More than a year on from the Brexit referendum, the meaning of the result—both why it happened and where it will lead—is as unclear as it is non-negotiable. Politicians and journalists have tried in vain to interpret Brexit, labelling it, among other things, a “working-class revolt,” a working-class “tantrum” (as the current Europe minister diagnosed it at the conference), an “English revolt,” a “free-market revolution,” a “victory for real, ordinary people” and a corruption of democracy by a small, scheming elite. All these readings contain kernels of truth: “Brexit” was a blank canvas onto which a people projected their personal fantasies, fears, and fury. But Brexit cannot appease them all. [...]
As for these (other) Brits who want to remain in the EU, the sense of leaving is hard to see. To escape the bureaucracy of Brussels, Britain is undertaking perhaps the greatest bureaucratic mission in its history, replacing or replicating over 40 years of EU law, trade agreements, and institutions, with the perverse hope that the country will look no different afterwards. To expedite this task, May is pushing through a piece of legislation, known as the Withdrawal Bill, that will nullify parliamentary scrutiny until Brexit is complete, despite Brexit’s ostensible aim of enhancing the power of the British parliament. With similar absurdity, Britain is leaving the world’s largest free-trade area with the ambition of becoming a “champion of free-trade,” as Johnson envisions, and is seizing control of its borders to “embrace the world,” according to May. Becoming a “global Britain” is the destiny-du-jour. (Because of Britain’s supposedly strong reputation abroad, “the phrase global Britain makes sense,” Johnson explained during his conference speech. “If you said global China or global Russia or even, alas, global America, it would not have quite the same flavor.”) [...]
“This is Magna Carta, it’s the Burgesses coming at Parliament, it’s the great reform bill, it’s the bill of rights, it’s Waterloo, it’s Agincourt, it’s Crecy,” Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg declared in one of his (many) conference speeches. “We win all of these things.” According to a recent poll, almost two-thirds of Leave voters are ready for the battle ahead: They believe that “significant damage to the British economy” is a “price worth paying” for Brexit. Among over-65s, this number rises to 71 percent, with half of them even ready to accept a family member losing their job for the cause. [...]
Brexit, in this regard, is already a success. Because, finally, Britain can speak of itself in the lofty language of “destiny”: its “place in the world,” its glorious past and glorious future, a fairy-tale distraction from the dull failures of its domestic politics—soaring inequality, falling living standards and poor economic growth. “The eyes of the world are upon us,” May declared in Florence. It doesn’t matter if none of this is true—the world is more indifferent to our fairy tales than we like to think. All that matters is that we’re allowed live that life again, illusory or not. Brexit is partly theater, and Britain’s soul has taken the stage—that’s why everyone must play along. “Throughout its membership, the United Kingdom has never totally felt at home being in the European Union,” May consoled the crowd in Florence. “And perhaps because of our history and geography, the European Union never felt to us like an integral part of our national story in the way it does to so many elsewhere in Europe.” Boris Johnson also admired Britain’s natural inclination to “diverge from the great accumulated conglomerate.” Now, he says, “we will be able to intensify old friendships around the world, not least with fast-growing Commonwealth economies.” For Boris, some 70 years on, Britain’s “post-imperial future” is bright.
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