Brexit: populism without agency

I've just finished reading Jan-Werner Müller's What is Populism? Not that he needs my endorsement, but it's a great book. Concise, compellingly written and with what I think is an important and useful analytic framework for thinking about how populist movements work. The central theses (or definitions, depending on how you think about them) are threefold. Firstly, populist movements claim exclusive moral representation of 'the people' over and above other parties, political groups, institutions, laws or processes.  Secondly, a particular subset of the population is talked of as if it was the whole population, and those who do not conform to this idea of are not of 'the people'. Thirdly, because populist movements are by nature anti-pluralist and seek hegemonic power, and because they are often rooted in conspiratorial thinking about institutions and rule by law and processes, populist movements should not be viewed as democratic. They undermine the norms and institutions of a society that make democracy work, and are therefore not merely 'illiberal democratic' but 'undemocratic'. 

It isn't much of a leap to apply this to thinking about Brexit, indeed Müller has done so on many occasions himself. Think of Farage's appeal to the idea of the 'real people' who voted Leave on the night of the referendum, the labelling of those criticse Brexit as 'enemies of the people,  or attacks on judges, civil servants and even Parliament itself as thwarting the 'will of the people'.  But I think there is a genuinely interesting and unique (albeit worrying) dynamic to Brexit which makes it different from other populist movements. Typically populist movements seek to establish the hegemonic control of a defined group or party with a leader. It is that group and/or individual which represents the ‘Will of the People’. With Brexit, this is not quite the case. Yes, Brexit has Nigel Farage, but he is nowhere near gaining actual political power. Rather, with Brexit, political legitimacy is driven by the idea of Brexit itself, with the referendum as its foundational myth.  Brexit, not a party, or individual, represents the will of the people. Political legitimacy, at least within the right of British society and politics,  is established by proving not that you represent particular needs or interests, or that what you advocate is in any practical sense a good idea, but that you are a firm believer in the cause and what you advocate represents the true spirit of Brexit. It does not matter, for example, whether membership of the Customs Union is a good idea or not: what matters is whether it is consistent with the principles of leaving the EU.

This, I suspect, is not merely the result of  a conscious effort of committed populists, but the curious circumstances of the referendum and its tensions with parliamentary democracy. There were some individuals, like Farage, who always used this kind of populist language and fundamentally espoused a populist idea of political power and legitimacy. Farage talked about his supporters as if  they were the only authentic members of the population long before they could plausibly be argued to represent the majority of the population. For anti-immigration, ethno-nationalist parties like UKIP this kind of thinking goes hand in hand with a moral justification for their platform. But for some, the overtly  anti-parliament, anti-pluralist bent may have been partially accidental. The reason for this is as simple. The 2016 referendum had no legal status beyond being advisory. Leave won, but without the support of the then government, or the majority of MPs, or any mechanism for these two facts to automatically change. What Brexit was supposed to mean was simultaneously vague, at times contradictory, and also all encompassing. This set up a situation where there was almost certain to be a crisis of political legitimacy. No government could ever deliver the kind of Brexit promised by Vote Leave, and socially liberal MPs could not get on board with Brexit as an all encompassing mandate for social conservatism in any aspect of life even tangentially related to the EU. Two sources of political legitimacy therefore came into conflict: legal and parliamentary legitimacy on the one hand, and the idea of Brexit as the will of the people on the other. Moreover, as long as there was no legal means for those in favour of Brexit to force their desired outcome, and so long as it was possible that Brexit might be abandoned if public opinion changed, Brexiteers could never be confident of their victory. In this context, it made strategic sense for Brexiteers to try and delegitimise parliamentary and legal impediments to Brexit, provided they were ruthless enough to do so. It was, in other words, a curious alliance of committed, outright authoritarian populists and those willing to use their methods in the circumstances they found themselves in.

This is important for thinking about how power in the UK now works, because it means that, unlike a country where a single, normal populist party is dominant, actors actually have remarkably little agency. Political legitimacy is established on the right by proving commitment to an idea, and proving the consistency of what you say with the spirit of that idea. But deviation can quickly result in a loss of authority. Theresa May tried to establish her authority this way (think of the ‘red lines’, the ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ line, or her ‘citizens of nowhere’ speech) but her authority evaporated when the reality of the withdrawal agreement set in. Liam Fox, an arch-Brexiter, was dismissed by fellow Brexit supporters in the Conservative Party as infected by remain sentiment in Cabinet, when he tried to refute the old myth about GATT 24. Even Rees-Mogg found himself having to back-track after briefly indicating support for the Withdrawal Agreement, when he realised his supporters would not go along with his justifications for doing so. And Michael Gove was given a hard time in the Brexit supporting press for arguing in favour of a possible (extremely short) additional extension of Article 50. 

This sets a very dangerous process of radicalisation in progress, of what was already a radical idea. Power and the legitimate exersize of power requires adherence to an idea, with individuals competing to be truest to it. Once this is accepted as the way in which political legitimacy is established, it does not necessarily matter (at least within the Conservative Party) if it is believed to be good or bad anymore. Soviet officials knew that policy had to be sold as true to the spirit of Marxism Leninism long after too many people actually believed in the state ideology. And in the British Conservative Party, it is not clear that anybody would have the agency to do anything differently, even if they wanted to. 

Now, perhaps Johnson will be different. It is possible that as someone who was so clearly the face of the Leave campaign that he will indeed have some authority to shape what happens next. This would in and of itself hardly be reassuring, but I suspect that the debate has become so radicalised and he has so tied himself down in opposition to Withdrawal Agreement, that even he no longer has much control of the process. We do, fortunately, still live in a multiparty democracy, and the popular appeal and perceived legitimacy of Brexit may be waning. Let's hope that's enough. 

Gender differences in attitudes towards Brexit

Since the referendum of June 2016, there has been a huge amount of discussion of the demographic breakdown of the vote and current attitudes towards Brexit. This has not been limited to conversations amongst academics but features significantly in the broadcast and print media. It has been important for internal party debates, particularly within the Labour Party, about which direction the leadership should take, and has also featured heavily in the moral discussion of the referendum, be it talk of the vote of the 'left behinds', the more troubling tendency to paint the leave vote as somehow more authentically of the people, or, on the remain side, the significance of the youth vote.

What's striking is one notable absence: gender. This seems like an odd omission, given the well established trend of populist and nativist movements to be male dominated.  I had the impression that there was a significant difference between men and women in attitudes to Brexit, but could not find much in terms of charts, graphs or metadata to confirm or deny this. I remembered that Yougov has a poll tracker of attitudes towards Brexit, which it normally breaks down its responses by gender. The question posed is "In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU? Respondents can answer either 'right', 'wrong', or 'don't know'. I trawled through the last year's worth of data and produced a weighted mean for each result by gender. As the overall picture of attitudes has been relatively stable over this period (though the lead for 'wrong' has increased slightly), this made sense as a time period for measuring differences in current attitudes by gender, rather than changes in attitude over time. All data is given as percentages, weighted by sample size. They are as follows:

	Right	Wrong	Don't Know
Men	43.7	46.7	9.7
Women	37.5	48.3	14.0

Clearly, women tend to have less positive attitudes towards Brexit. The most significant differences are the lower levels of women who say that Brexit was the 'right' choice, and the higher number who say they do not know. When 'don't know' is removed (though perhaps it shouldn't be) the difference in levels of support for right vs wrong becomes more pronounced. They are as follows:

	Right	Wrong
Men	48.4	51.6
Women	43.7	56.3

For those interested, the raw data used is produced below. I've tried to find every single Yougov poll done in the last year, but there are a couple of omissions, either because I've been unable to find the polling data or because it is not broken down by gender.

Date	Men right	Men wrong	Men DK	Women right	Women wrong	Women DK	Sample Size
23 July 2018 / YouGov	47	43	11	38	49	13	1650
9 August 2018 / YouGov	45	45	10	38	46	16	1036
13 August 2018 / NC	45	44	10	41	46	12	1660
21 August 2018 / YouGov	45	45	10	37	50	13	1697
29 August 2018 / YouGov	45	47	8	39	47	14	1664
4 September 2018 / YouGov	43	48	9	41	47	12	1883
13 September 2018 / YouGov	44	48	8	37	48	15	1620
19 September 2018 / YouGov	45	46	9	36	49	15	2509
1 October 2018 / YouGov	44	47	9	40	46	13	1607
9 October 2018 / YouGov	44	45	12	36	49	15	1647
15 October 2018 / YouGov	43	44	13	41	46	13	1649
23 October 2018 / YouGov	46	45	9	37	48	15	1802
5 November 2018 / YouGov	46	43	11	36	48	16	1637
27 November 2018 / YouGov	44	48	8	39	48	13	1737
4 December 2018 / YouGov	40	50	10	35	48	16	1624
14 December 2018 / YouGov	45	46	9	37	48	14	5043
4 January 2019 / YouGov	43	47	10	37	49	14	25537
7 January 2019 / YouGov	43	46	11	36	51	13	1656
14 January 2019 / YouGov	42	49	9	39	47	14	1701
4 February 2019 / YouGov	43	47	10	36	49	16	1851
23 February 2019 / YouGov	42	47	11	37	48	14	1672
15 March 2019 / YouGov	43	50	7	39	48	14	1823
25 March 2019 / YouGov	43	48	9	38	48	14	2110
3 April 2019 / YouGov	43	47	10	41	46	13	1771
11 April 2019 / YouGov	44	48	8	38	48	13	1843
3 July 2019 / YouGov	45	47	8	37	48	14	1605
17 July 2019 / YouGov	46	45	10	35	50	15	1749
Weighted Mean	43.71562555	46.65833593	9.671929848	37.50304271	48.33015735	14.01256387	73783

* Number Cruncher Politics

The Urge to Purge

As Brexit takes a turn for the even worse, I've come across a number of commentators arguing that 'no deal' may now be the only way to neutralise the appeal of Brexit. Only once the obvious, visibly harmful consequences of Brexit are felt, will public opinion finally shift decisively against Brexit. Perhaps then we might finally be able to undo the damage. I expect most of the time this argument is not meant to be taken too seriously. Perhaps it is just an expression of frustration, or the search for the cloud's silver lining. In any case, the people who make the argument are themselves unlikely to be impact the process anyway. But just in case they are, and the argument is meant seriously, here are three reasons why I would tend to disagree.

1. It is unclear how public opinion will respond to the negative consequences of no deal. It is possible that some leavers will turn against Brexit. But it is also possible that views will harden against the EU, seen to be 'punishing' the UK. Unscrupulous politicians will certainly push this narrative, eager to shift blame away from their own actions. Furthermore, the saliency of Brexit is likely to increase as it becomes even more of a focus of attention, dominating not just news cycles, but every day life. That could serve to increase existing tensions and resentment between 'remainers' and 'leavers', and exacerbate culture war dynamics of blame, demonisation and recrimination.

2. Economic hardship is not good for politics. Periods of low growth and worsening living standards make politics meaner, encourage zero sum thinking, and encourage political actors to look for scapegoats. Indeed, stagnating real incomes and public sector shortages following the financial crisis and austerity may have been significant contributing factors to Brexit. Even if public opinion did shift against Brexit itself, the brand of mean spirited, conspiratorial,  ethnonationist thinking it represents might well get worse.

3. The consequences of no deal may well be irreversible. On the narrow question of EU membership, the UK might only be able to rejoin having left on substantially worse terms. The economic consequences perhaps more so. Both manufacturers and financial services rely on economies of agglomeration. If, for example, a large number of well educated graduates leave or stop coming to London, or the networks of financial and consultancy firms break up in the UK, it might make a lot less sense to locate these institutions in the UK even if a more favourable environment were to return. Periods of job losses and business closures can destroy communities in ways that are never recovered from. What's more, a no deal Brexit could represent the kind of economic, political and institutional shock which fundamentally changes what a country looks like. It could plausibly be a kind of perestroika moment for the UK, with a very different country emerging afterwards, perhaps no longer unified as a single state.

This is, of course, all rather speculative. But given the near certain human cost of no deal, the speculative counter claims of its politically cleansing effect are clearly not worth the cost, particularly since public opinion is already slowly but surely moving in remain's direction. I suspect their real appeal lies less in the belief in the mechanism- that people will change their mind in light of overwhelming evidence - with the all too human appeal of the idea that suffering can offer redemption. Paul Krugman has made this point with austerity, comparing it to medieval doctors who thought that bleeding a patient would bring about recovery. Unfortunately, it could only hasten a patient's demise.

The adversarial model of political reporting

Allison Pearson of the Daily Telegraph’s response to the news that the police had been called to the flat of Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds is a textbook example of how modern political actors respond to scandal. Don’t say anything specific about the event or issue itself, deflect to a discussion about the motivations of those who are reporting it. With any luck, they will take the bait, and insist on their own purity. The discussion then becomes about those motives: in this case whether or not people talking about the incident at Carrie Symmond’s flat are ‘remoaners’ just trying to find dirt on the likely next Prime Minister. Many probably are. But that doesn’t make the point any less valid.

This example however illustrates something wider: a systemic weakness in the adversarial model of political reporting. According to the adversarial model, on politically charged topics, broadcasters will sometimes refrain from presenting ‘the facts’ of an issue, or what they believe to be the correct interpretation of them. Instead, they will invite representatives of the major viewpoints (typically this is simplified to two, in a binary ‘for’ and ‘against’ fashion) to make their case and debate one another. They are the advocates, the viewer is the jury, and the TV anchor will play the limited role of moderator.

There are many obvious problems with this model. Is the viewer able to act as the jury? How do they evaluate the claims made?  There is a huge literature on how these debates can be gamed, the bad consequences of the most effective tactics and their potential for radicalising the viewership. But let’s say for a moment that we thought the adversarial model was a good idea. For it to work, it requires the assumption that politically motivated actors can nonetheless present valid arguments and information. These debates do not have paid barristers, there is no ‘legal aid’ equivalent for BBC Question Time, so of course, typically those involved will have some political motivation. That’s fair enough.  We can’t expect Conservative or Labour MPs to self criticise, so naturally those we would expect criticism and scandals to be dug up by those representing the other side.

The problem is, this kind of motivation is typically used a way of filtering out information from biased sources. This is also, all other things being equal, fair enough. But, put together, this means that participants can simply dismiss points made out of hand by the other side, no matter how valid, simply on the grounds that they are motivated. Perhaps this was not always so. In a less polarised environment, a Labour supporter might conceive of getting valid information by someone trying to represent the Conservatives, or a leaver from a remainer and vice versa. But not today. This means that the structural presupposition behind the adversarial model, that valid information can come from a motivated source, and that the audience accept this, no longer holds. 

One way to try and get around this is to mix in ‘experts’ on non partisan commentators into these debates. But the problem is, these people, by virtue of taking part in a debate, can also be portrayed as biased, as discussed here. And too often, this kind of panelist is pressured into modifying their views so they can be slotted into a binary category. 

This is just one of a long list of problems with the adversarial model of presenting information. But there are merits to it too. But if any argument can be dismissed merely by insinuating bias, political debates lose any value they may have. 

On Sovereignty

The Leave side of the Brexit debate has frequently invoked the idea of national sovereignty as a justification for leaving the EU. The quality of public debate on this topic has been rather poor,but it does raise an interesting question: in an interconnected, increasingly economically integrated world, is national sovereignty a meaningful concept? Arguments in this direction have been one way some have tried to counter the pro-Brexit line on sovereignty. But others have taken a different approach.Tony Yates, for example, argues that EU membership increases sovereignty. I would tend to agree. 'Sovereignty' can indeed be seen as a meaningful concept, but not one outside of the context of mutual dependency and effect.

The comparison with 'freedom' or 'liberty' here I think is illustrative. Philosophers tend to distinguish between negative and positive liberty. Negative liberty merely describes the absence of coercion or interference from others. This might mean coercion from other individuals (e.g slavery, forms of indentured labour, blackmail etc) or from the state (arbitrary imprisonment, restrictions on behaviour etc). Absolute negative liberty is almost certainly unobtainable. Freedom from coercion from other individuals requires the state, which, in order to preserve one set of negative liberties, must impose restrictions on others. Private property, for example, might imply laws against trespassing. Whether this is a good thing or bad, the point is that in this instance we cannot be totally free from state interference in our movement and be free from the interference of others in what is considered our own. Furthermore, the enforcement of such a law entails state coercion in the form of the threat of punishment. 

Positive liberty, on the other hand, refers to the actual ability to do things. This is an important part of any account of freedom, as freedom is not worth much if we cannot do any of the things we actually want to. This, in turn, cannot just refer to an ability to satisfy long term aspirations (happiness in life, fulfilling work etc) but must also include the fulfilment of the more basic conditions of these (adequate food, shelter, health etc). Crucially, none of these are obtainable as atomised individuals. They are all liberties embedded in a functioning, prosperous society, and likely one with a considerable welfare state if these liberties are to be extended to more than a small portion of society. None of this allows for the absolute freedom of the individual. So long as this mutual dependence exists, there is always the possibility that one opportunity will come at the expense of another, or that coordinated efforts cannot purely be achieved by consent. Put more simply, being free cannot mean everybody always getting to do everything they want.

This distinction might well be extended to national sovereignty too. Negative sovereignty would mean that the affairs of a country are not dictated by another. It would mean that a country is not directly occupied, ruled, or controlled de facto by another state. But it would not mean an absence of rules, regulations or laws that prevented dominance or coercion. Indeed, European integration historically served precisely this purpose: to create a European order on the basis of cooperation rather than military dominance. Moreover, it acknowledges the fact that in countless spheres of life, there is simply no way of one state avoiding outside interference. If Northern European states do not have some set of common rules for fishing, there is nothing any individual state can do to prevent the North Sea being depleted. The choice is therefore not between interference and autonomy, but interference and cooperation. Cooperation offers greater sovereignty of a member state in that it allows for the collective setting of rules to prevent coercion and interference. The only useful question is what legal and institutional means are best for achieving the latter.

This mutual dependence of European states gives a corresponding notion of positive sovereignty too. As long as geography dictates that European states will have the greatest opportunities for trade with one another, the prosperity of member states depend on the best conditions for trade.  These in turn might require common rules and regulations. And while might justly ask the value of this prosperity, or look critically at the political economy of economic integration, it is still possible to see this prosperity as sovereignty enhancing. By increasing the capacity for states to generate revenue, they have a greater variety of choices available to them. A more prosperous state has, all other things being equal, greater sovereignty in action. Other aspects of European integration, like freedom of movement and scientific cooperation also do not just widen the choices available to citizens: they empower member states to undertake projects that otherwise would be more difficult to do. And by acting as a block, the so called 'pooling of sovereignty' gives EU member states greater influence and clout in the wider world.

The point here is not primarily to make an argument in favour of European integration or defend the specific institutional arrangements of the European Union. While I do see these favourably, that is a question beyond the scope of this argument. Nor do I wish to say that all instances of European integration increase national sovereignty. The single currency, for example, really does involve significant constrains on the actions of member states, with questionable corresponding gains. Indeed we might even question the value of sovereignty, as opposed to the opportunities, freedom and well being of people, rather than the reified abstraction of the state. But if we are to talk of sovereignty, it is nonetheless worth noting that, like liberty, is not incompatible with mutual dependence, or collective decision making processes. It does not describe a state of autarkic independence from the actions of other states, should not imply the absence of common rules or institutions, and cannot mean the ability for any state to do whatever it wants. 

How Vote Leave turned expertise into evidence of bias

Imagine a group of people, perhaps tending to belong to a particular profession, social stratum, or of a particular political persuasion,  holds a view on an essentially factual (i.e non normative) question you happen to disagree with. You might think one of two things: perhaps they have some privileged access to information you don't, or perhaps something about their situation produces some kind of partial bias. We shouldn't actually view these two things as necessarily mutually exclusive. People with particular political agendas are more likely to spend time uncovering flaws in their opponents, certain positions can generate both animosity and specific knowledge, and sometimes specific knowledge can inform a political outlook. But it does make some sense to look at the motives and biases of information sources, in absence of the time and means to evaluate everything we hear. And  for better or worse, bias and privileged access to information generally are taken as mutually exclusive, such that expertise must be presented as arising from an impartial source.

The problem is, purely in the abstract, uniformity of opinion arising from a political agenda and uniformity of opinion arising from specific information are indistinguishable. During the Brexit referendum, Vote Leave used this to devastating effect. Once it became clear just how overwhelming opposition to Brexit was from exporters, economists, those who work in science and diplomacy etc, the best method of neutralising these criticisms was to claim they were motivated by cognitive biases or special interests. Contrary to expectations this did not mean playing the criticisms down- it actually meant the opposite. Michael Gove's famous remark that people had 'had enough of experts' was about stating defiance, rather than challenging the idea that expert view came to conclusions other than his own. References to the 'apocalyptic' nature of economic forecasts meant (sometimes satirically) exaggerating expert opposition, rather than dismissing it. By stressing precisely the uniformity and scale of expert opinion against Brexit, particularly in economics, as evidence of bias, Vote Leave created a situation where any informed criticism of Brexit could immediately be dismissed. This strategy may well have been improvised and accidental, but it seems to have been quite effective. Indeed, they have continued it to this day. In 2018, when the Treasury released analysis of possible impacts of Brexit, Rees Mogg immediately claimed the figures were manipulated and used the scale of their negativity as evidence of this.  Daniel Hannan, perhaps the most articulate of the prominent Brexit supporters, argued that the very fact that the Treasury analysis continued to show a negative impact of all Brexit scenarios was proof of bias too.

This is not to claim that this strategy is entirely effective or unchallengeable. But the internal dynamics amongst supporters can be very dangerous indeed. It means those committed to Brexit are effectively hermetically sealed from unfavourable information. This goes some way to explaining the lunacy of the Conservative leadership content.