From Brexit to the Break-Up of … England? Thinking in and Beyond the Nation

The chapter sets the experience of Brexit in the context of the UK’s reshaping and redefinition over recent decades, with a particular focus on the troubled (re)emergence of ‘England’ as an imagined political territory. It analyses Brexit as a symptom of the political, economic and social geography of the UK, particularly its uneven development in a spatial polity dominated by London and the South East of England. The divisions within the UK were reflected in the voting patterns of the 2016 referendum and this may have significant implications for the UK’s future as a multinational state, and particularly for England as a central pillar of that state. The chapter explores some of the key factors that underlay the geographical patterns of the ways in which England and its regions voted in the referendum, highlighting the importance of uneven development in generating significant political outcomes and embedding social difference in place.

‘Uni-Culti’ Myths and Liberal Dreams: Brexit and Austerity from the Perspective of Migrants

This chapter discusses the post-Brexit condition from the perspective of the margin: of an outsider to Britain as well as of Britain’s marginal men, migrants from Poland. It considers anti-immigrant populism and austerity as transnational rather than national phenomena. Thereby, the chapter address the neoliberal reforms as well as the newest political context, including the advance of nationalist rhetoric, the ‘war on gender ideology’, as well as anti-immigrant populism in Poland. The chapter uses the case of Polish migrants in Britain to critically discuss how the interest in the return of migrants is interwoven with neoliberal as well as culturalist logics. These two logics represent migrants either as rational economic agents or passive victims of anti-immigrant populism. Both perspectives underestimate the dynamics of migrants’ aspirations as well as the complexity of their embeddedness in multiple locations. The lesson learnt from studying Polish migrants’ aspirations is a new perspective on the nexus of anti-immigration populism and austerity in Europe.

The Contracting State: Austerity and Public Services

This chapter focuses on the ‘contracting state’ under Cameron, and reviews developments in three major public services since 2010: health, education and welfare, paying attention to the way in which these reforms affect the agency of the people who rely on these services. The Conservative-led coalition that was elected in 2010 made deep cuts to public spending in an effort to bring down the deficit, which they argued would restore economic growth. In practice, sluggish growth over the next few years meant that the cuts to public spending and services were less harsh than planned. However, the distributional effect of the cuts was uneven, with lower income, working-age households suffering disproportionally. In England and Wales, in organisational terms, austerity meant an extension of quasi-market reforms – particularly in health and education – that had been a feature of UK public administration since the 1980s. Pressure to cut public spending was also passed down to local government, ‘hollowing out’ a significant area of public provision and constraining their agency.

Understanding Brexit in Wales: Austerity, Elites and National Identity

Support for Brexit in Wales looks similar to that in England. The turn-out in Wales was very high, the same as the UK average and, as in Brexit-voting parts of England, there was strong anti-immigration sentiment in Brexit-voting areas of Wales, with a feeling that immigration is keeping wages down. This chapter, however, focuses on several important differences: it explores what is distinctive about support for Brexit in Wales. Approaches to Brexit are different in Wales due to the historical relationship of Wales to England, and the distinct social structure and politics of Wales – specifically, its elite and its distinct politics. In England, those with the strongest sense of English national identity voted most heavily for Brexit, whilst those who identified as British more than English tended to vote Remain. Thus, in order to understand Brexit in Wales, the chapter analyses and explains Brexit voting and the nature of elite agents and identities in contemporary Wales.

‘Not an International Health Service’: Xenophobia, Brexit and the Restoration of National Sovereignty

The chapter explores the role of xenophobia and nationalism within the media rhetoric mobilised during the EU referendum campaign. It examines how the rhetoric of the Leave campaign attempted to restore a perceived lost national sovereignty and agency, imagined as a simple intuitive equivalence between national citizens, national taxpayers, and national public services. The chapter explains how, through neoliberal reforms, the welfare state was transformed according to the principles of competition, individual consumer choice and conditional entitlement to benefits. It also focuses on the framing of the European Union as taking taxpayers’ money which could otherwise be used to fund national public institutions.

The Economy of Brexit: Performance, Interests and Agency

This chapter examines debates regarding the potential effect Brexit will have on the economy and, in particular, specific areas of the economy in which international trade plays an especially important role. It demonstrates how differing elements of British business not only have divergent interests in Brexit but that these differences arise from their position in the economy. It focuses on Brexit in relation to agriculture, financial services and internationally traded manufactured goods as three examples of sectoral interests. A second element of the chapter is to look at the social consequences of these economic transitions. It utilises agency in the area of welfare and poverty, as a means to understand linkages between Brexit and austerity, and to examine their impact on poverty in society.

Agents and Agency in the Face of Austerity and Brexit Uncertainty: the Case of Legal Aid

In austerity Britain, the contested policies that cut legal aid funding and court system financing threaten justice and the rule of law, the very core of the British judicial system, which is admired and respected worldwide. Thus, it is necessary to identify and to analyse critically policies that affect law and justice, the impacts of such policies and resistance to them. This chapter explores changes to legal aid and justice financing as well as reversals, government justifications for changes and the response of the judiciary and lawyers as a basis for its reflective narrative on the state of the judicial system. As a case study of the wider debate on austerity-through-policy in Britain, the chapter reviews recent legal aid reform and so-called ‘discount justice’ in England and Wales. Particular focus is given to the impact, or likely impact, austerity policies have on the availability of legal aid for criminal cases, and the uncertain future of public spending on justice.

Culture Matters: Cuts and Resistance

The chapter focuses on the cuts administered since 2010 in the fields of literature, music, visual arts, film and performing arts, and their teaching to the young. Budget constraints have led to the closure of numerous essential institutions, such as theatres, libraries and youth centres, museums and art galleries. The chapter looks at significant sectors and examines the social consequences of their financial losses, starting with the relatively modest cuts for prestigious national institutions and the ‘creative industries’ and moving on to the disastrously major ones for the local councils and the Arts Council England. Forms of resistance are analysed as a means to reclaim cultural agency, ranging from grass-root activities to Labour Party opposition. In several cases volunteers and philanthropists have stepped in to keep institutions running, while individual celebrities and political groups have publicly voiced protest, sometimes with spectacular actions.

Introduction

The introduction outlines the origins, scope and significance of Brexit, and focuses on the politics, discourse and ideology of the recent austerity policies. It establishes an interdisciplinary approach to agency, which is regarded as a key to understanding the current cultural, economic, political, and social climate in the UK. For many, the ability to exert agency is constrained by an unequal distribution of opportunities generating a social division between globalisation ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. The connection between austerity and agency is developed by exploring the ideological context of outline policies, notions of ‘responsibilisation’ and the ‘stigmatisation’ of citizens that are involved in welfare provision. Brexit was thus partly the result of people’s feelings of powerlessness and their desire to ‘take back control’ over their own fate. The introduction also provides some prospects of Brexit during times of fast-changing developments and great uncertainty.

A Sovereign People? Political Fantasy and Governmental Time in the Pursuit of Brexit

The political conflict over the United Kingdom’s relationship to Europe was dominated by projections of sovereignty, particularly the ‘restoration’ of political sovereignty from Brussels to Westminster. This chapter explores two different aspects of this projection of sovereignty as a desire to take back control and regain ‘people’s agency’. The first aspect concerns its role as collective fantasy in which the chapter traces the ways in which the image of sovereignty was constructed and deployed in the campaign to Vote Leave. In particular, it considers how the conception of the nation as a sovereign people was central to the political mobilisation of Brexit and has persisted as a key reference point for continuing conflicts over Brexit. The second aspect concerns the emergent disjuncture between the political temporality implied in the Leave campaign and the return of governmental temporality. In doing so, the chapter draws on and develops Taguieff’s insight that populist political discourse suspends time in favour of a continuous present. In the process, the fantasy of the sovereign people has continued to play a central role in the denunciation of delay, doubt and dissent.