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A review by thethom
Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics by Robert Ford, Maria Sobolewska
4.0
Brexit and the rise of populist parties has produced no shortage of books purporting to explain the EU referendum and the current state of British politics. Brexitland is the best Brexit inspired book yet. Unlike previous books like National Populism: The revolt against Liberal Democracy, Brexitland avoids blatant straw man arguments and mostly avoids the crude caricatures, irrelevant comparisons and strange arguments that permeate that Brexit inspired book.
One particularly strong feature of Brexitland is the discussion of historical reactions to ethnic diversity produced by immigration after the Second World War as many subjects of the British Empire came to Britain resulting in an extremely strong backlash against rising ethnic diversity. They show how popular Enoch Powell's views were among the public and discuss how Edward Heath's humanitarian decision to allow Ugandan refugees to settle in Britain cost him dearly.
They also highlight the importance of policy options to alleviate the backlash against immigration. Thatcher successfully used strict immigration policy to win over these ethnocentric identity conservative voters to her leadership. Something Blair, Brown and Cameron were unable to do as a result of EU membership.
There are however a few shortcomings of Sobolewska and Ford's explanation of identity politics driving British political behaviour. First, they repeatedly note the importance of educational expansion in creating the identity liberal group but they never explain why university expansion creates this alternative form of identity politics. Why is it that citizens who go to university are socially liberal? This is a consistent trend seen across countries. Is it simply socialisation whereby young liberals meet other young liberals from different backgrounds thus solidifying liberal beliefs on average? Or could it be something else. They do not say.
Ethnocentrism could have been discussed with a clearer delineation from related concepts like nativism, xenophobia and authoritarianism. They reference the important work of Karen Stenner in explaining the activation of ethnocentrism in British politics, but they seem unsure of whether ethnocentrism is a product of authoritarianism or something else. More discussion of this link and extra clarity when discussing their concepts would have been helpful.
The final issue I would have liked to see discussed is what constitutes racism and why the boundaries of racism shift. They avoid actually defining and discussing what constitutes racism in their view despite the abundance of available literature. They say that as anti-racism norms move quickly this leaves behind the identity conservatives who legitimately believe that racism is constantly shifting to encompass their legitimate resentments. What this misses is that racism is not a static phenomenon and that political actors can still use racism to their political advantage. Once it became politically unacceptable to discuss the racial inferiority of Black Americans, new coded racist dog whistles were used by the Nixon campaign to appeal to racist voters. This is one obvious reason why norms around racism will shift over time.
Brexitland is an interesting political science book which analyses the role of identity politics in British political history and compares the configuration of identity politics in the EU referendum with the Scottish independence referendum. It discusses how liberals and conservatives can become mobilised and actually displace traditional left/right political issues from the agenda in favour of cultural issues.
One particularly strong feature of Brexitland is the discussion of historical reactions to ethnic diversity produced by immigration after the Second World War as many subjects of the British Empire came to Britain resulting in an extremely strong backlash against rising ethnic diversity. They show how popular Enoch Powell's views were among the public and discuss how Edward Heath's humanitarian decision to allow Ugandan refugees to settle in Britain cost him dearly.
They also highlight the importance of policy options to alleviate the backlash against immigration. Thatcher successfully used strict immigration policy to win over these ethnocentric identity conservative voters to her leadership. Something Blair, Brown and Cameron were unable to do as a result of EU membership.
There are however a few shortcomings of Sobolewska and Ford's explanation of identity politics driving British political behaviour. First, they repeatedly note the importance of educational expansion in creating the identity liberal group but they never explain why university expansion creates this alternative form of identity politics. Why is it that citizens who go to university are socially liberal? This is a consistent trend seen across countries. Is it simply socialisation whereby young liberals meet other young liberals from different backgrounds thus solidifying liberal beliefs on average? Or could it be something else. They do not say.
Ethnocentrism could have been discussed with a clearer delineation from related concepts like nativism, xenophobia and authoritarianism. They reference the important work of Karen Stenner in explaining the activation of ethnocentrism in British politics, but they seem unsure of whether ethnocentrism is a product of authoritarianism or something else. More discussion of this link and extra clarity when discussing their concepts would have been helpful.
The final issue I would have liked to see discussed is what constitutes racism and why the boundaries of racism shift. They avoid actually defining and discussing what constitutes racism in their view despite the abundance of available literature. They say that as anti-racism norms move quickly this leaves behind the identity conservatives who legitimately believe that racism is constantly shifting to encompass their legitimate resentments. What this misses is that racism is not a static phenomenon and that political actors can still use racism to their political advantage. Once it became politically unacceptable to discuss the racial inferiority of Black Americans, new coded racist dog whistles were used by the Nixon campaign to appeal to racist voters. This is one obvious reason why norms around racism will shift over time.
Brexitland is an interesting political science book which analyses the role of identity politics in British political history and compares the configuration of identity politics in the EU referendum with the Scottish independence referendum. It discusses how liberals and conservatives can become mobilised and actually displace traditional left/right political issues from the agenda in favour of cultural issues.