Breaking Point

The UK Referendum on the EU and Its Aftermath

Gary Gibbon

• Publisher: Haus Publishing
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781910376621
• eBook ISBN: 9781910376676
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

As the aftermath of Brexit continues to unfold, people around the world are wondering just how Brexit happened, where post-referendum Britain is heading, and what lessons might be learned by the global community. Gary Gibbon, a preeminent political broadcaster who had extraordinary access to both sides of the campaign leading up to the referendum, explores all of these issues in Breaking Point.

Examining official and off-the-record meetings with both senior politicians and ordinary voters, Gibbon addresses tough questions that are troubling the entire European continent: Now that the United Kingdom has voted for Brexit, to what extent can it truly "leave" a set of relationships that extend to the country's doorstep? And will the decision be a lethal blow to the European Union, perhaps spurring on copycat secession movements?

Post-Brexit Politics

“My Lords, the events of the past two weeks have led to some of the most traumatic and dynamic changes that we have known. The course of the campaign was robust – as it properly should be on such great issues – but at times veered over the line on both sides: it was not merely robust but unacceptable. Through such comments were created cracks in the thin crust of politeness and tolerance of our society, through which, since the referendum, we have seen an outwelling of poison and hatred that I cannot remember in this country for very many years … It is inequality that thins out the crust of our society and raises the levels of anger, resentment and bitterness. The tools for tackling inequality are as readily available as ever. They are the obvious ones of eduction, public health – we should add today mental health – and housing.”

Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Peter Welby,
House of Lords, 4 July 2016

“The UK that Scotland voted to remain within in 2014 doesn’t exist anymore.”

Nicola Sturgeon, BBC Andrew Marr Show, 26 June 2016

Politics of the UK and ‘Two Nations’

In Downing Street, straight after curtseying to the Queen and taking office, Theresa May declared herself a passionate supporter of “One Nation”. The referendum result that had propelled her to office showed that we are nothing of the sort.

Resolution Foundation research suggests the “left behind” communities that have struggled most in recent decades uniformly gave the strongest support to Brexit.⁹ English east-coast towns, ex-mining communities, Midlands satellite towns around the main conurbations dominate the list. John Lanchester reflected a few weeks after the referendum: “To be born in many places in Britain is to suffer an irreversible lifelong defeat – a truncation of opportunity, of education, of access to power, of life expectancy”. The work they have is “unsatisfying, insecure and low-paid … (it) doesn’t do what the old work did: it doesn’t offer a sense of identity or community or selfworth”. Their precarious existence makes them a new class, “the precariat.”¹⁰

The periphery defeated the core (London and the South-East) in a way that’s almost unprecedented, proclaiming the two sets of economic interests didn’t coincide. Lewis Baston, the political analyst, has identified “peripheral towns” that make up “post-industrial Britain” which he estimates have a population of roughly 5.5m. Their turnout was strongly up on the 2015 General Election and only 37.3% of them voted Remain. Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, formerly a mining and textiles town, saw turnout up from 60.9% in 2015 to 72.6% in the referendum and Leave won in this constituency by 70.9% to 29.1%. Many of these voters didn’t believe they had much to lose even if the economy took a hit. ‘Take Control’ was an astute political slogan to deploy when so many feel deprived of any sense of governance in their working lives. Google the phrase ‘take back control’ and it is not an accident that you hit any number of mental health help pages. This was a slogan perfectly targeted at the teetering existence of many target voters.

And it sent a stark message and subliminal promise to voters for whom immigration was a dominant concern. David Goodhart has written of how “modern liberalism has a thin and unhistorical understanding of people and societies; it too often regards society as a more or less arbitrary collection of individuals without any particular ties or allegiances to each other … the ‘cruise liner’ theory of the nation, in which people come together for a voyage but have no ongoing relationship.”¹¹ Many voters felt their political leaders didn’t remotely understand how their communities had changed and cared even less.

Where does this leave a system of two-party politics which has dominated our political system for decades? The former UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, thought for a long time that his side would lose in the referendum. But Mr Farage saw it as a moment to make great gains for his populist cause. He, along with UKIP donor Arron Banks, spoke privately about an “SNP strategy” to steal Labour’s votes. They wanted to replicate the SNP’s success after the 2014 referendum in Scotland. For many longstanding Labour voters, the experience of breaking from the party line to vote for independence loosened the sullen bonds of party loyalty and pulled them over to the SNP in the 2015 General Election in which the party virtually swept the board taking 56 of Scotland’s 59 parliamentary seats. Roughly 90% of Yes voters in Scotland’s 2014 referendum voted SNP in 2015. Labour lost around one third of its supporters in Scotland to the SNP between early 2014 and the 2015 General Election, nearly half its vote since 2010. Something snapped. Yes voters “could not reconcile a Labour vote with the position they had taken in the referendum”.¹²

Nigel Farage hoped the forces he has led could pull off a similar trick with Labour voters who found themselves splitting from Labour’s line on Europe. It might involve re-branding or completely reinventing UKIP, but Andrew Cooper, who ran polling for the Remain campaign, thinks the populist right is extremely well placed to lead an SNP-style raid on Labour’s traditional strongholds in England.

This threat to Labour comes at what seems to be a time of wider crisis for the Centre Left across Europe. Social democratic parties in many EU countries are in deep trouble, often unable to get far above 20% of the national vote.

This was, of course, the referendum which David Cameron said would end the divisions in the Conservative Party and settle the issue of Britain’s relationship with Europe once and for all. But the results show that the faultlines of the referendum cut through the Tories’ support just as it does through Labour’s. Theresa May clearly wanted to settle some Brexit supporters’ worries with her appointment of Leavers David Davis, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson to her Cabinet, but many in her Party are watching her every move sceptically and closely. There is no rule that says a dominant party of the Centre Left versus a dominant party of the Centre Right will always be the central dynamic in political life. Way before the Banking Crisis, experts detected the decline of mainstream ‘catch-all’ political parties which had come adrift from their roots and their replacement with ‘cartel’ parties, based on citizen resistance, populism or nationalism.¹³

Our party political system could soon look very different, and just because Labour could be the first casualty does not mean that the Conservatives are safe from all change.

Politics of UK and its Nations

The moment she became Prime Minister, Theresa May said in Downing Street that the union of the UK was “very, very precious”. The day after appointing her Cabinet she flew to Scotland. But what cards does she hold to placate a frustrated electorate that voted 62/38 in favour of Remain and how does she out-smart an extremely canny SNP leadership?

Theresa May has let it be known in private that she was unimpressed by the way David Cameron let the SNP have, as she saw it, a referendum on independence in 2014 on the SNP’s terms. It was, she’s told people in private, too prolonged, shouldn’t have had the Yes/No options and that she would be extremely resistant to granting another one.

Scotland’s First Minister knows there are blocks to getting an Independent Scotland back into the EU, with the newly re-elected Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy prime among them. But Edinburgh seems to be looking at the options much more carefully and can spare more of the brightest and best officials to do so than an over-stretched London, distracted by Brexit and its economic consequences.

The SNP leadership is already exploring the flexibility the EU has shown to Denmark. The Faroe Islands and Greenland manage to be self-governing nations outside the EU but within the Kingdom of Denmark. Could a reverse situation see a similar accommodation by the EU? Scotland is wooing Europe and Europe has recently been jilted. That’s sometimes a promising moment to make a romantic move, but in a speech on 21 July Nicola Sturgeon sounded like she was trying to lower supporters’ expectations.

Ireland has been traumatised by the Brexit result. The Irish government tried to galvanise the sizable Irish population living in Britain to seize victory for Remain. I watched the Taoiseach Enda Kenny visiting a Gaelic Athletic Association game in West London, pressing the flesh to make the point. It was a sign of the UK government’s panic that they let the leader of another country court votes on British soil. It all came to nought. On 20 July, Mr Kenny suggested the Brexit vote brought a border poll on Irish unity back onto the agenda, attracting predictable fury from the Democratic Unionists. It is hard to see how Northern Ireland’s 300 mile border with the Republic does not now become a customs border. David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, has himself said as much. Just before the referendum vote, Theresa May said the return of a physical border* was inevitable if the country voted for Brexit. How do you stop EU migrants to Ireland who are taking advantage of freedom of movement from wandering over the border into Northern Ireland and from there into the rest of the UK? Since the referendum, just about everyone, including Theresa May, has committed themselves to rejecting a physical border, but no one, including Theresa May, has explained how that deals with the problems thrown up by Brexit.

And then there is English nationalism. Defining yourself as English rather than British was one of the most accurate indicators of a Brexit vote. But what is English identity? It is not like other nationalisms. A Scottish Nationalist might resent Edinburgh a bit but nothing like an English nationalist will loath London and, to his or her mind, what it stands for. The common identifiers of someone describing themselves as English more than British will be a sense that they are not doing very well, struggling perhaps. They will usually look at the pace of change and migration and feel it is “time to put people like me first”. It is often linked to a sense that life would be better if the clock could be turned back. Five years ago, Peter Kellner delved into ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• About the Author
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Diary 31 May–23 June
• The Path to Brexit
• The Path to Brexit
• Diary 24 June–14 July
• Post-Brexit Politics
• Afterword
• Notes