On the day after the referendum, on the day the result was announced, I went up to the allotment, but found myself unable to concentrate on the weeding. After a number of attempts to motivate myself I gave up and went and sat in the greenhouse, drinking coffee from a flask and regarding the now lightly falling rain with some distaste. Eventually I had to admit it was no good – I couldn’t distract myself – I would have to deal with it, and that for me, often entails writing stuff down.

1) Context

  • The response to the global crash of 2008 focussed largely on maintaining asset values (and thus rich / middle class wealth) – banks were kept solvent through state subsidy, funded by tax payers.
  • The default position of first world countries was to adopt austerity economics – to pay for the bail-outs through a reduction in the size of the state and state expenditure, rather than through more progressive (and increased taxation) and government borrowing and spending. The 1930s tells us that this approach compounds and entrenches recession and results in economic depression.
  • This approach has resulted in economic stagnation / low growth rates and an acceleration of the rise in inequality that had commenced in the 1970s. Discrepancies between the rich / middle class (educated, professional jobs) and the poor / increasingly casualised labour force have been exacerbated.
  • History suggests that economic recessions tend to result in a shift to the political right unless positive action is taken to stimulate economies (eg New Deal in USA 1930s).

2) Europe

  • The Eurozone has become an economic disaster, with marked inequality between member states with some experiencing very high levels of unemployment. The Euro has no mechanism for rebalancing economic relationships between surplus countries (eg Germany) and debtor ones (eg Greece, Italy, Spain) apart from more austerity for the latter. The irony in the current situation is that the UK is not part of the Eurozone and has been afforded more flexibility in which economic policies it pursues. Growth (even if low) has been experienced rather than stagnation and unemployment levels are lower (even if working conditions have deteriorated) than in Europe.
  • Europe has struggled to formulate an effective response to migrants arriving from Syria / Libya etc and has allowed The Right to stoke the familiar fears of being over-run.
  • The democratic institutions of Europe have failed to keep pace with the scale of economic integration (although the main impact of this is on the Eurozone, not the wider EU). It is, nevertheless, easy to depict EU bureaucracy as unaccountable.

3) The UK

  • Since the 2008 crash the ‘have-nots’ have experienced increasing social and economic marginalisation in the face of:
    • Reductions in state services and benefits
    • Increasing pressure on an underfunded NHS
    • Deteriorating working conditions (reduced hours, casualised labour etc)
    • Significant numbers of migrants from Europe settling in already depressed areas resulting in very visible increased pressure on already overstretched services.
  • The marginalised are little touched by the benefits of EU membership – eg the freedom to work, live, travel in Europe – or work for companies dependant on inward investment / business links with the continent.

4) The Referendum

  • Promising a referendum was a massive error of judgement by Cameron (and highlights his complete lack of statesmanship). He made (at least) three erroneous assumptions:
    • That it would keep the Tories united and head UKIP off at the pass
    • That the expected coalition government following the last election would render the promise invalid
    • That if push came to shove and a referendum had to be held it would be won on the basis that ‘it is the economy stupid’ (though be fair I thought that too!!)
  • The Remain Campaign was unable to promote a positive vision of Europe (understandable given the above) and clearly did not engage effectively with the marginalised and older (50+) people. It comprehensively failed to set out an alternative view on immigration which highlighted the economic benefits and the humanitarian imperatives.
  • The Leave Campaign was irresponsibly populist, targeting and stoking the fears of the marginalised and older population, thus providing a lightning rod for their anger and frustration – and the opportunity to give the political class (and the rich and middleclass) a good kicking. The irony of course is that the campaign was led by another faction of that same political elite – it will not be able to deliver on its promises to the satisfaction of these groups who supported it.

5) ­­What does this amount to?

  • It seems to me that we are leaving the EU due to a particularly badly timed referendum which gave the opportunity for the unaddressed concerns of significant groups of relatively disadvantaged and marginalised people to be exploited and amplified, by a faction of the political elite who are at least as responsible as the rest of them for the mis-management of the economy and social policy that brought about the very conditions that have impinged so harshly on these groups.
  • The votes from these groups considerably swelled the Leave count and made a significant contribution to the overall result.
  • Of course the real issue is – what do we do now?