In 2016, the United Kingdom had a referendum on its membership in the European Union. The “Leave” side prevailed with a 51.89 percent majority. But since the turnout was about 72 percent, this means that really only 37.5 percent of the UK population (I’m assuming the people who didn’t vote didn’t have strong feelings one way or the other) were adamantly in favour of leaving the EU and yet they got their way. So how has Brexit worked out? Exactly the way the opponents of it predicted at the time, which is to say it’s been an unmitigated disaster. Brexit is a perfect case study for what’s gone wrong with modern democracy.
Just like pretty much every economist predicted, leaving the EU has severely damaged the UK’s economy. Nominal GDP has dropped by more than 4 percent, and that number is going to get worse; Britons are going to experience the sharpest fall in living standards on record in the coming years, with economists predicting a stunning 7 percent drop in household incomes. Brexit has led to inflation, labor shortages, business closures and travel snafus. Trade with the EU – which is always going to be vital to the British economy because of the inescapable fact of geography – is now stuck in a morass of bureaucratic red tape, leading to huge cost increases across the board. Essentially, Brexit can be summed up as the UK putting economic sanctions on itself.
Brexit even failed to deliver on the most basic of its promises, which was that by leaving the EU the UK would be able to control and reduce the flow of immigrants. The working class who strongly voted for Brexit (64 to 36 percent) did so primarily for this reason. How then to explain that immigration hit a record high in 2022? This happened under a Conservative government which has been blowing anti-immigrant dog whistles for years and which in 2019 pledged to cut net immigration by more than half. Instead, the 2022 level was 4 times higher than that 2019 target. The Conservative government, reliably dishonest as ever, has barfed out a litany of excuses for this ‘failure’ but there is only one real explanation: the UK, with an aging population and declining birth rates (like almost every industrialized country) needs immigrants to fill the gaps in its labor market.
Based on these outcomes, you can probably guess that support of Brexit has fallen through the basement. While fewer than one in five Brexiteers admit to buyer’s remorse - the willfully ignorant will never let reality stand in the way of their prejudice and “feelings”- two-thirds of Britons now say Brexit has gone badly. People who chose not to vote in the original referendum, and young people who were too young to vote in 2016 but are now flooding into the electorate, are heavily against Brexit. Of the 18-to-24-year-olds of Generation Z, no less than 79 percent say they would vote to rejoin the EU. Support for the Conservatives, who drove this bus over the cliff, has plummeted; even the party’s support among Leave voters has crashed by some 30 points.
As with so much these days, Brexit gained support because it was a way to blame all of the UK’s problems on someone else. It’s interesting to consider what effect living in a powerful country - or a formerly powerful country in the case of the UK - has on the psyche of ‘low information’ people. It seems to foster an aggressive chauvinism that can easily be lead astray by slimy politicians. Most Leave voters were frightened and angered by what had become of their country. The fact that the economic might of Germany had superseded the UK provoked irrational emotions that allowed the Brexiteers to sell people a fantasy of imperial-era strength and Churchillian self-sufficiency (“We beat the Jerrys in the War, and now we take orders from them?”). Any political appeal in which patriotism is the main driving feature is almost always a bad idea. You simply can’t replace sound, reasoned policies with an emotional love of country – this is the definition of stupid. The fact that these sorts of appeals always harken back to some real or imagined glorious past is the giveaway that the movement in question – MAGA, the Leave side, etc. – has nothing of substance to offer. Furthermore, most of the faux patriotism we see from these obnoxious flag-wavers is merely performative self-justification for their own personal grievances, and very few of them are willing to actually sacrifice anything for their country.
Referendums are generally a bad idea, and contrary to what their adherents claim, they are definitely not more democratic. People who think referendums are pure democracy in action misunderstand what democracy is and isn’t. A simple yes/no vote where 50 percent plus 1 wins the day increases division and strife and will likely lead to more problems down the road. What makes democracy the best system isn’t just people voting; it’s the fact that having free, contested elections of representatives forces those representatives to work out compromise solutions to contentious issues. This avoids tyranny of the majority and allows people to live together despite disagreements. Referendums, on the other hand, absolutely are majority tyranny - or in the case of Brexit, a vehement, deluded minority.
Most issues are too complex to be distilled down to a simple yes or no question. And frankly, there are quite a few issues where many people are ill-equipped to make an intelligent decision. (This is highlighted by the fact that the most frequent google search in the UK the day after the referendum was “What is the EU?” Seriously.) This is why we have representative democracy instead of direct democracy – we’re supposed to be electing the best and the brightest (yeah, I can hear you laughing) so they can make difficult decisions for us. Referendums are a great way to create divisions where there weren’t any and so they become a strategic tool for cowardly politicians to use to cover their asses. The man who started the Brexit fiasco, former British PM David Cameron, only put the Brexit referendum on the table as a way to prevent himself being ousted from the Conservative leadership in 2013. The new populist Right is big on referendums because bullshitting people is what they do best.
So should the UK hold another referendum? Those who wanted to remain in the EU are reluctant to push for another vote, worried that it will set a bad precedent – ‘neverendums.’
While this is a valid concern, it needs to be weighed against all the damage Brexit has done and will continue to do. As the saying goes, the only way to be right is to stop being wrong.
Comments