- Associate professor
- Date
- Thursday 12 Dec 2019, 13:00 - 14:00
- Type
- Seminar
- Spoken Language
- English
- Room
- Room 4.01
- Location
- International Institute of Social Studies
During this Research in Progress Seminar, ISS Assistant Professor Dr Helen Hintjens will review the competing accounts from left and right of how Brexit emerged, voting patterns during the referendum, and the difficulties of obtaining parliamentary approval for a final deal.
Based on 'work in progress, Hintjens selects a limited number of explanatory 'framings', which include structural and contingent, unintended as well as intended, causes of Brexit. From these she selects four elements: conspiracies, accidents, Empire and nationalisms.
What emerges are some complex intersections of Left and Right and pro- and anti-Brexit positions. Both Left and Right tend to view Brexit, and also opposition to Brexit, as caused by:
- an elite conspiracy
- finance capitalists
- historical amnesia and
- the end of Empire 'at home'.
From the emergence of Brexit onto the UK and EU political agenda, to the informational wars and voting patterns during the Referendum, to the politics and economics of (non)implementation since 2016, Helen asks what key global, regional and local economic, social and political forces are seen as being 'behind' Brexit on left and right, by pro- and anti-Brexiteers.
The universality of anti-elite theories among left and right-wing supporters and opponents of Brexit is a notable feature of the 'informational wars' that have become part of politics in the global age of surveillance capitalism, where personal data can be harvested for political - as well as commercial - ends.