My Brexit, ten years on

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the UK’s vote to leave to EU. I, for one, shall not forget this period quickly. Convinced of the error of leaving the EU, I volunteered for Wales Stronger in Europe (WSE), the Welsh affiliate of Britain Stronger in Europe (BSE). From as early as February 2016, I hit the Cardiff streets and spread the Remain gospel.

WSE had a more fortunate acronym than its British parent, yet its operations were equally chaotic. Cursed with a skeletal staff, WSE relied on its volunteers to an inappropriate degree; at one point, my retired mother was, with another volunteer, effectively running its West Walian operation. It also had few volunteers; to my bemusement, the Welsh parties were much more concerned with the 2016 Welsh elections than the referendum.

Our complacence would become famous. Like most Remainers, I was convinced that we would win comfortably, right until the last day of the campaign. In hindsight, there were signs that it would not be so easy. I was active in affluent Cardiff and Llandeilo, insulating me from the kinds of voters who would rebel, yet the better organization and determination of Vote Leave was even apparent in well-to-do Wales. One Saturday morning, I (a mere volunteer) was tasked with taking Neil Kinnock on a leafleting operation in Cardiff Bay. The office told me that they had organized everything, yet just two of us WSE activists came to meet the former Labour leader. Contrastingly, a team of five smartly dressed Vote Leave volunteers turned up to heckle Kinnock. Needless to say, the morning was a disaster.

I took the result badly. On the morning of 24^th June, I wept and, in the weeks following the referendum, my thoughts scarcely became more coherent. Not only was my anticipation of the economic effects very wide of the mark – I predicted on Facebook that unemployment would be 10% by the autumn - but I was convinced that we had experienced a profoundly authoritarian event. Speaking to a Polish friend a few weeks after the result, I told him that I now knew how Poles had felt watching General Jaruzelski declare martial law.

Some kept cooler heads. During the campaign, the leading EU expert Simon Hix predicted that Brexit would make Britain ‘somewhat freer and somewhat poorer’ and, overall, this has aged well. Of course, the economy was the central plank of the Remain campaign. Speaking with the public, we had limited time and tended to concentrate on the economic message. If I recall correctly, leaders at a WSE event for regional organizers suggested that we focus on this. Was this project fear? Certainly, many of our warnings were wildly inaccurate and, despite having researched and taught about the EU (!), I could not resist making them.

Nonetheless, Brexit undeniably impacted the UK economy. Researchers have undertaken numerous studies of its effects and find a negative economic impact in areas such as trade, investment and productivity. Given that the vast majority of economists predicted such an outcome, we should not be surprised.

Then again, many Brexit supporters conceded the economic argument. After all, economic growth should not be the sole preoccupation of a political community and, more than anyone, left-wingers should understand this. Rather, Leave supporters emphasized the benefits of sovereignty. Historically, this was an argument of left-wing Eurosceptics – indeed, a rump of ‘Lexiters’ played an important role in the campaign – yet, of course, it came to be associated with right-wingers who emphasized various benefits of sovereignty, the most prominent of which was the ability to control immigration.

Undoubtedly, the UK became more sovereign. The UK in a Changing Europe thinktank publishes a UK-EU regulatory divergence tracker and the latest edition notes divergence on topics such as video-on-demand services, contactless payment limits and the caging of hens. Yet the people we argued with on the campaign trail seldom had such issues in mind. Often, we encountered obsession with immigration and some rationales were crudely racist. On the final day of the campaign, I witnessed an instance of disgusting racism in the centre of Cardiff and, in days following the result, European friends of mine endured similar episodes. This is not to tar all Leavers with the same brush – I too have reservations about the extent of recent immigration and know that the great majority of Leave supporters were not racists – yet encounters with overt bigots did concentrate the mind; such people almost always supported Leave.

Whatever their representativeness, such incidents also tell us something more profound about the Brexit referendum. Rather than being a vote about marginal declines in economic growth and the ability to regulate esoteric topics, the referendum concerned the very soul of the country. A minority of Leavers celebrated with overt racism because they perceived the result as a victory for people like them. Moderate Leavers felt that, for the first time in decades, their preferences were being recognized. Remainers wept because they sensed the loss of the country’s driving seat.

Perhaps people like me deserved this. For decades, public policy had been geared towards educated classes and communities in places like the Welsh Valleys had been forgotten. The issue of whether post-Brexit public policy has been rebalanced towards such communities is a highly debated one – several governments have at least aspired to this – and, whatever the records of these attempts, I cannot disagree with the basic ambition.

But of course, the question of whether UK public policy should involve fairer deals for post-industrial communities was not on the ballot paper. Rather, voters were asked whether the country should leave the EU. We have reviewed some of the results of this decision – and reasonable people can disagree over which path was wisest – yet may ask whether Leave presented these responsibly. Notwithstanding its own exaggerations, Remain’s promises were constrained by the campaign’s defence of the status quo. Contrastingly, Leave had the luxury of a blank canvas and painted different pictures for different audiences, some of which had scant relation to reality. Arguably, this has ratcheted up unhappiness with politics ever since; when promises are made which can never be delivered, constituencies are created who are perpetually disappointed and eager to search for scapegoats.

In my bedside drawers, I still have two faded WSE t-shirts from the campaign. I never wear them out – quite aside from their age, I would rather not pick at old social wounds – yet occasionally lounge about the house in them. Doing so, I sometimes reflect on whether my efforts were worth it. The campaign was an amateurish disaster which culminated in epochal failure. Many of us were hopelessly naïve. Later, many WSE activists (though not me) were central to the dangerous and undemocratic People’s Vote campaign.

But on balance, I think that our cause was the more reasonable and hopeful one; I would do it all again.

---

If you enjoyed reading this, do think about subscribing! Subscription is free – all it means is that you’ll receive a weekly email. But every new subscriber makes me very happy 😊 😊 😊