2. The Brexit Revolution
On 23 June the revolution began. The Mirror called it "Day one of Brexi". The next day David Cameron resigned. As he departed Downing Street, he declared"the will of the people is an instrument that must be delivered". (1) (Guardian 24 June 2016). Sun, Express, Mail and Telegraph hailed "Brexit" as a great patriotic triumph. The Express declared it a "glorious victory". The Telegraph predicted the "birth of a new Britain"
"The vote shattered the political status quo" says Tim Shipman. (2) (All Our War - Tim Shipman introduction xxi Collins 2016). Theresa May became PM on 13 July - the first leader thrown up by the "revolution". Tory MPs rallied behind her. She declared "we need a government that will deliver serious social reforms " and make ours a country that truly works for everyone". (3)
May described Brexit as "a 'quiet revolution' whose roots run deep". (4). In her speech to the 2016 Tory conference, she spoke about "a revolution in which millions of our fellow citizens stood up and said they were not prepared to be ignored anymore". (5) This was a "rare" chance to "write a new future upon the page" as the Government ends Brussels' rule and begins to "bring power home". It was "a once-in-a-generation moment to reshape our nation once again". (6)
Nigel Farage was also full of optimism. At a party held in his honour at the Ritz, he described 2016 as "the year of the big political revolution". He told unhappy remainers "it is going to get a bloody sight worse next year". (7). He subsequently warned "I sense that among the 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit, frustration is moving towards anger". (8)
The Brexit revolution is being driven by "Middle England" says Tobias Buck. It "brought home just how little faith they have in Britain's politicians and parties, business lobbies and trade unions, think tanks and investment banks". (9) He says "whatever measure you use political mistrust is rising " you see a generalised malaise". (10) "
Like all revolutions" says David Hare "it will eat its own" even though "nobody yet knows who's going to end up with an ice-pick through their skull". History, he says, has "told us it was likely to be Boris Johnson". The revolution has not ended yet. "As with any revolution, there are countless unforeseen developments ahead". (11)
Glorious Revolution
"All revolutions begin with a rejection of the old order, and the elites and institutions which preside over it" says Jeremy Warner. "But then they can head off in wildly different directions". He asks whether the Brexit revolution will be bloody or Glorious. Will it follow the French and Russian revolutions or "the profound but quiet change epitomised by Britain's very own 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688"? (12)
Warner believes the Glorious revolution is something to celebrate. It "marked the start of Britain's ascent in the world. It established the supremacy of parliament, it made Britain into Europe's dominant naval power, and it led to a great outpouring of financial innovation which both funded imperial expansion and eventually sparked transformational industrial change". If Brexit is "well handled" it "has the capacity to deliver another glorious revolution". (13)
Richard Patient, London Chair of Business for Britain, says "I was struck by the wonderful analogy between the Glorious Revolution of nearly 330 years ago, and our Second Glorious Revolution, unfolding as we speak. In 1688, an absolute monarchy was overthrown by Parliamentarians who agreed to a constitutional monarchy". Today we are overthrowing "an absolute tyranny" in Brussels. Parliament, with help from the people, are undertaking another "Bloodless Revolution". (14) "
The first Glorious Revolution was a rout for the Catholic Stuarts......England showed the way for democracy in Europe, but the revolutions on the continent weren't quite so bloodless". Now "Theresa May has routed the Remoaners, with her White Paper giving no ground to the losers of Brexit". He warns Nicola Sturgeon that "the Bloodless Revolution wasn't so bloodless in Scotland". (15)
Jacob Rees-Mogg, speaking at a fringe meeting during the Conservative party conference, said "It [Brexit] is the defining political issue of our time. To pretend otherwise is absurd". Brexit "is a fundamental shift in how the country is governed on the same order of magnitude of the Glorious Revolution or the Great Reform Bill. It is transformative constitutionally and consequences will knock on every area of our lives," he added. (16)
Sam Natapoff recognises Britain's "distinguished history of revolutions, from the 1688 Glorious Revolution that created Britain's constitutional monarchy to the 1776 American Revolution that forced a fundamental rethinking of the British Empire". Today "Britain is undertaking an Atavistic Revolution, an aggressive reversion to an idealized ancestral past" bolstered by "the passionate illusion that Britain remained a Great Power." (17)
Storming the Bastille
On 14 July 1789 an angry crowd assembled and fought their way into the Bastille, a medieval fortress and political prison in Paris. They were looking for weapons to defend themselves. Nearly a hundred people were killed in the battle. Yet it was a largely symbolic event not least because the prison only had seven prisoners. It has gone down in history as a moment which signalled the beginning of a democratic revolution which overthrew France's 'ancien regime'. (18)
In 1931 a different kind of event had a similar impact. Spain was riven with crisis. King Alfonso called municipal elections to resolve the situation. The election campaign took on the character of a plebiscite on the monarchy. Huge meetings took place all over the country. When the results came in all large towns of Spain voted against candidates supporting the monarchy, especially in Madrid and Barcelona. (19)
On 14 April 1931 crowds gathered in Madrid, the government advised the king to leave to prevent bloodshed. He announced "Sunday's elections have shown me that I no longer enjoy the love of my people". He believed that using his royal prerogative to cling to power would plunge the country into civil war. (20) He decided it was best to abdicate.
"Glorious bloodless, peaceful harmonious was the revolution of April 14 1931" says Felix Morrow. "The Spanish republic came so easily" only two days after "people had voted for the republican-socialist coalition in the country wide municipal election. This was enough to finish off Alfonso". (21) A revolution began without violence. But like the Bastille this was a real break with the old order.
Revolutions may break out, says Lenin, "not only in consequence of a great strike, a street demonstration, a hunger riot, a mutiny in the forces, or a colonial rebellion, but also in consequence of any political crisis, like the Dreyfus affair, the Zabern incident, or in connection with a referendum on the secession of an oppressed nation, etc" Lenin's point is well taken that revolutions may be triggered by a wide range of political events. (22)
Leaving aside the question of whether the UK is an "oppressed nation", Lenin rightly recognises that a referendum could trigger a revolution. The "Brexit revolution" can be seen as an example of the profound political consequences that flow from such events. The fact there may be no significant violence at the beginning points to examples more like Spain in 1931 than Paris in 1789. We can leave aside the question of the UK as an "oppressed nation" which is central to those who see themselves leading a national liberation movement.
The former senior civil servant, Ivan Rogers, the UK's permanent representative to the EU (2013-2107) took up the theme of a Brexit revolution in his 2018 lecture at Cambridge. He sees "Brexitism as a revolutionary movement seeking a genuine rupture with the old regime". This does not mean Leave voters were consciously voting for revolution because they saw this or wanted it. What people do and what they think they are doing is not the same. (23)
Martin Kettle makes a similar point. "Revolutions do not always take place violently in public squares, in the streets around the bourses or in front of the palaces". (24) He continues "sometimes they take place quietly, slowly, unobserved and indoors. Sometimes they even happen without the revolutionaries themselves quite understanding what they are doing that is so transformative". (25)
The events on 14 July 1789 or 14 April 1931 do not in themselves constitute a revolution. However they were significant events for breaking open the old order. Revolutions can begin relatively peacefully. They do not have to involve an armed uprising whether storming the Bastille in 1789 or Winter Palace in 1917. Will history come to view 23 June 2016 as another 'Bastille moment' beginning a break with the old order?
Revolutionary break
Ivan Rogers recognises, not least as an expert on UK relations with the EU, the disruptive implications of leaving the European Union. He points out the deep nature of the UK's integration with the EU. He recognises the EU "had inserted itself into virtually every nook and cranny of the country's social and economic life". (26) He explains "the current operation of the UK economy, both in manufacturing and in services, is heavily predicated on membership of both the Single Market and the Customs Union, and what each has done, however imperfectly , over the decades to facilitate trade and investment flows across what used to be hard, now internal, borders of a Common Market". (27)
We might express this in another way. The "British economy" has been more or less abolished and replaced or superseded by the European economy. It is not full integration because the UK is not in the Euro-zone. The English Channel still provides a cultural and psychological barrier to recognising the UK's deep integration. Integration is not merely an economic question. It involves the British state now unready to cope with the Brexit revolution.
The UK is integrated into a "comprehensive regulatory union". There are "a huge number of legal institutional and regulatory arrangements which had become central to the operation of the British state". This has serious political consequences. "The UK's very immersion in these structures meant its own State's capacity to resume sovereignty in areas where it had been pooled, was much diminished across large tracts of the economy now regulated supranationally". (28)
There are two other factors. Millions of people, especially the working class and those living in poverty, have "multiple grievances with the ancient regime, many of which were very well warranted and had been building for many years, to which Brexit might help provide some answer " or at least felt Brexit could not make things worse than they already were." (29)
Jacobins of revolution
The Society of the Friends of the Constitution was set up in 1789 by anti-royalist Deputies (MPs) from Brittany. This soon spread and grew into the Jacobin Club, the republican party of the French revolution. The Jacobins were one of the new 'parties', along with Royalists, who wanted to restore the old order, and the Club de Feuillants or constitutional monarchists and many factions in between. (30)
The English revolution produced its own new parties; the Royalist party and the Parliamentary party with the latter giving rise to the Presbyterians, Independents and Levellers. The central question being defined or resolved by these revolutions was who should rule the country and under what constitution or laws. Every revolution is a political contest between the new parties thrown up by the revolution and the forces of counter-revolution.
Ivan Rogers identifies the leaders of Brexit as 'Jacobin' revolutionaries. He says "those who drove Brexit politically are clearly not seeking incremental change. Most wanted, and want, a radically different UK, and some want a radically different - or even, no EU. There was never a version of the EU to which the other twenty seven could have agreed with which the bulk of the leading advocates of Brexit could have been content". (31)
The Brexit Jacobins had remarkably little to say on the future inside the UK. Their revolution is mainly cast in terms of a liberation movement escaping from the EU which is viewed as a cross between the Third Reich and the USSR. Liberty is threatened by an "an over regulated, over-welfared, illiberal basket case from which we need to escape and from which we must diverge". (32)
The EU is thus "a behemoth with preposterous, undesirable and unrealistic, sometimes, may be often malign, superpower and statehood pretensions" (33). Of course the EU is not a federal super-state because it "has neither army nor intelligence services, nor many of the non economic regulatory capabilities which go with statehood". (34) These Jacobins are driven by fear the EU "was inexorably becoming a single, federal state, from which it was urgent to liberate ourselves". (35)
The course of the outcome of the 'Brexit revolution' is far from certain. In 1790s France, the revolution continued and polarised as one faction was replaced by a more radical extreme one until the counter-revolution reasserted itself and Robespierre was overthrown. This is how Ivan Rogers see the revolution unfolding. Will we arrive at a time when "Mr Gove and acolytes get condemned by the pinstriped Robespierres of the Committee of Public Safety (the ERG) for insufficient revolutionary fervour"? (36)
Perhaps the best revolutionary historical analogy for national independence is the America revolution which broke out from April 1775 until 1791 with the ratification of the US constitution. Thirteen American colonies broke away from the British imperial super state and established an American union as a federal republic. (37) As soon as it is stated this analogy breaks down. The Brexit revolution is not cast in terms of republican democracy and a new constitution but about global Britain and free trade deals. It is more George III than George Washington.
Unfolding or 'permanent' revolution
In December 2016 Nigel Farage told Radio 4 listeners that "Britain's political revolution was incomplete." (38) "However docile British voters may appear to be", he predicted "this issue is one on which really big change could happen and a major realignment of the British political system occur. If people think 2016 is a seismic year, I think 2020 will be even more dramatic". (39)
In late 2016 the Brexit 'revolutionaries' began to turn their anger against the House of Lords and Supreme Court. They feared the elites were trying to derail Brexit by preventing the Crown triggering article 50 without parliamentary approval. In November the Daily Mail came out with its front page headline "Enemies of the People" directed against Judge's ruling on Article 50. (40)
In November leave campaigners threatened to bring 100,000 people to march through London if the Supreme Court blocked Article 50. Nigel Farage warned of street disturbances if parliament attempted to frustrate the will of the people. (41) Despite this threat we should not underestimate the potential for violence if leaving the EU is blocked.
In early 2017 Tim Stanley, writing in the Daily Telegraph, claimed "the Brexit revolution is growing and gathering momentum". (42) Like all revolutions, they do not stand still. Once they have begun, they gather pace with every clash. "They start out as a debate about one thing and end up in a war about everything." (43)
Any institution that stands in the way of Brexit, says Stanley, "risks being flattened". The Brexit revolution will gain new impetus as 'remainers' try to halt or reverse the revolution. According to Stanley the opposition to Brexit are making the same mistake as Louis XVI. By resisting change they are radicalising the situation. (44)
"The narrative of every revolution" says Stanley, "is thus determined as much by its opposition as by its supporters." What began as a popular vote has now begun to engulf the constitution itself because an "emotionally charged opposition is forcing voters to re-evaluate several aspects of our constitutional settlement." (45)
Max Hastings asks whether the country can get back to stability. "Many old relationships can be resumed once the break with Europe has taken place". Yet a restoration of peace and stability is neither possible nor likely because the "economic and political fallout, and thus the recriminations will persist indefinitely". (46) Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put Humpty together again.
Revolution reconsidered
On 23 June 2016 the UK embarked on a "Brexit Revolution". By voting to leave the EU a majority in England and Wales 'stormed the Bastille'. It was a peaceful event achieved by ballots not bullets. Is Brexit a real revolution or merely hubris of the radical right? Is it the beginning of a democratic revolution, like the Glorious revolution (1688) or a bloody revolution like France after 1789?
The question of the "Brexit Revolution" should be taken seriously. Jeremy Warner concluded that Brexit doesn't match either of these two models of democratic revolution. It is, he says, of "an altogether smaller magnitude. But as an act of rebellion against the established elites, with their apparent attachment to the integrationist ambitions of the European Union, it is an historical rupture none the less, and could still go either way" (47)
We should examine the "Brexit Revolution" from a different angle. Perhaps we can go back before the Glorious revolution (1688) and before the English revolution (1649) to the events in England in the summer of 1381. On 12 June a sizable army of peasants, tradesman, labourers, artisans and even some gentry set up camp on Blackheath common, just outside London. (48) Here was Jeremy Warner's photo-fit of an "act of rebellion" of an "altogether smaller magnitude".
Notes
(1) Guardian 24 June 2016.
(2) All Our War - Tim Shipman introduction xxi Collins 2016.
(3) Guardian 12 July 2016.
(4) Euobserver Eszter Zalan 5 October 2016 https://euobserver.com/uk-referendum/135376).
(5) Euobserver Eszter Zalan 5 October 2016 https://euobserver.com/uk-referendum/135376
(6) Sunday Express Greg Heffer 5 October 2016.
(7) Sky News 24 November 2016).
(8) Daily Telegraph 5 December 2016.
(9) "Middle England drives Brexit Revolution" Financial Times 15 June 2016.
(10) "Middle England drives Brexit Revolution" Financial Times 15 June 2016.
(11) Guardian 1 July 2016
(12) Daily Telegraph Warner 27 October 2016
(13) Daily Telegraph 27 October 2016
(14) https://brexitcentral.com/business-elite-second-glorious-revolution/ The business elite need to get their heads around the Second Glorious Revolution - Richard Patient February 3, 2017
(15) https://brexitcentral.com/business-elite-second-glorious-revolution/ The business elite need to get their heads around the Second Glorious Revolution - Richard Patient February 3, 2017
(16) Independent Ashley Cowburn 2 October 2017
(17) https://www.salon.com/2018/10/13/brexit-britains-atavistic-revolution/Sam Natapoff October 13 2018
(18) The history of democracy - Brian Roper, Pluto Press 2013 p166
(19) The Spanish civil war Hugh Thomas Penguin 1986 P31
(20) The Spanish civil war Hugh Thomas Penguin 1986 P32.
(21) Revolution and counter-revolution in Spain - Felix Marrow, New Park publications 1976 p217.
(22) The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination Lenin Collected Works, Moscow, Volume 22, pages 143-156.
(23) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(24) Guardian Martin Kettle Wed 19 Dec 2018
(25) Guardian Martin Kettle Wed 19 Dec 2018
(26) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(27) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(28) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(29) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(30) The history of democracy - Brian Roper, Pluto Press 2013 p166
(31) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(32) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(33) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(34) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018.
(35) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(36) https://share.trin.cam.ac.uk/sites/public/Comms/Rogers_brexit_as_revolution.pdf Ivan Rogers lecture at Cambridge 2018
(37) The history of democracy - A Marxist interpretation - Brian Roper Pluto Press 2013 p119.
(38) BBC Radio 4 Broadcasting House report uk.org 18 December 2016.
(39) Daily Telegraph 5 December 2016.
(40) Daily Mail 4 November 2016.
(41) Independent Harriet Agerholm 7 November 2016.
(42) Tim Stanley Daily Telegraph 21 February 2017 "The Lords must learn the lessons of history or face a new revolution".
(43) Tim Stanley Daily Telegraph 21 February 2017 "The Lords must learn the lessons of history or face a new revolution".
(44) Tim Stanley Daily Telegraph 21 February 2017 "The Lords must learn the lessons of history or face a new revolution".
(45) Tim Stanley Daily Telegraph 21 February 2017 "The Lords must learn the lessons of history or face a new revolution".
(46) Times Wednesday Max Hastings 5 December 2018
(47) Jeremy Warner Daily Telegraph 27 October 2016 . (48) The English rebel David Horspool Penguin 2009 p 127
