Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series assessing the consequences of Brexit. The first, by Robert Singh, can be found here, and the second, an interview with Andrew Roberts, can be found here.
Back in 1941, in criticizing the Eton and Oxford-educated elite, George Orwell lamented that “one of the dominant facts of British life . . . . has been the decay of ability in the ruling class.” Today, poor leadership on all sides has dug the country into a cul-de-sac, unable to stay and unable to leave the EU without crashing out to the disadvantage of all.
Britain’s ambiguous relationship with the rest of Europe has deep roots, tied to a broad spectrum of cultural, ideological, geographical and political issues in the United Kingdom. At this moment, however, something else has been revealed: Brexit has shown the weakness of democracy in Britain, or at least the diminished faith a growing number of Britons have in representative democracy. Alarmingly, this story pertains to the rest of Europe, too.
Challenged by the UK Independence Party (UKIP)—now called the Brexit Party—the question of Britain’s membership in the European Union soon became an obsession inside the Conservative Party. Theresa May tried to unite the party by pivoting to its Brexiteer Right while nodding to the moderates, but she failed.
The government subsequently decided to interpret the Brexit vote as an expression of dissatisfaction on a number of different matters—immigration, for example—all under the rubric of “taking back control.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson proclaimed the victory of “democracy” in all this—by which he meant referendum democracy. Representative democracy, by contrast, seems to be taking a beating. Nigel Farage’s belief that “Sovereignty does not lie with Parliament, sovereignty lies with the people” is shared by other leaders such as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who claim that the ruler represents the “People,” and untidy things like political parties and parliament just get in the way. In this view, the ruler decides what the People need to know: Only under pressure from the media and Remainers did the government release its own estimate of possible worst case scenarios of a No-Deal Brexit. Similarly, Brexit negotiations with the EU have been striking for their lack of transparency on Britain’s part.
Britain has a history of bad break-ups. From the 1917 partition of Ireland to the 1947 departure from India, Britain has not infrequently embarked on remarkably unsound exit strategies. Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra argues that “partition—a ruinous exit strategy of the British empire—has now come home. In a grotesque irony, borders imposed in 1921 on Ireland, England’s first colony, have proved to be the biggest stumbling block for the English Brexiteers chasing ‘imperial virility.’” Other hastily put together departures of bloody consequence include Greece at the start of its civil war and Palestine in 1948. In the case at hand—the smash-and-grab Brexit due October 31—the damage will likely include in due course the loss of Scotland, and turmoil in Northern Ireland. In the meantime, do not exclude social unrest in England and Wales once hit by the economic consequences of No-Deal Brexit.
Similar upheavals are occurring in other countries, though not all with the same dramatic consequences. Not yet.
Across Europe, political party systems are undergoing radical transformations. None of the parties that ran Italy between the Second World War and the end of the Cold War exists any longer. Spain’s stable two-party system now has five national parties, one of them openly far-Right, and is currently embroiled in a Constitutional crisis. The French Presidential contest of 2017 wiped out the old mainstream parties and saw the consolidation of the radical Right populist party of Marine Le Pen and a new movement, La Republique En Marche, led by Emmanuel Macron. Neither were new to the system: the first was a mutation of an older challenger to French politics from the fascism-inspired Right, the second an outgrowth of the French centrist elite. Together they managed to supersede the old party system and ideological formations, which are now in a state of disarray on both Left and Right. Even long-stable Germany is slowly evolving. The apparent decline of the SPD and CDU has opened space, on the Left for Die Linke and a surging Green Party, and on the Right for the anti-immigrant populist AfD.
Throughout the postwar period, West European stability rested on reliable democratic party systems that contained extremist threats. Even in the tumultuous 1970s, when hard-edged political polarization shook countries like Germany and Italy—with political radicalism gaining ground and terrorism shocking the body politic—the democratic systems held firm. At the time parties, with their mass base and broad representation, were the linchpin between society and the state. Now, however, political parties have declined in importance. The late Irish political scientist Peter Mair put it succinctly a half dozen years ago: “the age of party democracy has passed. Although the parties remain, they have become so disconnected from the wider society, and pursue a form of competition that is so lacking in meaning, that they no longer seem capable of sustaining democracy in its present form.” Erosion of voter trust is unmistakable. And the void is being occupied—in some places quite easily—by populists and extremists.
How should responsible democratic establishment parties of the center-right and center-left respond? Across Europe a number of mainstream conservative parties have started to copy the rhetoric and tactics of the populist Right, pushing for a stronger central state with weaker rule of law, less pluralism, and an emasculated judiciary. Today’s populists are shrewd power consolidators. Once in government, they try to hijack the state apparatus by replacing professional civil servants with party loyalists, ideological soulmates, and culture war experts. They use the legal system to impede and restrict civil society. They employ cronies to buy media and manufacture consent. These things have happened systematically in Hungary; there are signs Poland’s government is in some areas following suit.
The supporters of representative democracy must be self-critical. We did not fully appreciate the impact of globalization and European integration on democracy itself. The populist accusation that Brussels has taken powers away from the nation is not unfounded: the European Union does indeed manage more and more policies of relevance to the daily lives of Europeans. But the decisions are not made unilaterally by a far away bureaucracy: National governments have remained in the driving seat. Hence the tragic paradox and irony in Brexit: The EU denounced by militant Brexiteers—that of a European super-state killing off the nations of Europe—never came to be. Nor is it in any way in the cards now.
And we all ought to consider where we’ve landed in the meantime. After Brexit, we will have a weaker and more vulnerable Britain, and an EU poorer from its absence. To be sure, the UK has been straddling the periphery of the EU for a long time—an important and influential country without a foot in key institutional arrangements. Europe will survive Brexit. But whether it can survive the illiberal forces at its core is less certain, especially with the growth of “Remain Euroskeptics” who are willing to undermine the EU from within. European advocates have found comfort in the fact that the British vote to leave made public opinion on the continent bounce back in favor of EU membership. That’s promising. However, if the democratic recession at the heart of Europe is not reversed, more will be lost than the dream of ever closer union. Supporters of integration must start winning voters back—not just to their parties, but to the vision of representative democracy that has sustained the continent for so long.