Brexitopia: what it’s really about

Some commentators, especially in the US, have pondered if the push for Brexit was fuelled by some lingering British yearning for past glory – a forlorn quest for a grand status which has long vanished.  In truth, while individuals who voted for Brexit did so for a multitude of reasons – quite a few contradicting each other and most are simply false (be it about redirecting funds to the NHS or improving the economy) – the main strategic push for Brexit came from the craving for ‘free market’ exploitation.

The ideal of Brexitopia has been relentlessly promoted by its most ardent advocates, not because it embodies a return to a ‘great’ waves-ruling Britain, but because it can bring about a future fit for exploitative profiteering on an ever widening scale.  

While they promised everything under the sun in the run-up to the EU referendum – maintaining standards, retaining levels of fundings, staying in the single market, enhancing services – all these commitments were jettisoned as soon as Brexit was voted through in parliament.  From that moment on, the Brexit advocates revealed their one and true interest as dismantling the protective arrangements against exploitation which had hitherto been in place as an integral part of EU membership.  

When they complain that the UK has not been moving fast enough to realise the ‘benefits’ of Brexit, what they mean is that the government is too slow in removing those previously EU-mandated safeguards which get in the way of callous profiteering.  Their own priorities are to:

·      Slash worker rights: weaken trade unions, lower standards for working conditions, undermine health and safety at work, and increase job insecurity to make workers more compliant and more sackable.

·      Cut environmental standards: increase the scope for making profit from environmentally harmful activities, remove requirements that curtail pollution, and cut down preventative measures that serve the public.

·      Roll back human rights: reduce protection against prejudice-fuelled abuse, facilitate the flaming of community tension, and push back arrangements designed to tackle discrimination.

·      Downgrade consumer protection: leave people to have to pay more for the same or worse service than before, open the door to less safe and poorer quality products, and allow more commercial deception. 

The above actions would enable unscrupulous profiteers to make more money from exploiting the disadvantages thus foisted on workers, consumers, communities, and the wider environment.  It is almost certain that the vast majority of people will as a result suffer in social and economic terms, with the poorest having to endure the worst.  But for the Brexitopian advocates, all that matters are the financial gains to be made by the profiteering clique.  They do not care about people’s quality of life deteriorating, instability worsening, or the economy shrinking.  So long as they can get rid of those laws that hold back exploitative profiteering (and put in new ones such as banning worker actions or peaceful protests against corporate wrongdoing), they would celebrate Brexitopia as a lucrative new dawn.

David Hume: Conservative or Anti-Conservative

Keen to increase the intellectual ballast for their political outlook, some conservatives have sought to identify more major thinkers as their champions.  One thinker who was thus enlisted is the eighteenth-century philosopher and historian, David Hume.

The main reason why the conservative-minded think Hume is on their side is the thorough scepticism he directed at radical/revolutionary ideas.  Hume stressed the reliability of any given claim can only be derived from experience.  Over time, if people have come to find that certain claims – be they about the recurrence of some natural phenomenon, or the efficacy of a social arrangement – are backed by their shared experience, then that is a sound basis for accepting them.  By contrast, if someone tries to argue against such claims without any tangible evidence, then our starting point has to be one of doubt regarding such an argument.  Indeed, the more drastic a departure from what is backed by prevailing findings and observations, the less inclined we should be in allowing it to determine our thinking.

 

In his historical writings, Hume cited disapprovingly the ideas Cromwell and many parliamentarians invoked in getting rid of King Charles I in the English Civil War (1642-1651).  This has suggested to later conservatives that Hume would frown upon any proposal to change a long-established socio-political system, and he could therefore be embraced as a beacon of conservatism.

Alas, they are mistaken on two levels.  First of all, Hume was never dogmatically against change.  For him, the key was whether what was being put forward was some abstract claim not connected to any relevant experience, or it was a set of assertions that people could assess from their own observations.  After all, he judged it was correct that political rebels in England forced King James II off the throne in the ‘Glorious Revolution’ (1688).  For Hume, proposed changes for which there are sound empirical grounds for trying are worthy of experimental adoption; but complete transformation which has no evidence to suggest may have beneficial effects should be resisted, especially if it is intended as irreversible.  

Secondly, given Hume’s opposition to sweeping claims that defy empirical validation, he would most likely be a staunch critic of quite a few of the core elements of contemporary conservative politics. Take the following:

·      Religious fundamentalism

Hume would wholeheartedly reject any political idea that seeks to use some contested text in one particular religious tradition to justify an edict on everyone to comply with a command that strikes many as dubious and harmful in its effects.

·      Market ideology

Hume would expose as groundless any attempt to declare one single approach to structure the economy as sacrosanct.  He would point to the diversity of economic systems, the different pros and cons, and warn against accepting ‘free market’ as unquestionably the best model despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

 

·      Xenophobic jingoism

Hume would challenge any claim that one race or one nation is inherently superior to all others as disconnected from any empirical fact. He would reject as delusional any suggestion that we should seek to dominate others on the absurd basis of our ‘greatness’.

Hume’s philosophy is consistently cautious – about what we are warranted in believing.  That extends to beliefs which supposedly reflect long established traditions that should be preserved, when in fact they are groundless claims that ought to be cast aside.