Brexit blame
People’s Democrats versus Technician Democrats in Britain’s new politics
Nigel Farage has turned Brexit into a question about Britain’s democracy — who governs the country, why, and for whom. He’s back because the Conservatives have failed to encourage him out of politics by enacting the result of the 2016 EU referendum. The recent local elections results, where the Conservatives lost 1,330 seats, was just the start of the abandonment of the party. As the Brexit Party continues to score in the low 30s in polling for elections to the European Parliament, Conservative politicians like Daniel Hannan think the Tories are about to be dealt an existential hammer blow.
As Mr Farage blasts back into politics with arguments that the political class has failed, that Britain has been humiliated, and that the country should leave the EU immediately, he’s meeting the much-repeated claims of the Conservative leadership that Britain just needs to sign the Withdrawal Agreement to get out. To leading commentators like Danny Finkelstein, Mr Farage’s position is absurd, as is that of the Conservative MPs who have voted several times against the agreement. The commentator John Rentoul has even suggested that continuing to want to leave the EU via ‘no deal’ — or presumably any other method that is not signing the agreement — is dragging its proponents into millenarian denial of reality.
What’s actually happening is that there are two different interpretations of democracy in play, and the more that they are repeated at elections like those for the EU, the more entrenched they will become. Perhaps they will be the basis for a new cleavage in British politics.
Democratic politics is ultimately about options: what the country dreams of, what its citizens would like it to prioritise, and what can be coordinated and funded into existence. When we vote for one party or another, we’re choosing to believe one mix of options instead of the alternative.
Mr Farage, the ERG, and people like them have a ‘People’s Democracy’ way of thinking about the result of the referendum. To them, the set of options available was determined by the electors’ choice in 2016 and ran from whatever the EU might offer to whatever Britain could do by itself — some sort of deal to no deal, basically. And because the options were set by the people, any failure in improving on the no deal scenario is the fault of government officials.
The top of the Conservative Party, and commentators like Danny Finkelstein, take the view that the referendum should be interpreted with a ‘Technicians' Democracy’ mindset. They believe that the set of options following the vote to leave are set by what politicians can achieve — that the people can vote for whatever they like, but that there are technical limits set by interactions between Britain and the European Union that determine what they can have. And because they believe options are set by government officials, any dissatisfaction with them is the fault of the people and what they asked for.
Most of the time, Technician Democrats are right. Good government requires imagination, but we can’t halve taxes and NHS waiting times at once and responsible politicians are meant to be honest about that. But when it comes to the result of the referendum, there’s a clear and unambiguous option available: Britain not being in the European Union. And it’s not in the long-term gift of Britain’s elite to determine that, and especially not after 17.4 million people told them what to do.
Rather than being a millenarian cult, no deal is the logical consequence of a legitimate way of interpreting the 2016 referendum. The People’s Democrats are right that the failure to get a deal is the fault of the Conservative Party. And if the Technician Democrats want to have much of a say in the future of British politics once Nigel Farage has changed it for good, they might want to get a better story about why Britain is still in the European Union than ‘It’s the people’s fault.’
