Brexit is not about Brexit

The Brexit Blog
— Lees op chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/

Social change creates frictions and frictions create emotions, problems and heat. Democracy is its’ many forms is a way to manage these frictions so that we do not go to war among nations or revert to civil war within nations. Sometimes, however, a specific construction of democracy is better suited for particular frictions than others. At this point in time, representative democracy (like in Germany, the Netherlands, etc. ) is better suited to deal with social frictions than the UK “first past the post” system, because emancipation across many social groups requires a lot of tinkering to reach mutually acceptable intermediate arrangements. Complex compromises are the key to this process and in multi-party democracies, compromise is not only inevitable, but can also be accommodated by the many parties. The English system leads to a mostly two-party divide, so the social frictions have to be dealt with within the major parties. And compromise within a party turns out to be more difficult than between parties and does not lead to intermediate arrangements which can gain majorities in Parliament.

This situation leads to paralysis on a great number of issues, not just Brexit.

Brexit appeared to be one issue a majority could be found for, after the reckless referendum. Brexit is about an external “power”, “interfering” in the national domain, agitation against which is a traditional way for politians to try to turn attention from domestic tensions. However, even on this issue a majority cannot be achieved.

Brexit is not about Brexit, it is about an existential social crisis in the UK and its’ electoral system. Brexit is just one example of the problems this crisis creates. Whatever solution will be found for Brexit, it will not solve this fundamental crisis. Better to prepare for more political upheaval in the UK and to think about solutions for this crisis. Possibly, the scorned EU can be of help, because if there is anything the EU is good at, it is at compromise.