What Brexit Means for Democracy

For all those who are new to the Brexit debate, a quick summary: In June 2016, the United Kingdom voted in a public referendum to leave the European Union. Many saw it as the reclaiming of British independence from a declining, bureaucratic, power-hungry organization. Others decried it as the beginning of the end to the UK’s place on the world stage.

The withdrawal process remains in its infancy, but it has been mired in repeated national embarrassment. Prime Minister Theresa May voted to remain but was left to navigate the departure process. Her negotiated deal was condemned by colleagues on both sides and has twice been emphatically rejected by the House of Commons. On a kind reading, she has stoically attempted to reconcile the differences between the public and Parliament; on a harsher reading, her remarkable inconsistency has fueled national frustration and political division.

Last week, reportedly over a million people marched through the streets of London demanding a second referendum. In their view, the Leave campaign won by using misinformation and inconsistency; those who voted for the country to leave were not able to express exactly how. Meanwhile, committed Brexiteers have formed a Brexit party that views May’s compromises and any attempts to extend the timeline as unforgivable betrayals of the democratic process.

Indeed, what has struck me about the ongoing chaos is how often I have heard the word “democratic” used as a self-appointed compliment. Tune into the commons and expect to hear arguments from several defenders of the popular will: one who is carrying out the people’s wishes by delivering a clean departure from the EU, another who is defending them by delivering a divorce that protects their rights as economic actors, and another who is defending their supposedly real interests — that love for multilateral union that the electorate was simply never allowed to realize.

What separates these claims to democracy is that they appeal to its different tenants. Those who seek a second referendum are making an appeal to the superiority of representative democracy. They fear, in the words of Elbridge Gerry, Class of 1762, that “excess of democracy” that arises when the people “are the dupes of pretended patriots.”

Supporters of a second referendum would almost certainly extend the “pretended patriots” label to the other self-styled democrats: those who demand Brexit on the grounds of a direct mandate. Citing various polls, such Euroskeptics maintain that in the first referendum, Leavers clearly had in mind a so-called “hard Brexit.” This would mean an end to freedom of movement, an end to the customs union relationship, and an end to common workers’ rights across the continent — including the possibility of leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement at all; an outcome that could cost nearly a million UK jobs, and be a serious blow to its economic standing.

But these democracy lovers understand something that those of my own political leanings have repeatedly missed: that the Brexit referendum was not won on the basis of economic promise. We are living at a time when populations in Western countries feel alienated by a perceived “elite” who rule their affairs, and Brexit provided the illusion of control. While the individual British citizen may not have the means to combat economic hardship, a loss of meaning, and the absence of local community, their vote offered them the ability to claim something for themselves — that notion of Britain as a self-governing, powerful nation.

Perhaps this image is caught up in imperial bluster: a misguided nostalgia for a deeply flawed past. The rise in racial animosity since the referendum would lend credence to this view; indeed, Islamist extremism and far-right terrorism have been operating as two sides of the same coin for several years. But even so, that does nothing to support the notion that spitting on these people will do anything to restore their faith in the democratic process. It does nothing to suggest that condemning populist fervor will put an end to it.

I have significant problems with the EU, but my personal wish was always to remain. I believe that my country should be in the room when decisions are made that will affect the continent’s future; and although I remain skeptical of attempts to bring the European nations into ever closer union, I cannot help but believe that the EU has and will continue to be a force for good in the world.

Yet this belief does not convince me that the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, and other prominent Leave campaigners. Rather, it convinces me that the multilateral message requires serious revitalization; that, to make a squeamish comparison with the United States’ political moment, liberals must listen to the concerns of people in all parts of the country.

It should be possible to talk across ideological lines without being labelled a traitor. It should be possible to make a case against open borders without being labelled a xenophobe. And when the Dalai Lama states that mass migration into Europe is unsustainable in the long term, it should be possible to ask why certain words can come from one mouth and not another.

Most of all, it is necessary to set out a positive vision for liberal democracy: one that can speak to people’s distrust of the so-called establishment. This will not be accomplished by patronizing Leave voters; it requires a serious consideration of those who feel left behind by the process of globalization.

Sahil Handa ’21, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Social Studies and Philosophy concentrator in Cabot House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.