit, which do presuppose substantial change?), but the
inherent problems in the argument are too difficult to pick apart in short TV
exchanges.
If this idea seems a little abstract, imagine
the following analogy. A future British government decides to hold a referendum
on withdrawing from NATO. The campaign supporting withdrawal talks about
supposed infringements on sovereignty of the 2% defence target, mutual defence
etc, but whenever they are pressed on the risks of leaving these concerns are
batted away. “We could easily have mutual defence pacts outside of
NATO with other NATO members. And why would those members be so irrational as
to refuse our offer? They seem to want our cooperation now.”
This is one of the fundamental problems with
discussions about Brexit. It is unclear whether what is being discussed is the
actual content of arrangements between Britain and the rest of the EU, or the
enforcement mechanisms behind those arrangements. Either are, at least in the
abstract, possible to discuss. But it is not possible to have a discussion
about Brexit as a course of action unless it is clear which of the two it is
about. The philosopher John Searle argued that a large part of social and political
reality is ontologically subjective. It exists in the way it does because it is
collectively held as doing so. Bits of paper with pictures of the queen are
money because we all hold them to be. What we have here is a large scale case
of an aspect of social reality with conflicting ideas not just about what it
means, but on a very basic level what kind of a concept we are dealing with. It
is unsurprising that such a conflict should generate so much chaos, though
there are plenty of other reasons for that too.
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