Political community and the new parochialism: Brexit and the reimagination of British liberalism and conservatism

This article analyzes the evolution of discourses surrounding Brexit and interprets them in the context of broader shifts in the character of British liberal and conservative traditions since the 1990s. It argues that the evolution of debates about Britain’s place in Europe, the 2016 referendum, and its aftermath can be usefully understood using the analytical frames, derived from Tönnies and Weber, of Gemeinschaft, or “community,” and Gesellschaftt, or “society.” It suggests further that the discourses surrounding Brexit and prevailing interpretations of it have been shaped by exhumed and redeployed strands of British liberal and conservative thought and only partially successful attempts to fashion a new synthesis among them. It shows that supporters of Brexit have engaged in a strategy of “negative integration,” casting Britain as a territorially defensive nation defending itself against external “others” in ways that have been informed by these redeployed traditions. It concludes that these dynamics have resulted in and reflected a deeply fractured British society and have highlighted the prevalence of political amateurism in the British political class.