Description
This paper aims to contribute to Brexit studies by engaging with the apparent contradiction that despite a ‘hard’ British exit from the European Union (EU) structures, many feel that Brexit is not working and it is a missed opportunity. To do that, the paper advances a particular reading of the underlying grievances that led to the Leave vote and then moves on to provide an account of how these grievances came about. More specifically, the paper focuses on the economic motives behind the Leave vote and advances an account of the political and economic developments in the last four decades that ultimately led to the majority of the British people casting a vote in favour of leaving the EU. To do that, the paper uses wealth as an analytical tool and examines how changes in the way wealth is produced and distributed over this time-period have ultimately enabled the creation of a deeply unequal society, which has led to larger and larger swathes of the population feeling that the system is not working for them. Ultimately, this is why the ‘Take back Control’ slogan of the Leave campaign proved so popular with its suggestion that there was a way of restoring sovereignty. This analysis highlights key issues that need to be resolved by our political-economic system if the trend of citizens feeling excluded from it is to be reversed. Crucially, these issues aren’t the ones that are currently widely discussed in the mainstream discourses, which suggests that the negative effects of the current situation are likely to persist in the foreseeable future.
