Fintan O'Toole is a columnist at the "Irish Times" and author of "Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain." His new book, "The Politics of Pain: Postwar England and the Rise of Nationalism" was published in November 2019.
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In May 2016, while leading the campaign for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, Boris Johnson sang a snatch of the EU anthem, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy – in German. One might think that the leader of a nationalist revolt against a supposed colonial overlord would sing the enemy’s anthem only in bitter mockery. But it was clear in this speech that this was not Johnson’s intention. He was not trying to ridicule either the EU or Germany. He was singing it, rather, to show that he could. He wanted people to understand that he is a cultured European.
For what was going on in this strange performance was an eagerness to distance himself from the Little Englanders among his own followers: "I am a child of Europe. I am a liberal cosmopolitan. My family is the genetic equivalent of a UN peacekeeping force. (…) I can sing the 'Ode to Joy' in German. If you keep accusing me of being a Little Englander, I will." And he did. Not only that, but he went on to insist that Brexit, far from being the cause of "small-minded xenophobes", is actually "the great project of European liberalism".
Johnson is now, of course, the prime minister of the United Kingdom and his 2016 campaign is reaching some kind of climax with the UK’s formal departure from the EU on Jan. 31. One of Europe’s big powers is detaching itself from the European project, if not quite irrevocably, then undoubtedly for a very long time. How, then, can we make sense of Johnson’s claim that this wilful act is not a retreat from Europe but in some way a fulfilment of European liberalism? It is not always good for one’s mental health to try to fathom what is going on in Johnson’s mind. But in this case, it is worth trying, because the answer throws some light on the great problem of Brexit: It is a nationalist project without a nation.
The rise of nationalism is the most powerful force of the 19th century and of the first half of the 20th century in Europe.
Presumably, what Johnson meant when he claimed that Brexit is a great project of European liberalism is that modern Europeanness is rooted in the creation of the nation state as the primary locus of political loyalty. And this idea contains a great deal of truth. The rise of nationalism is indeed the most powerful force of the 19th century and of the first half of the 20th century in Europe. Johnson sees Brexit as a return to this basic principle of the primacy of the nation state. But there is a great irony here: Britain is not and never has been a nation state. The UK is itself a four-nation amalgam of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. And for most of its history as a state, it has been at the heart, not of a national polity, but of a vast multinational and polyglot empire. There is no pre-EU UK "nation" to return to. And this is the contradiction that the Brexit project cannot even acknowledge, let alone resolve.
Early in the morning of Dec. 13, 2019, after the snap election, Johnson made his victory speech. He had used the simple 13-letter slogan "Get Brexit Done" to transform the electoral map of Britain. Parts of the English Midlands and North, where people used to think the official name of Johnson’s party was "Tory Scum", had abandoned generations of loyalty to the left-of-centre Labour Party and voted Conservative. Johnson had been given a parliamentary majority comfortable enough to ensure that he would, albeit in a very limited sense, get Brexit done. The United Kingdom would formally cease to be a member of the European Union on Jan. 31, 2020. Something was certainly coming to an end. It was just not entirely clear what was being born.
Speaking at what he bathetically called "this glorious, glorious pre-breakfast moment", Johnson could not contain his sense of wonder. He had managed, as he put it, to unite the nation "from Woking to Workington; from Kensington … to Clwyd South; from Surrey Heath to Sedgefield; from Wimbledon to Wolverhampton." Johnson can never resist an alliterative litany and this list of new and old Tory heartlands was no doubt shaped by the demands of his favourite rhetorical device. Yet in his euphoria, he seems not to have noticed that seven of the eight constituencies he namechecked are in England. None is in Scotland. He could have achieved the same assonance with "from Dumfries (in Scotland) to Don Valley (in the North of England)" or from "Brecon (in Wales) to Bolsover", an eternal Labour seat in the English Midlands that had miraculously passed to the Tories. But he didn’t. Johnson instinctively thinks of the "nation" as English.
Fintan O'Toole is a columnist at the "Irish Times" and author of "Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain." His new book, "The Politics of Pain: Postwar England and the Rise of Nationalism" was published in November 2019.
Lesen Sie diesen Essay auf Deutsch
In May 2016, while leading the campaign for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, Boris Johnson sang a snatch of the EU anthem, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy – in German. One might think that the leader of a nationalist revolt against a supposed colonial overlord would sing the enemy’s anthem only in bitter mockery. But it was clear in this speech that this was not Johnson’s intention. He was not trying to ridicule either the EU or Germany. He was singing it, rather, to show that he could. He wanted people to understand that he is a cultured European.