The Failure of Brexit

Friction Without Reward

Brexit has been a dismal failure. This much needs to be acknowledged. If you are a small or medium sized business owner, Brexit has brought nothing but pain. Nebulous promises about improved trade deals and immigration have not materialised—in reality the state of trade and immigration has degraded in ways that are crippling what is left of UK enterprise . Even Nigel Farage has abandoned the “sunny uplands” of the Brexit project, instead taking swipes at those implementing it for causing undue pain. With those on the sharp end of this pain now more dubious of the lofty talk of sovereignty and British independence from supranational forces. I have witnessed first hand the headaches that the umbrella of Brexit reforms have caused, and the subsequent regulatory limbo that many sectors of the UK economy now remain in.

Not acknowledging reality, or framing reality in unreal ways, is an import component of the modern managerial state operation. The debate is framed purely between “Brexiteers” and “Remainers,” with much of today’s intersectional political baggage thrown into that mix. Business owners—especially those not directly at the teat of the Bank of England—are natural allies of the political right. Many of whom would stomach some sacrifice of the “line go up” immigration narrative for more cultural stability—but even for those who are ideologically sympathetic they have the worst of both words. Visas for skilled EU workers are harder to come by than before, meanwhile the UK is seeing millions of unskilled non-EU migrants fire-hosed onto its shores. If mass immigration is going to increase, then what is the point of all this Brexit pain they will ask?

The refusal by almost all of those on the political right to adequately explain why said promised benefits have failed to materialise is a weakness that has driven away those who rely on complex trade systems to run a business—and pay their employees. A genuine explanation, of course, would involve an acknowledgement of the performative failure of the political class in implementing popular will. It would also involve admitting that many who claimed to want Brexit are in reality incapable of delivering it because they are still wedded to a globalist project. It is then no wonder why they wish to push UK business further in to the hands of foreign regulators. Those who believe in Brexit earnestly are not the ones in power despite the delusion that a wave of populism can carry them there.

The full implications for sovereignty, democracy and power within Western nations is too large for the scope of this piece and will be discussed in a future one: but for those with purely practical concerns it does not matter if Brexit jumped or if it was pushed the reality is still the same.

The reflexive defence of the Brexit project that many still engage in looks like a denial of reality for ideological reasons—because that’s what it is. “A real Brexit has never been tried” or that “We just didn’t Brexit hard enough” are frustrating narratives for companies to hear and come off as dismissive abstractions in contrast to their very real and valid practical concerns. Brexit now is little else than a source of endless centre-right cope and the men who have to get things done in private industry are having none of it.

In this way the Brexit era has been a disaster for the political right because it has expended a huge amount of energy to go nowhere, besides further globalism. The core premise of Brexit was based on the delusion that those in power can be asked nicely to deliver something counter to their interests and they will do it earnestly, and to the best of their abilities. For those less inclined to total distrust of the system it is a giant “we told you so” from the managerial elite who predicted a mess and where in the positions of power to deliver one. Handing your political enemies the remit to deliver your political project is beyond foolish. When handed the reigns, those within the power structure casually dish out political pain to those who act counter to them. It is a Pavlovian method of reinforcement in which defiance simply delivers ever greater pain, creating an association between compliance and comfort. The source of all Learned Helplessness.

Most damagingly of all Brexit has made those who speak counter to the narrative look incompetent, whilst the regime in turn looks both competent and somewhat magnanimous in attempting to deliver what they told the populace was undeliverable. This reinforces the myth in the eyes of business operators that when the UK Government acts counter to the popular desire for a more traditional society it is doing so to protect the populace from itself like a child who wants to eat ice cream for every meal. The degree to which the globalist establishment has out manoeuvred the UK right is astonishing, it is a state of total defeat.

Polling is not always accurate, as the Brexit vote itself showed, but the final humiliation of those who voted under the naïve delusion they could take back their borders via democracy will be the inevitable rejoin vote—which legitimately does have widespread support after eight years of solid propaganda and maximised pain. When this does happen, UK industry will breathe a sigh of relief as the boot is taken from the UK’s neck for daring to defy their masters.

I do not say this for the sake of despair, but so you will understand how the conversion of Brexit from a short term political victory to a long term political defeat came about. I see many engaging in the same modes of thinking when it comes to immigration, the issue that swayed many towards the Brexit vote in the first place. Brexit should stand as a sharp reminder that the entire political and governance process is run by people who hate Britain and hate British people especially. The elite class create escalating suffering when asked to alter course and blame it on their political enemies. This is why I say “the suffering is the point,” because it is a powerful motivator—those not willing to fight will align out of self preservation.

Projects like The Brexit Vote will appear again, and the people who engage with these projects as if they are genuine will be utterly routed again. It’s easy to talk about populism as a delusion in the abstract, but it is far harder to rip yourself fully from the news cycle and understand the traps laid for you by thinking “maybe voting will work THIS time” when you are immersed in the current right-wing thing.

A Brexit process run by the British establishment from start to finish was always going to end up in the same place: failure and scapegoating. The main result of Brexit for the British Right, who touted the project as their baby, was the complete loss of trust in them by UK business owners, the one group they truly pledged allegiance to.