Not a Brexit Election? Pessimism, Promises and Populism ‘UK-Style’

The Nobel prize winning economist Elinor Ostrom (2000, p. 33) once warned against ‘the danger of self-evident truths’ and suggested that ‘the fact that something is widely believed does not make it correct’. The role of the social and political scientist was, for Ostrom, not simply to examine and explore a specific topic, event or theme but also to be constantly aware of the need to step back and question, challenge and disrupt the dominant lens through which the object of analysis is generally conceived. This article injects Ostrom’s provocative plea into the sphere of British politics to question the ‘self-evident truth’ that the 2019 general election was ‘a Brexit election’. The ‘danger’ of accepting this interpretation is that it is arguably too obvious. It risks over-emphasising the visible machinations of recent events while under-emphasising the deeper socio-political factors that manifested themselves in the election. To accept the 2019 contest as a Brexit election is to focus on the tip of the iceberg and the aim of this contribution is to look beneath the (political) waterline. Its central argument is that the general election was less a Brexit election and more a disaffection election.

This argument demands some unpacking. To some extent the 2019 general election was clearly ‘a Brexit election’ for the simple reason that ‘[f]or most voters, how they cast their ballot in 2019 reflected where they stood in the Brexit debate’ (Curtice, 2020, p. 12). As such, the election proved effective in breaking the legislative deadlock that had emerged at Westminster and the contextual relevance of Brexit cannot be overlooked (see Curtice in this volume). And yet, stepping-back (qua. Ostrom), this ‘self-evident truth’ can be questioned from at least two perspectives. First, as Cutts et al. (2020) have demonstrated, the outcome of general election 2019 was also shaped by a variety of long-term shifts in support for the main parties, most of which pre-date Brexit. Viewed from a historical perspective, Boris Johnson’s desire to attract working class voters in northern English towns was hardly a new challenge for the party, even if the Brexit context was new (Gamble, 2019). Second, it is vital to consider the underpinning social attitudes that led people to support Brexit. In this regard the evidence is relatively clear: the ‘Brexistential angst and the paradoxes of populism’ that Hay (2020) has highlighted are rooted in political apathy, democratic disappointment and anti-political sentiment (see, for example, Evans and Menon, 2017; Clarke and Newman, 2017; Jennings and Lodge, 2019). This was not just a Brexit election and a bolder thesis would suggest that the UK’s relationship with the EU served as little more than the lightning-rod through which a far broader range of socio-political tensions were, once again, played out. The twist in this argument is that ‘getting Brexit done’ may not address, but may well amplify, many of these tensions.

The benefit of interpreting the 2019 general election primarily as a disaffection election is that it opens up new possibilities for understanding how and why the Conservative Party was able to win an 80-seat majority, its largest since 1987. It also offers new insights into the link between individual personality, political psychology and populism as a carefully calibrated statecraft strategy. This, in turn, can be used to demarcate a distinction between ‘Brexit’ and ‘Brexitism’ that is crucial to understanding contemporary British political history, in general, and, specifically, the 2019 election. In developing this core argument, this article is divided into three sections. The first focuses on the build-up to the election and underlines the existence of high levels of both democratic disillusionment and Brexit fatigue. The second section focuses on the election campaign and the degree to which the main party leaders were able to funnel this frustration into support for their parties. In particular, it draws on a very specific sub-strand of the literature on populism to explain how Boris Johnson’s idiosyncratic and unconventional political leadership proved so effective. The calibration of the election as the ‘people versus the politicians’ responded to the deep pool of social frustration highlighted in the opening section. This ‘UK-style’ populism raises critical questions about the political theatre and symbolism of ‘Borisonian buffoonery’ but also regarding the long-term viability of the ‘Boris bounce’ into power. The final section explores this latter issue through a focus on the polarisation of trust and the management of post-election public expectations in a post-Brexit but COVID-crisis world.

1. Democratic disillusionment and Brexit fatigue

This section focuses on the build-up to the election and develops two main arguments: that public trust in politics plummeted in the run-up to the election and that democratic dissatisfaction was positively correlated with support for leaving the EU. The Hansard Society’s (2019) 16^th Audit of Political Engagement provides a powerful evidence base for the first of these arguments, as captured in the report’s headline findings:

Opinions of the system of governing are at their lowest point in the 15-year Audit series – worse now than in the aftermath of the MPs’ expenses scandal. People are pessimistic about the country’s problems and their possible solution, with sizable numbers willing to entertain radical political changes. Core indicators of political engagement remain stable but, beneath the surface, the strongest feelings of powerlessness and disengagement are intensifying (Hansard Society, 2019, p. 3).

Drilling-down into each of these points, the Audit revealed that, of those surveyed: 72% said the system of governing needs ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ of improvement; 50% believed the main parties and politicians did not care about people like them; 75% thought political parties were too internally divided to serve the best interests of the country; 63% thought Britain’s system of government is rigged to advantage the rich and the powerful; and 18% ‘strongly disagreed’ that political involvement can change the way the UK is run and 47% felt they had no influence at all over national decision-making, both 15-year lows. Moreover, only 25% of the public had confidence in MPs’ handling of Brexit (with the government faring only slightly better on 26%).

It is, of course, true that a range of public opinion surveys have for at least 40 years found worryingly high levels of disaffection (see, for example, Ipsos MORI, 2014) and it could be suggested that expressing negativity has come to assume an almost ritualistic quality amongst large sections of the British public. Nevertheless, it is possible to suggest that the pre-election disaffection was distinctive for three inter-linked reasons. The first relates to intensity and evidence that sections of society were beginning to consider radical (and arguably illiberal) reform suggestions. For example, in the Hansard Society’s 2019 Audit over half of those surveyed (54%) agreed with the statement that ‘Britain needs a strong leader willing to break the rules’, and 42% thought that many of the country’s problems could be dealt with more effectively if the government did not have to worry so much about votes in parliament. Similar findings emerged from the most recent ‘Future of England’ survey:

This year’s study confirmed a number of growing trends. We found that Remain and Leave voters are highly polarised around the likely consequences of staying in or leaving the EU. A majority on either side of the divide said that the break-up of the union, undermining faith in democracy, protests in which members of the public get badly injured and violence directed toward MPs were ‘worth it’ to achieve their desired Brexit outcome (Henderson, 2019, p. 8).

The second distinctive element of pre-election disaffection was its highly polarised social dynamic and the manner in which it reflected a range of social cleavages (economic, place-based, educational, generational, etc.). Public attitudes regarding trust in politics or views about whether political processes or institutions ‘worked’ were, to a greater or lesser extent, defined by the dynamics of Brexit. Ironically, the only issue that united the country in the run-up to the general election was antipathy towards the political omnishambles that seemed to have consumed Brexit. But this, in turn, flows into a third pre-election distinctive disaffection dimension—fatigue. By June 2019, a YouGov poll found that a third of the public were actively avoiding news about Brexit; the following month a Deltapoll survey found that 60% agreed with the following comment: ‘Right now, I no longer care how or when we leave the European Union, I just want it over and done with’; and by October a further YouGov poll found 70% diagnosing themselves with Brexit fatigue. Three-and-a-half-years after the June 2016 referendum an increasing proportion of the public, on both sides of the debate, had become frustrated with the whole topic and just wanted it resolved one way or another.

It was this emphasis on intensity, polarisation and fatigue that arguably created a distinctive disaffection context and therefore a distinctive opportunity for a distinctive politician. Moreover, although Boris Johnson may have won the July 2019 leadership election on the basis that he would ‘Get Brexit Done’ by 31 October (or ‘die in a ditch’ as he would later add), even the most bullish Boris seemed unable to break the deadlock as he faced a series of major legislative defeats and his decision to prorogue parliament was found unlawful by the Supreme Court. During September 2019 several government attempts to trigger a general election were rejected by MPs who feared a ‘no deal’ departure from the EU and were constitutionally protected by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which required a two-thirds majority vote for an early general election or a vote of no confidence on a simple majority. By mid-October a somewhat truculent Prime Minister was forced to request a further EU extension. However, this rather wretched phase in British political history also created clear opportunities for Boris Johnson, whose rise to the apex of British politics had always shown a receptiveness to the populist signal, not least over Brexit. A scathing and unanimous Supreme Court defeat that would in all likelihood have ended most political careers instead became another example of ‘them’ (that is, ‘the establishment’ that wields power without responsibility) against ‘us’ (the Great British public). Defined this way, the Supreme Court ruling and House of Commons defeats were discursively framed to chime with an emergent populist signal, and associated ideas about the need for a strong leader (Hansard Society, 2019).

With the benefit of hindsight, three distinctive features emerge from this brief account of the election build-up: first, political dissatisfaction was already as intense as it was socially polarised and fatigued; secondly, the rules of political engagement appeared to be altering, almost beyond recognition; and finally, unconventional times created a ‘window of opportunity’ for an avowedly unconventional politician who was willing to break the rules, flaunt convention and flirt with populism. The next section develops this point through a more specific focus on political leadership and varieties of populism within the campaign itself.

2. Funnelling frustration and populism ‘UK-style’

In challenging the characterisation of the 2019 contest as ‘a Brexit election’, it is critical to delve into both the longer-run dynamics and the immediate contextual factors that shaped its outcome. Although Cutts et al. (2020) are correct to suggest that the general election should not be interpreted as a major ‘realignment’, since the results align with longer-term voting trends, it can be argued that a critical and unique feature of the election was the emergence of a clear brand of populism. In arguing that the poll should be seen primarily as a ‘disaffection election’ it is important to note that other recent general elections have also been characterised by a similar funnelling of frustration (Flinders, 2015, 2018). Nonetheless, general election 2019 was novel with respect to the interplay between political trust and populism.

One hallmark of British politics since the 2016 referendum is that it has become more tribal and increasingly aggressive as a result of the polarising effects of Brexit. The tenor of political debate has adopted a populist inflection with often nationalist undertones, resulting in individual politicians being publicly abused as ‘traitors’ or ‘turncoats’. While a hybrid form of populism emerged in the 2017 election, its location was squarely within the opposition party as part of ‘the Corbyn effect’ (Flinders, 2018). Corbyn’s populism was fairly placid: ‘populism wearing a cardigan’ (Flinders, 2019). A very different brand of populism came to the fore in the 2019 election. Its locus was the current prime minister and its articulation was arguably more aggressive, based upon on a portrayal of a strong leader who was willing to break the rules.

It is not enough to simply highlight the populist playfulness of Boris Johnson or his reputation for acting as a clown. Beneath the veneer of ‘Boris’ and his ‘whiff-whaff’ theatrics there is a deeper statecraft strategy, key to which is an explicit focus on fuelling and funnelling frustration amongst those sections of the public most disaffected with ‘conventional’ politics. It can be argued that Johnson and those around him recognised the changing emotional landscape of British politics and their ability to resonate with this was ultimately what led to Conservative Party success in Labour’s traditional heartlands (see Flinders, 2020a). Indeed, this argument can be used to politicise the notion of ‘clowning around’ and to explain how a man associated with personal indiscretion, professional mishaps and generating outrage secured the most resounding Conservative election victory in over 30 years.

The concept of populism has become as ubiquitous as it is contested, with some even describing the term as meaningless (Serhan, 2020). Nonetheless, working at a high level of generality it can be argued that populism operates through a three-stage argumentative logic:

Step 1. The world can be separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘us’ (that is, ‘the public’, ‘the people’, ‘the pure’, etc.) and ‘them’ ( that is, ‘elites’, ‘immigrants’, ‘minorities’, etc.);

Step 2. ‘They’ enjoy a privileged, protected and unfair position within society that they have used to exploit ‘us’ which is almost locked-in through the existing political system;

Step 3. To break this deadlock and change the system, the public must put their faith in a strong leader who is willing to break the rules and drive through far-reaching reforms.

Populism is therefore a divisive political strategy that simplifies messy political realities and promotes simple answers to complex questions. It also revolves around not only funnelling pre-existing social frustrations but also fuelling them in order to generate political support. One of the prime ideological features of populist politicians and their ‘insurgent’ parties is a brand of nativism, a xenophobic form of nationalism. But, as Benjamin Moffitt’s The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style and Representation (2016) demonstrates, populism is also characterised by significant performative aspects. Moffitt (2016, p. 38) therefore departs from the mainstream literature by conceiving of populism as a political style which is defined (with typical academic aplomb) as ‘the repertoires of embodied, symbolically mediated performance made to audiences that are used to navigate the fields of power that comprise the political, stretching from the domain of government through to everyday life’. This, in turn, provides a way of understanding how populist identities are crafted and constructed. What Moffitt brings to the discussion is a focus on the verbal and non-verbal forms of communication associated with populism (think tousled hair, unkempt appearance, hanging from zip-wires, casual rule-breaking, crude comments, brandishing smoked kippers, etc.).

What is particularly significant about Moffitt’s ‘populist style’ is the emphasis it places on the demonstration of bad manners by populist leaders, as seen in the rejection of political conventions or even polite discourse. To Moffitt, populists do not simply rely on socially divisive rhetoric, such as narratives of crisis that seek to blame a designated ‘other’; they also utilise a sophisticated repertoire of performative tools to underline their ‘outsider’ or ‘radical status’. These might include aggressive rhetoric, spectacular acts, exaggeration, calculated provocations or the intended violation of political and socio-cultural norms. This is often reflected in the coarsening of political rhetoric, a disregard for both appropriate modes of acting in the political realm, willingness to resort to anecdotes as evidence, and displays of studied ignorance of that which does not interest them. This has occurred alongside shifts in media business models through which the dominant ‘media logic’ has become one that is itself often simplistic, personalised, entertainment-focused, polarising and prone to affective appeals which are themselves favourable to populism. As such, populist and media styles have developed in an almost parasitical relationship that revolves around dramatic composition. Consequently, Moffitt (2016, p. 37) suggests that populist style fuses ‘matter and manner, message and package’.

A benefit of utilising Moffitt’s work is that it defines populist style as a gradational phenomenon which can be pushed forward or rolled back by a politician or party to suit the strategic priorities of a specific context. For instance, Theresa May condemned her opponents for impeding the popular will and invoked the threat of their obstruction to justify the June 2017 snap election. Conversely, during the 2019 election the Labour Party appeared to adopt a form of ‘fiscal populism’ in which a giveaway manifesto was followed by wave-after-wave of further spending commitments. That neither of these approaches proved electorally successful usefully reminds us that populism is not always popular, not least in the context of widespread public disaffection. Indeed, a clear element of recent elections is that none of the main party leaders has been popular (see Table 13.1).

Table 13.1

Party leader public satisfaction ratings, 2015–2019 general elections

	GE2015	GE2017	GE2019
Conservative	David Cameron -2	Theresa May -7	Boris Johnson -20
Labour	Ed Miliband -19	Jeremy Corbyn -11	Jeremy Corbyn -44
Liberal Democrats	Nick Clegg -21	Tim Farron -19	Jo Swinson -22

Source: IPSOS Mori (2020) Political Monitor Satisfaction Ratings 1997–2020.

Note: Ratings are those at the survey closest to the general election.

If Table 13.1 illustrates how it is not unusual for party leaders to attract negative ratings, the 2019 election was distinctive for the scale of negativity. Boris Johnson’s advantage was that he was the least unpopular leader. A YouGov poll at the beginning of the election campaign found 45% of the public believing that ‘the party leaders are worse than any of their predecessors in history’ (see Powell, 2019). The 2019 Ipsos MORI Veracity Index—published just days before the election—highlighted that public trust in politicians had fallen to just 14%, a five-point fall from 2018. General election 2019 was dominated as much by concerns regarding a lack of trust in politicians, in general, as it was about Brexit, in particular. From the outset, trust was a running theme of the campaign, whether in relation to Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement that he would remain neutral if a second EU referendum were to take place or Boris Johnson’s dismissal of criticism of his decision to delay the report from the Intelligence and Security Committee into Russian interference in elections.

That Johnson refused to apologise for using homophobic and racist language in his newspaper columns, or that polls found that more than twice as many felt Corbyn was ‘more in touch with ordinary people’, did not prevent him leading the Conservative Party to victory. In part, the explanation for this rests with the weakness of the Labour Party and the inability of the Liberal Democrats to break through as a viable centrist third party. But such interpretations risk overlooking the strategic and highly personalised campaigning approach which Johnson had been cultivating for some time. Indeed, drawing on Moffit’s emphasis on the distinctive performative style of populism, framed for a socio-political context defined by anti-political sentiment, Johnson’s buffoonery and pantomime antics appear not as the behaviour of a political clown but as the carefully calibrated statecraft of a sophisticated politician. Five inter-related themes help to substantiate this argument and differentiate the localised qualities of ‘Borisonian’ populism during the 2019 general election. These are outlined in Table 13.2 and discussed in the remainder of this section.

Table 13.2

Component elements of ‘Borisonian’ populism in the 2019 general election

ELEMENT	ESSENCE
Breaking the Rules	A constant willingness to court controversy in order to underline his ‘unconventional’ and ‘outsider’ status.
Distracting Dramaturgy	The capacity to dominate the headlines in ways that play to the media, entertain the public and ensure substantive policy issues are rarely discussed.
Territorial Targeting	Clarity of a ‘politicians versus the public’ message carefully targeted to ‘England-beyond-London’ and promises of a ‘levelling-up’ economic agenda.
Brexit and Brexitism	A strategy of consciously expanding Brexit’s specific and technical focus to encompass a broader range of social challenges and concerns (i.e., Brexitism).
‘Upper Crust’ Populism	The capacity to promote a populist style that resonate with dominant cultural expectations while refracting his highly elitist and establishment-based background.

2.1 Breaking the rules

A key insight from Moffitt’s comparative analysis is that populists not only engage in sophisticated forms of ‘othering’ to instigate simplistic blame-games but also seek to emphasise their ‘outsider’ status (and disruptive potential) by refusing to abide by pre-existing rules and conventions. A particular challenge arises for populist politicians who evolve from mainstream parties, requiring them to work harder to convince the public that they really are willing to ‘do’ politics differently. Their ‘style’ must designate difference and often becomes associated with a disregard for established modes of acting in the political realm, an intolerance of opposition or a willingness to use disrespectful or even obscene language in order to cultivate debate. In a context of political frustration and fatigue, a willingness to break rules and conventions can be interpreted by sections of society as a breath of fresh air and evidence of a commitment to change the status quo. From this perspective, being ‘bad’ can actually be ‘good’ in promoting popularity. Johnson responded to signals that the public appeared increasingly frustrated and open to a strong leader willing to break the rules. The prorogation of parliament is one obvious example but equally instructive was Johnson’s September 2019 decision to expel 21 MPs from the parliamentary Conservative Party after they rebelled against him over Europe. That these MPs included two ex-chancellors of the exchequer, several former senior ministers and even Winston Churchill’s grandson simply underlined his willingness to reject existing constitutional mores. ‘I don’t recognise this. It’s the Brexit Party, rebadged’, the former chancellor, Father of the House of Commons and MP for over half a century, Kenneth Clarke, told BBC2’s Newsnight on 3 September.

Other examples might include the refusal of the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, to appear before a select committee (see HC1115, 2018), or the government’s decision to withhold ministers from appearing on the BBC’s flagship Radio 4 Today programme. The Conservative manifesto’s references to ‘getting away from the idea that Whitehall knows best’ (p. 26) and ‘MPs devoting themselves to thwarting the democratic decision of the British people’ (pp. 47–48) similarly indicated a willingness to break and then redefine the rules as part of a ‘people versus the politicians’ election (Conservative Party, 2019). Countless examples highlight how a central element of Boris Johnson’s populist style revolves around a consistent and strategically groomed willingness to flaunt the rules, break conventions and engage in offensive behaviour. Censured by colleagues for describing the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act as the ‘surrender act’ and under pressure to apologise he simply hardened his tone to call it ‘the capitulation act’. Likewise, he dismissed concerns about increasing public aggression towards MPs as ‘humbug’ and then raised the possibility that his government may refuse to comply with the Act if it were passed. That Johnson’s past journalism revealed a penchant for provocation, describing gay men as ‘tank-topped bumboys’ or veiled Muslim women as looking like ‘letter boxes’ only served to solidify this distinctive populist style. Provocation is something that is done by politicians and political actors not as an ideology but as a way of being, ‘a way of speaking, acting, and presenting oneself’ (qua.Moffitt, 2016).

2.2 Distracting dramaturgy

The populist style associated with Boris Johnson’s leadership in the run-up to the election has significance for the UK because of the way in which the country’s constitutional configuration is founded on the self-restraint of those who hold power. ‘In the UK, we have trusted politicians to behave themselves’, Blick and Hennessy (2020, p. 3) note, adding ‘We have long assumed that those who rise to high office will be “good chaps”, knowing what the unwritten rules are and wanting to adhere to them. Recent events suggest it is worth considering the implications of a decline in the viability of the “good chap” system in this country’. Yet, levels of anti-political sentiment may well have created a political environment that has nurtured ‘chaps’ who are less inclined to be ‘good’. Here, a second element of populist style seems particularly apt in relation to understanding the election strategy: adopting a distracting dramaturgy.

This distracting dramaturgy occurs in the context of a double dynamic of public disenchantment with ‘normal’ politics alongside the existence of a 24/7 sensationalised new media operating largely through snippets and pictures. In this context, a distinctive politician emerges who is more than willing to serve up a constant flow of mishaps, horseplay and tomfoolery in a manner that chimes with demands of ‘disaffected democrats’ for rule-breakers while also feeding a voracious news industry. To dismiss this populist style as ‘clowning around’ misses the point that such behaviour fulfils a highly political role by attracting attention while simultaneously distracting attention from substantive issues. An eccentric appearance or use of exaggerated gestures or outlandish props are all parts of a performative act intended to connect with the media’s insatiable appetite for personalised, entertainment-focused and polarising stories which are themselves favourable to populism. This distracting dramaturgy proved incredibly effective during the election as ‘Boris’ remained ‘the story’ irrespective of whether it focused on describing the leader of the opposition as ‘Stalin’, his plans to move his girlfriend into No. 10 while still being married or even his ‘submarine strategy’ of not being interviewed. The constant swirl of drama surrounding Boris Johnson arguably prevented the discussion of deeper policy-related issues, hence Moffitt’s (2016, p. 37) observation that populist style fuses ‘matter and manner, message and package’.

2.3 Territorial targeting

One of the few areas where the distracting dramaturgy arguably did give way to the promotion of a clear policy was in relation to territorial targeting, in which the Conservative Party was able to win seats in Labour’s traditional northern heartlands (often captured as the collapse of the ‘red wall’). While this was undoubtedly a key feature of the election, a striking feature of this success was that it was not based upon the standard nativism and nationalism that is generally a hallmark of populist politics but on a more sophisticated form of sub-nationalism and territorial targeting. In recent years, it has been possible to identify a powerful new socio-political cleavage within English politics characterised by an increasingly stark divergence between the worldviews and wants of those who live in major cities and those who live in provincial or coastal towns (see Jennings and Stoker, 2016). As Jennings and Stoker (2016) stress, this polarisation is not simply a Brexit realignment. Rather, the symptoms of long-term trends connected to global growth patterns and the changing nature of work have become more acute and these have impacted differently on citizens residing in different geographical locations.

This leads to a second argument concerning the link between populism ‘UK-style’ and territorial targeting. To define Boris Johnson’s statecraft during the election simply as nationalist nativism would be to miss an underlying subtlety. There was, of course, an element of nostalgic jingoism. There was also a generic and effective appeal to ‘Get Brexit Done’. But there was also a much sharper strategy of territorial targeting that helps explain the collapse of the ‘red wall’. The Conservative Party under Boris Johnson toned down the talk of ‘Global Britain’ and instead focused on a much tighter constituency: ‘England-beyond-London.’ This was a strategy that dovetailed not just with those sections of the public that had lost faith in politics but also with those that had increasingly identified as English, rather than British. These were the traditional working class communities for whom the Labour Party seemed to offer no coherent vision. In this context, Johnson was able to offer an effective twin-track narrative which combined dealing with the past (that is, ‘Get Brexit Done’) and defining the future (that is, ‘addressing domestic structural inequalities by “levelling-up”’). An added dimension to this strategy is that to some extent Johnson served as the saviour of Englishness. For some time seen as almost a ‘forbidden’ identity with racist or tarnished associations, the dismissal of Englishness by a generally detached cosmopolitan elite served to fuel frustration in ‘backwater’ areas of England. This frustration was fuelled and funnelled through the strategy of territorial targeting.

The first results on election night quickly made clear that this strategy had worked. In terms of territorial representation an argument could be made that the strategy worked too well. The Conservative Party is now almost completely a party of England with 345 of 365 (95%) of its MPs holding English seats. The intra-party dynamics of this situation will be discussed in the final part of this article.

2.4 Demarcating Brexit from Brexitism

The final element of this discussion of populism ‘UK-style’ involves teasing apart Brexit from Brexitism and exploring how a man with a background (or should I say ‘pedigree’) like Boris Johnson can engage in populist politics. In many ways, the explanation is that the specific topic of Brexit was cloaked in a far broader strategic narrative which, in turn, underpinned a distinct populist style. It is in this sense that Brexit from can be distinguished from Brexitism. The inspiration for this argument comes from Finlayson’s (2017: 1) belief:

[T]hat this political philosophy—call it Brexitism—has congealed into something about so much more and yet so much less than Brexit. It is now a central feature of our landscape: an anti-political politics organised around resentment at past losses and scepticism about promised futures.

Boris Johnson’s success in promoting a brand of Brexitism rather than a simple focus on Brexit was pivotal to how his strategy sought to focus on those who felt ‘left behind’ and had become democratically disaffected. Rather than a ‘Brexit election’ in the simple sense, it was an election defined by ‘Brexitism’ in a far broader sense. During the election, there was a discernible shift in Brexitism, which distinguishes it from Finlayson’s initial diagnosis. Critically, Johnson’s Brexitism did include an emphasis on ‘promised futures’. Finlayson was correct to highlight an almost nihilistic turn amongst many Brexit enthusiasts in the sense that the future was viewed as being inevitably uncertain. The distinctive element of Johnson’s Brexitism is that it dismissed the previous conviction that there is no knowable future and sought to promote an imagined (and largely English) community through the notion of ‘levelling-up’. Whether Johnson will be able to manage, let alone fulfil, the very significant public expectations created by this electoral strategy is considered in the final section.

2.5 Upper crust populism

Boris Johnson is not the most obvious candidate to adopt a populist style. A hugely paradoxical element of the election was that it featured a form of populism that was almost dripping in elitist trappings. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson can hardly claim to be a ‘man of the people’. The son of a former Conservative Member of the European Parliament, Boris went to Eton before heading up to Balliol College where he became President of the Oxford Union and a member of the male-only Bullingdon Club. His career proceeded, rarely without incident, through journalism, into parliament, the London Mayor’s office into government and No. 10. The anti-politician, anti-establishment, anti-elite narratives that generally accompany a populist style therefore sit very oddly with someone who has been a professional politician for two decades, whose establishment credentials could hardly be stronger and who has circulated within and amongst elites all his life. Populism ‘UK-style’ seems to have taken the form of what might be labelled ‘upper crust populism’ in order to denote its particularly English class credentials. This provokes an obvious question: how was an establishment figure able to adopt a populist style, and why have large sections of the public apparently been willing to accept it?

Barr’s (2009) work on political mavericks offers one way of engaging with this question. Mavericks are politicians who rise to prominence within an established, competitive party but then either launch a form of internal takeover in order to fundamentally reshape their party, or abandon it to compete independently within a new ‘insurgent’ party. The critical link to Moffitt’s work is that mavericks often seek to distinguish themselves from the mainstream by adopting a performative strategy in which they are consistently seen to be breaking the rules (hence Blick and Hennessy’s (2020) concerns regarding Good Chaps No More?). In this regard, it is important to note that it is Johnson’s ill-discipline that actually encapsulates his populist appeal. Johnson’s speeches and articles resonate not because of what he has to say but because of the way he says it, while critics respond in ways that simply heighten his visibility and populist appeal.

There is also a particularly English cultural dimension that needs to be teased out. In her influential anthropological analysis of the quirks, habits and foibles of the English people, Fox (2005) underlines the centrality of the importance of not being earnest as a dominant culture marker. Taking things too seriously is therefore something of a cultural taboo that could be seen as almost legitimating Johnson’s frequent failure to master the detail. Populists adapt their content from their host culture. ‘Boris Johnson’s buffoonery’ is therefore held out by Molyneux and Osborne (2017, p. 5) as ‘an example of what we could call the idiocy of power in democratic societies’, ‘idiocy’ here meaning a non-elitist simplicity or genuineness that resonates with those who have become disaffected with conventional politics. The genius of Johnson’s carefully contrived performative act is that it leads opponents to make the mistake of dismissing him as a buffoon while large sections of the public appear to find him endearing. Whether this is a sustainable long-term approach to leadership in government, however, is another matter entirely.

3. The Boris ‘bargain’ and delivering promises

If general election 2019 was a ‘disaffection election’, it was also marked by the Conservative Party, under Boris Johnson, absorbing the populist tradition that had until that point resided in the UK Independence Party and then the Brexit Party. This shift in (populist) style signalled that a mainstream party was willing to transgress conventional boundaries and potentially even to break the rules. The implications of this shift are particularly stark in the context of Britain’s (in)famously uncodified ‘political constitution’ for the simple reason that it requires a sense of self-restraint on the part of the occupant of No. 10 Downing Street to make it work. Boris Johnson is well-known for possessing a range of personal qualities but ‘self-restraint’ is not one that is commonly mentioned. In this context, it is noteworthy that Levitsky and Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die(2019) offers a set of ‘key indicators of authoritarian behaviour’ which starts by asking ‘do they reject the constitution or express a willingness to violate it?’ The answer to this question in the recent British context is arguably unsettling, which leads me to make three final points about pessimism, populism and promises in the context of the election.

The adoption of a populist style may well be effective in the short-term and as an electoral strategy but it is unlikely to form the basis of a ‘strong and stable’ government in the long-term. This is the first point. There are echoes here of Mario Cuomo’s famous dictum, ‘campaign in poetry, govern in prose’, in that Johnson campaigned in a highly performative populist style but must now demonstrate that being Prime Minister is not a joke. This is particularly true in a post-Brexit context defined by social polarisation. Successfully ‘facing the disillusioned in a new decade’, to paraphrase the sub-title of a recent NatCen/ONS report (2020), is unlikely to occur with a populist style. As British Election Study data suggests, political trust has itself become more polarised, with Leave supporters now being significantly more trusting of MPs in general and more satisfied with UK democracy than Remainers (see Figure 13.1).

Figure 13.1

Satisfaction with UK democracy, February 2014–December 2019

Source: Jennings et al. (2020).

This more positive view from Leave voters is despite the fact that ‘levels of political trust have typically tended to be higher among the educated, professional demographics that were more likely to vote Remain’, Jennings et al. (2020, p. 1) ‘Brexit identity seems to now condition trust in the UK’s politicians and democracy. Confirming this, when asked how often the government in Westminster can be trusted to do the right thing, 23% of Leavers said “most of the time”, more than double the number for Remainers (10%)’ (Jennings et al., 2020, p. 1). This flows into my second point: the 2019 general election was perhaps unique for the rather reluctant manner in which traditionally Labour voters and non-voters did vote Conservative. Those votes were often the product of frustration and fatigue rather than conviction and confidence. ‘Your hand might have quivered over the ballot paper as you put your cross in the Conservative box’, Johnson conceded during his victory speech before acknowledging that a large number of people had ‘lent him’ their support. In a democracy, the consent of the citizens to allow an individual or group to govern is only ever given on a temporary basis but in the 2019 election, the extent of social fragmentation, the shift in social allegiances and the simple hatred and venom that defined debates has given what looks like a ‘strong’ majority a certain sense of fragility. The Boris ‘bargain’ was simple: vote for me and not only will I ‘Get Brexit Done’ but I’ll also address long-term structural inequalities through a process of ‘levelling-up’ beyond London through massive economic investment. If public trust is not to fall and anti-political sentiment increase Johnson must now deliver on that bargain in a context where very high and often contradictory expectations have been generated around the sunlit uplands of a post-Brexit world (for a discussion see Hay, 2020).

The third and final point is that ‘the trust terrain’ of British politics has already shifted far beyond the socio-political landscape that shaped the election. The emergence of COVID-19 as a global pandemic has to a large extent swept Brexit off the agenda and put in its place a very different and yet closely related set of questions concerning public trust in politicians, political processes and political institutions (for a discussion see Flinders, 2020b). It has also raised questions about Boris Johnson’s leadership skills, and his ability to absorb the detail and to keep his flippancy in check. Apart from his suggestion that the government’s urgent search for medical ventilators should be called ‘Operation Last Gasp’, the Prime Minister has appeared suitably restrained and also aware of the existence of a serious trust-deficit amongst the public. (The fact that the Prime Minister spent most of April 2020 either in hospital or recovering at his country residence, Chequers, after succumbing to the virus may also have helped.)

Setting the Prime Minister’s temporary ‘off-stage’ performative style aside, three concluding points help locate the COVID-19 crisis within this chapter’s broader focus on pessimism, promises and populism. The first is that the emergence of a global pandemic appears to have triggered a well-known ‘rallying-around-the-flag-effect’ in the sense that public satisfaction ratings with political leaders spiked in March 2020 as the crisis emerged (Johnson climbing to 52%). The second point is that such spikes tend to be short-lived and what is interesting from this perspective is that the Prime Minister (pre-hospitalisation) and subsequently his ministers clearly adopted a powerful performative ploy that could be called ‘hugging the experts’. Although not unique to the UK, in a context where politicians enjoy public trust ratings of just 14% while professors and scientists enjoyed trust-levels of 84% and 86% respectively (see Ipsos MORI, 2019), the stage has been set during the daily press briefings with ‘the experts’ (recently loathed vis-à-vis Brexit, now apparently loved in the context of COVID-19) standing very much shoulder-to-shoulder. With only the two-metre social distancing rule able to tease them apart on stage, the central element of any governmental script has been the constant cover of ‘following the scientific evidence’. ‘Blame-games’ and ‘blame-boomerangs’ will undoubtedly emerge but the deeper implication of this performative element is that if public trust in politics has been heavily influenced in recent years by Brexit then there is little doubt that moving forward the future of British democracy is likely to be defined by the public’s perception of how Boris Johnson’s government was able to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.