THE EIGHT THINGS THEY HAVEN’T TOLD YOU ABOUT BREXIT
As someone who entered X in the box to ‘leave the European Union’ on 23/06/16 it is hard not to be frustrated upon hearing the same myths peddled again and again, over and over, for nearly three years, by those who instead voted to remain in the EU on that fateful day. As a means of catharsis for these frustrations I have decided to tackle eight of those myths, treated by some as axiomatic, in order to expose them to a greater level of scrutiny than (I feel) they have been given hitherto.
First of all, one of the central leitmotifs of the campaign to keep the UK in the European Union has been the moral argument that Brexit has helped to legitimise xenophobia within our society – the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘xenophobia’ as being the ‘dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries – and, as a consequence, so the theory goes, served to unleash a tidal-wave of hatred directed towards people from different cultures within the UK. This is a serious claim and one which deserves a serious response. Lets look at the evidence.
1. Brexit led to an increase in hate crimes.
An alleged uptick in hate crimes is often the first item of evidence adduced to make the case that Brexit has facilitated a rise in racism/xenophobia but, if we take a look at the CPS Annual Hate Crimes Report 2016–17, on page 8, we read that: ‘The volume of racially and religiously aggravated hate crime referrals from the police fell from 10,728 in 2015 – 16 to 10,706 in 2016 – 17'. Later on page 8 we read: ‘The volume of prosecutions completed decreased from 13,032 in 2015 – 16 to 12,004 in 2016 – 17 – a decrease of 1,028 prosecutions (7.9%.) This corresponds, to some degree, with the overall trend over the last ten years, namely a reduction of 40% in hate crime incidents (page 7 of the 2017/18 hate crimes report.)
2. Brexit represents the legitimisation of xenophobia.
The second item of evidence usually adduced to support the contention that Brexit equals xenophobia is the issue of immigration restrictionism. To provide some context to this discussion: the UK did not become a country of net immigration until the early 1980s. In 1997 – the year New Labour took office – net migration into the United Kingdom was 48K, when they left office 13 years later it had mushroomed to the historically high level (for the UK) of 256K. Similarly high levels of net migration into the UK continued under the Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition government of 2010–15 which prefigured the Brexit vote in 2016.
There is a very strong argument to be made that immigration was not a salient political issue in the UK in 1997, whilst increasingly becoming so in the following twenty years, not because of a brainwashed public in thrall to an oligarchic right-wing print media intent on whipping up fear of foreigners, but because of numbers. When net migration was less than 50k a year people were less concerned than when (just over a decade later) it reached levels of nearly 250k people a year. It was an issue that rose up the priority list in line with numbers.
You can certainly find evidence to support the contention that the core message of the Brexit campaign – namely: ‘take back control’ – resonated on a higher frequency when attached in the public mind to the concrete issue of ‘freedom of movement’ but the question remains: does the desire to ‘take back control’ of immigration necessarily connote latent xenophobia?
As recently as 2013 large majorities of Asian and black Britons favoured a reduction in immigration levels. Recent British election study data indicated that ethnic minority voters remained immigration sceptics on the whole. British election study data also found that 62% (including 38% of Remainers) thought immigration had been too high. In other words: four out of ten Remain voters thought immigration had been too high at the time of the Brexit vote.
If support for immigration restrictionism itself constitutes xenophobia then evidently the concept of xenophobia must be stretched to include not only putative ‘illiberal’ leave voters but also large numbers of seemingly ‘liberal’ Remain voters – including Liberal Democrats! – and a large section of the non-white British population too. It is therefore an issue that cuts across, not only the leave versus remain political divide, but also race/ethnicity in this country. One study from 2008 found that immigration ‘skepticism’ is not the same as xenophobia or racism and that xenophobic attitudes are a far less significant factor than immigration scepticism for predicting who will vote for the new radical right parties across Europe.
The thinly-veiled moral argument that support for immigration restrictionism, in of itself, constitutes xenophobia is therefore a much weaker argument upon further scrutiny, than it appears at first glance. Perhaps more importantly, on a pragmatic level, the corollary that this argument generates – that we should, as a society, create a social taboo against voicing support for immigration restrictionism – is not even a politically effective one.
As Hugo Rifkind explained back in January 2018 when reflecting on the demise of UKIP :- ‘Clearly Cameron’s mistake was to seek to use those fruitcakes et al to tarnish a bunch of milder positions….. it is a dangerous strategy to demonise popular viewpoints, however much they scare you, because it gives the real demons a crowd in which to hide.’
If support for immigration restrictionism, in of itself, indicates xenophobia: how do we explain the fact that three quarters of immigration restrictionists in the United Kingdom are supportive of encouraging high-skill immigration into the country? The available evidence from British social attitudes surveys is seemingly clear: ‘the British public see skill and education levels as more important than cultural background in thinking about which migrants will contribute positively to the UK.’
3. Brexit was driven by imperial nostalgia.
Next, proponents of the idea that Brexit fundamentally denotes a reactionary turn to the right have argued that Brexit represents a form of imperial nostalgia in order to bolster their case. There are many holes in this theory, not least of which: the fact that its proponents will often simultaneously claim that Brexiteers are also ‘little Englanders’, a term which was originally applied to a wing of the Liberal Party opposed to expansion of the British Empire in the 19th century.
Nor is it explained by those who have trotted out this theory why imperial nostalgia explains British euro-scepticism but not also enthusiasm for the European project? Did France and other continental European countries not have empires too? Why then is euro-scepticism so low on the continent? Indeed, as recently as 09/11/18 French finance minister Bruno Le Maire called for the European Union to become a “peaceful empire.” Imperial nostalgia could, just as easily, explain enthusiasm for the European project as it could euro-scepticism.
As Janan Ganesh wrote in the Financial Times back in 10/04/17:- ‘The regions that shaped and were shaped by empire voted to remain, including London, the old metropole; Scotland, the source of many settlers and administrators; Manchester, not just the empire’s industrial centre but its liberal intellectual heart; and the port cities of Liverpool and Bristol. Inland Birmingham voted to leave, as did the countryside and market towns of Deep England.’
As Robert Saunders wrote in Prospect magazine 07/01/19:- ‘The appeal to “imperial nostalgia” marks out the Leave vote as a psychological disorder: a pathology to be diagnosed, rather than an argument with which to engage. It is deployed almost exclusively by Remainers (of whom I am one), whose interests it clearly serves…. The idea that Britain should lead the EU – widely deployed in 2016 – has as strong an imperial heritage as the aspiration to leave it.’
4. Not all leavers are racist but all the racists voted leave.
Next, it has also been claimed by many Remainers, that whilst it would be unfair to allege that all leavers are racist and/or xenophobic it would actually be fair to say that all the racists and xenophobes voted leave. This formulation would only work however if we do not consider anti-semitism to be a form of racism.
As the Labour party – a party whose members and voters overwhelmingly favour remaining in the European Union of course – continues to struggle in its attempt to shrug off allegations that it has become an institutionally anti-semitic party, the allegation that the Remain vote contained no racists at all within its ranks looks increasingly untenable.
5. The EU represents a bastion of openness.
Next, it has been argued that what the European Union signifies and symbolises (above all else) is openness and tolerance thus: a vote to remain in the European Union demonstrates a fundamental commitment to those set of values.
Again, the facts are contestable regarding this claim. As recently as seven months ago it was reported in The Guardian that:- ‘The EU will establish a 10,000-strong standing corp of guards to patrol its land and sea borders under plans that will see the bloc triple its spending to €5bn (£4.4bn) a year on targeting illegal migration into the bloc, it has announced. The building of new border infrastructure including scanners, automated number plate recognition systems, and mobile laboratories for sample analysis, will also be prioritised, along with the establishment of teams of sniffer dogs.’
We also learned seven months ago that: ‘two years after the EU promised Turkey €3 billion to control migration, a 764 km wall against Syria is completed’ and that ‘European leaders are considering taking measures to stop asylum seekers from moving within the EU – including routine identity checks and strict arrangements for deportation.’ Indeed, the EU has built 1,000km of border walls since fall of Berlin Wall
It has become increasingly clear that a vote to remain in the European Union was not so much a vote *against* nationalism as a vote to replace one form of nationalism with another.
National identity is indeed important when it comes to Brexit: arguably the core driver of euro-scepticism in the United Kingdom has been, not so much the issue of immigration, as that of national identity.
Many countries on the continent, with a stronger sense of European identity than the British, do not view freedom of movement within the (now) twenty-seven countries of the EU as immigration at all. It is non-EU that they generally consider to be ‘immigration.’
Continental Europeans are, like the British, concerned about immigration, but that does not translate into the same levels of euro-scepticism which manifests itself here in the United Kingdom due, in no small part, to that differing sense of European identity, which is much weaker here in the UK but stronger elsewhere in Europe.
6. Brexit will embolden the Populist/far-right.
Next, it has been claimed by some remainers, that what Brexit represents, at a fundamental level, is appeasement, a form of pandering to the populist-right/far-right which, in turn, will, it is predicted, only serve to embolden them. This is despite the fact that support for UKIP has collapsed since Brexit and the fact that the BNP has finally been killed off as an electoral prospect. Indeed, all the available evidence points towards the fact that attitudes towards immigration into the United Kingdom have actually softened since Brexit. Somewhat undermining the claim that Brexit represents a form of appeasement of dark forces on the far-right.
7. Demographic determinism.
Claims that ‘the Brexit generation is dying out’ are wildly exaggerated when we consider that 46% of 25–49 year olds voted leave and that the average age difference between Leave voters and Remain voters is a mere nine years! Furthermore, it represents a fallacy – well exposed by John Gray in his book ‘Black Mass’ – that history has a ‘telos’ (an ‘end,’ or ‘purpose,’) which, in truth, is a pre-Darwinian idea borne out of Christian theology and smuggled into modern progressive political thought via the Enlightenment. The arc of history is long, sure, but will it bend towards higher levels of support for rejoining the EU? maybe, but maybe not. Nothing in politics (or in history) is pre-ordained.
8. False consciousness.
Lastly, the idea that leave voters were less knowledgeable than remain voters has been empirically tested and found wanting, a finding confirmed by studies such as this one, and also this one.
Conclusion
In conclusion; the myths that Brexit caused an uptick in hate crimes, that support for immigration restrictionism necessarily equals xenophobia, that Brexit represents a form of imperial nostalgia, that all the racists in the country voted leave, that the EU is a bastion of openness, that Brexit represents a form of appeasement of the far-right, that demographic determinism favours the remain side and that leave voters were less knowledgeable than remain voters have all been scrutinised and found wanting, or at least exaggerated. These are the eight things they haven’t told you about Brexit.
Thank you for reading,
PLB x
