The cultural politics of negativity*

A letter in the Times today points to what has long been argued here -- there may be some dubious predictions about economic growth, but there just is no positive case for the EU in Remainerdom:

Sir, In 2016, the campaign to remain in the EU was correctly criticised for its negativity and scare tactics. If there is a second referendum, leading Remainers will have to explain the positive elements of their case, because they need to argue in favour of “rejoining” (letters, Dec 7).
Voters will want to know the advantages of tax and economic harmonisation for all EU countries, the benefits of defence and social policy integration to its disparate members, the legal and democratic changes to be endured, and so on.
A second referendum could prove a poor tactic for Remainers who will be pressed to explain what “ever closer union” truly entails for coming generations of British people. It is not an easy case to argue, which is why it was not attempted last time.
Edmund Camerer CussArundel, W Sussex



The problem is I think there just is no positive case. The cultural politics of distanciation always works off inverting popular/populist views. It chimes with generational politics too, and with class hatred of both Tory nobs and Leaver proles and racists, of course. The nearest you get to anything positive is the fantasy identification of 'Europe' as wonderfully progressive and somehow modern, and an imaginary rainbow coalition of right thinking people and oppressed cultural minorities

Incidentally, J Hunt, no less, argued over the weekend (again in the Times I think) that of the two tribes, the Remainers are likely to be the flakiest in their commitments. If they just need reassurance that the UK would continue to be open and cosmo, still with lots of cultural links to Europe, they would fade from the fight, he thinks.

Meanwhile.,J Harris, the Gurdina columnist who comes closest, has a piece today on the cultural divides between the two tribes:

For millions of people, a basic stance on Brexit runs much deeper than any affinity they might feel with a political party: recent work by the psephologist John Curtice found that 77% of us identify with either side of the debate to a strong extent, as against only 37% who feel a similar allegiance to a party, with the respective figures for “very strong” put at 44% and a miserable 9%.... it was no great surprise to read that how voters felt about Europe slotted into their opinions on multiculturalism, social liberalism, the internet, globalisation and immigration; nor that such factors as age, class and education had been central to how people voted. Indeed, when I was out on the road during the campaign, it felt as if an even simpler question would decide the outcome: whether your view of the globalist, liberal future into which the country seemed to be inevitably heading was optimistic, or whether prejudice or a pessimism rooted in deep economic insecurity (or both) had pushed you to the opposite conclusion....pre-Brexit electoral politics often meant that the two main parties had to aim at bringing very different voters together in order to win elections, the gaps between large parts of the electorate were constantly smoothed over. The grim political perfection of Brexit, by contrast, was that it represented a convulsive argument about a package of stuff that went straight to the heart of all of these tensions, and decisively pushed people one way or the other.

All good stuff, but then Harris commits Gaurdianism by referring for support back to -- an essay by G Orwell.


An other promising point is culturalised:

The same rising individualism created the conditions for the laissez-faire economics that first took root in the UK and US in the early 1980s, [enshrined in the EU of course]  ravaged no end of industrial communities, and pushed politics away from the kind of collectivist thinking that had started to fade as the shadow of the second world war receded. The key point was made perfectly by the British music writer Charles Shaar Murray: “The line from hippie to yuppie is not nearly as convoluted as some people like to believe.”

Harris finds similarities in social polarisation in Germany and the USA. Then back to his own childhood:

Cars, houses and holidays offered people some means of keeping up with the Joneses, but there was nothing like the modern consumerist culture built on the constant imperative to somehow appear sophisticated and successful. TV offered three channels. Politics was largely a simple choice between two different views of the state and economic distribution...But then came the things that have so pushed us apart. Social mobility stalled. Deindustrialisation carried on apace. Insecurity skyrocketed. The complexity of modern society burst into public debate. And our sources of information eventually fragmented, with two key effects. Malign forces found new openings. More generally, we are now close to losing any coherent sense of who “we” are: one of the reasons why all that talk from Brexiteers about the will of the people seems so absurd.

Then to business as usual:

It is no accident [classic!] that many of the politicians – May [blimey -- she's a core Brexiteer?] , Farage, Rees-Mogg – who now sit at the heart of Brexit have the look of people untouched by the huge social changes that originated back [in the 60s]

The 'will of the people' also seems less absurd when Remainers cite it though:  'Brexit looks to me like an epochal disaster to which the best answer is probably another public vote' 

So -- quite good, but still a matter of classic liberal limitations of analysis and inevitable contradictions, with Brexit as irrational nostalgia plus active reaction. Nothing on the active constant processes of distanciation that will find new divisions even when the old ones disappear. Of course, the Guadrian is an active player in those.