The ideological state apparatuses

Of all the learned analyses of ideology I have read, the one theme they might have in common is that ideology makes radical alternatives unthinkable. Ideologies set out all sorts of acceptable alternatives, of course, and sometimes ideological state apparatuses pride themselves on their balanced treatment of these acceptable alternatives. Famous analyses of television news, for example, show impeccable balance in representing the respectable alternatives of acceptable political parties – however, when confronted with an option that is outside of this consensus, panic ensues at first followed by considerable ideological work to demonise the outsider.

It was clear that in the great referendum, the leave option was literally unthinkable. Government and civil service did not prepare for it if Leave won, and the media was badly sidelined by a Leave majority. In the run up, the electronic media did attempt to construct a set of acceptable alternatives, and even interviewed some spokespersons for Leave but even here, they were using all sorts for ways to privilege the Remain option. The structuring of unacceptable views has been well discussed in famous studies by the Glasgow University Media Group. Unpopular views are interrogated more closely and aggressively, and spokespeople for them interrupted more often. Spokespeople for the acceptable alternatives are arranged neatly in the studio, but spokespeople for the unacceptable alternatives are usually interviewed outside in the street. Sometimes they are introduced in a negative way as well. Without having done a study of television coverage this time, I have no idea how often these negative images appeared, but they certainly did appear.

Ideological work after the stunning effect of the Leave vote included straightforward denial and anger, standard components of the responses to bereavement. A good example is provided by this discussion: Will Self usually appears as a cool sardonic cynic, but he was really angry this time. I think he was also stymied by having as his opponent a black woman, Dreda Say Mitchell, a novelist like him. He couldn't say all the Leavers were racist males. He couldn't really say anything, so cross was he. Jon Snow the interviewer was pretty cross too,then and earlier. The prize for tantrums must go to Evan Davies of the BBC though. His peak was asking a Tory MP, Crispin Blunt what Boris Johnson (a leading campaigner for Leave) might have meant by something he (Johnson) had written in a newspaper column - -when Blunt said it was a silly question and how should he know, Davies exploded with rage as you can see.

Two days after the vote was declared, a discussion on a BBC news channel was still talking about what would happen if there was a leave vote. Various political options emerged to reverse the vote. Scotland, which had voted overall to remain was going to declare independence and remain in the EU. So was London. People campaigned for a second referendum, and two million signatures were added to a petition. Some people, including a Labour member of parliament were suggesting that parliament itself did not have to authorize the popular referendum vote, but could itself vote to reject the result and overturn the decision to leave the EU. All of these are still bubbling under at the moment. The Guardian even ran a journal piece suggesting that there was a danger that the disaffected would turn to a strong leader who would really represent the right views, without the stupidity and inconvenience of things like referenda: the author eventually rowed back a bit and suggested that some citizens might be involved, in the form of some sort of standing committee or citizen jury who would be able to discuss policies with the all powerful politicians.

The media gave surprising coverage and sometimes even support to these views. Scottish nationalism, for example, was uncritically supported by the BBC, and seen as wholly good, liberal, tolerant, cosmopolitan and outward looking. English nationalism by contrast was narrow, inward looking and intolerant. The only difference was that Scottish nationalists supported the EU. I am still surprised that no-one spotted the paradox here. As far as I know, the BBC has still failed to interview anyone in Scotland who actually voted to leave, although there were a million of them. Instead, the leader of the Scottish parliament is able to claim that she speaks for Scotland pure and simple, and that this voice necessarily implies joining the EU, and there's been no attempt to critically question her on these dubious claims. The large minority who voted Remain in England must be considered and listened to, but not the still large minority who voted Leave in Scotland! Of course the majority that voted Leave for the whole UK do not speak for Britain. For those who might not be familiar with the population of the UK, about 5 1/2 million people live in Scotland, and 10 times as many in the rest of Britain.

There was uncertainty at first followed by a determination to find someone to blame. As the earlier blog suggested, these might be racists or cunning politicians working on raising xenophobia. The lies of these politicians were patiently exposed, and sometimes, rather more rarely, so were the lies of politicians campaigning to Remain. As if orchestrated, most of the criticism of the Leave campaign turned on the claim that £350 000 000 per day was being paid to the EU. This was repeatedly called a lie, and when someone tried to argue that it was the gross figure not the nett, a BBC interviewer said she doubted that ordinary people could tell the difference (it is clear to anyone who receives a standard wage packet of course).

Even some politicians who did support Remain were blamed, notably Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party. Purely by chance, no doubt, blaming Corbyn dominated the news exactly at the time that Blairite Labour MPs were pressuring him to resign. The constitution of the Labour Party provides for rival candidates to emerge if there is a problem with the leader, and then for members of the party to choose between them, but disaffected MPs were trying to pressure Corbyn to resign without invoking this procedure. It is not difficult to see why—those MPs could then agree to nominate just one candidate which would obviate the need for any inconvenient election by the party (which Corbyn would probably win). Normally, no doubt, this would be seen as undemocratic, but the ideological end justified the means in this case and in the ones above—scratch a thwarted liberal and find an authoritarian.

Other candidates for blame included the older generation, where a majority voted to leave. This picked up on a narrative that had been tried before, blaming the greedy pensioners for distorting the welfare bill and monopolising the Health Service. There had been fears during the campaign that the elderly would vote (!) and the greedy bastards would push the young into leaving, even though they would not be living much longer. In this case, however, it was probably the apathetic young who influenced the result: more elderly voted Leave, and they did have a higher turnout; the young who voted had a majority for Remain – but only 38% of them voted. Overall, one source claimed, more elderly people voted for remain in absolute terms than did young people. Nevertheless, the elderly still attract criticism, with some Remain voters saying they will never speak to their older relatives. No doubt a great excuse as much as a political gesture. There is a funny You Tube video taking the piss out of the young Remainers here.

There were clear bits of contempt for the working class as usual, who were almost universally depicted as ignorant, conservative and racist. Fat middle aged blokes with swastika tattoos mouthing racist abuse were much sought after. They were usually contrasted with nice middle class women wearing badges advocating love. One classic comparison occurred yesterday on BBC News, where the views of voters were sought – the Leavers represented by passers-by in Boston, Lincs, and the Remainers sought --  in Cambridge!

Finally, there seems to be no overall master narrative to join all these ideological bits together yet,and contradictions and paradoxes are rife, like those over good and bad nationalism. Perhaps the ideology-making classes are still reeling and working on a master narrative. I think they are badly demoralised at the moment, having tried to line up all the authorities on their side –bankers, economists, politicians, the Archbishop of bleedin Canterbury, the military. There were a few attempts to join up the issues into one great crusade, notably the moral panic following the killing of a popular MP – the BBC toyed with an overall narrative condemning a 'politics of hate', aimed at Leavers especially, but it was pretty feeble.

I also think that what this lack of a narrative tells us is that notions of ideology as simply dominant have to be revised. For all the efforts of elites, people voted Leave. The more elites they recruited, the less effect they seemed to have. Of course the BBC and the quality dailies do not have a monopoly of opinion: there were popular daily newspapers who advocated Leave. No-one really knows about the impact of social media either. The position seems to be like that advanced by critics of the 'dominant ideology thesis' back in the 1980s – ideology unites and consoles a dominant group but has much less effect on the subordinate groups.