Brexit Along Three Axes

I do not think that the 3-axes model performs as well as usual at interpreting the post-Brexit feelings. But here is a try.

Let us treat the vote as an anti-immigrant backlash. That might not be correct, by the way. The journalists who are offering that interpretation are the ones who are shocked and appalled by the vote. But suppose it is a major factor.

The oppressor-oppressed view would have to treat the immigrants as the most oppressed group. So, even though working-class natives were traditionally treated as oppressed, you would expect the progressive defense of “remain” to emphasize the plight of the immigrants. I am not really seeing much of that. Instead, I get the sense that there is instead more of an emotional attachment to the project of a united Europe, along with some snobbery toward working-class provincials. I understand how the united Europe fits in with Progressive beliefs, but it does not line up with the oppressor-oppressed axis.

The civilization-barbarism view is that immigration has to be restricted in order to protect British civilization. That would be the language in which conservatives would express support for “leave.” I think we more or less see that.

Finally the freedom-coercion axis says that restrictions on immigration are an especially cruel form of coercion. So it argues for “remain.” And I think that there are some libertarians who express that point of view. But for others, the salient issue is not immigration but instead the Brussels bureaucracy. Regardless of how they come out on net, libertarians do use the language of freedom-coercion in articulating their position.

So on a generous reading, we can say that the three-axes model gets two out of three right.

33 thoughts on “Brexit Along Three Axes

  1. I think you might be defining the oppressor-oppressed axis too narrowly. If you include discrimination (racial/religious/gender/etc.) then I think your model fits perfectly with the Brexit mood. The remain camp sees the leave camp as racist or at least xenophobic. The only question is whether the working-class natives who voted to leave fit in the barbarism axis. I suspect that they are just acting in their own self-interest.

    • The working-class natives see themselves as oppressed. They’ve voted Labour all their lives. They’ll still be voting Labour when the next election’s called. Jeremy Corbyn himself voted leave, although his official position was remain. Old Labour, the Labour that thought Tony Blair was right-wing, was anti-EEC in the 1970s too. These natives think that European imperialism oppresses them, even if there are upper-class natives, the nabobs, collaborating with the imperial panjandrums, oppressing the rest.

  2. “Let us treat the vote as an anti-immigrant backlash.”

    As in the United States, I suspect it is a backlash against, what did the other commenter call it, Tyrannical Anarchy? Tyranarchy, copyright Andrew’ and ASDF.

    The EU says you can’t criticize muslims, but they say muslims can’t wear hijabs. This is kind of the opposite quadrant from where we like to think the United States is. So, you can’t express yourselves or defend yourselves and all grievances have to be taken up thousands of miles away. At best, they don’t have the resources to address all grievances, and at worst they will focus on punishing people who try to express and defend themselves and let the bullies off the hook.

    In the USA we have to defend idiotic ideas like The Wall because the even more idiotic position is that we can’t build a wall or states aren’t allowed to enforce immigration laws that are on the books.

    • They think progress is centralizing governments, but they do indeed attack the Leave side for racism and anti-immigration. So, that is at least half right. And don’t they believe large central governments do a good job of protecting the demographic groups from the oppressive middling governments? I’ll give that at least another quarter, for a total of 3/4s.

    • Andrew,

      It’s “Anarcho-Tyranny”.

      The belief that the government doesn’t enforce the law against protected groups, whether they be underclass brown people or connected elites, while they enforce arbitrary and harsh laws against middle class whites.

      So if you’re Hillary you can break the law and get away with it. If your a gang banger in Baltimore you can riot or commit petty crimes and the state doesn’t really do anything to stop it. Everyone I know has been the victim of some kind of crime in Baltimore, and the attitude of the police is “yeah, that just kind of happens, we aren’t really going to do anything about it.” The implication is unless you can pay enough to live in a few of the gated community enclaves, you just have to put up with lawlessness.

      Then by contrast if your middle class your expected to submit to the entire regulatory state. Everything from a speed trap on up through speech codes. Middle class people walk around on egg shells, knowing if they do anything to piss of anyone they can lose what little they have.

  3. In interesting thing pointed out in the latest episode of The Fifth Column podcast: while the narrative in the US is that the exit vote was motivated by racism, most of the immigrants that people are upset about are very pale people from eastern Europe.

    • Right. Given that the immigrants affected are white Eastern Europeans, the oppressor-oppressed axis may not really kick in for the elite Remain voters. So they’re not making that argument. Indeed, many of the the Twitter comments I see from those same elites can be paraphrased as “How could they (Leave voters) do this to us?” If anything they make themselves out as oppressed, as ridiculous as that sounds.

      • Yup. You get a sense of the poor oppressed City of London bankers and finance types – and their pet journalists – being denied good shawarmas and juicy deals by declasse Little Englanders.

  4. Instead, I get the sense that there is instead more of an emotional attachment to the project of a united Europe, along with some snobbery toward working-class provincials.

    Yeah, I see the same. They seem to be operating on the emotional level of “cooperation good, competition and division bad; the EU is a cooperative institution, therefore it must be good.”

    • “the EU is a cooperative institution, therefore it must be good.”

      The EEC may have started that way but the several treaties have taken the EU to a coercive collective.

  5. http://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/styles/body_image/public/body-images/chart2_econintegration_0.jpg?itok=EUIxmm4g


    With a background in science, Mr Cummings bases everything he does on rigorous research. He commissioned detailed surveys, ran “quizzes” on commercial websites to test voters’ views, and oversaw focus groups that tested Vote Leave’s key campaign messages.

    By early May, he had settled on the three key points that would form the basis for the final weeks of the campaign: a promise to take back control of £350million a week of taxpayers’ spending from Brussels; a promise to take back control over immigration; and warnings that countries such as Turkey and Serbia were in line to join the European Union in the years ahead.

    All these points had been rigorously tested in focus groups. The most striking reaction from voters in the discussions was to Turkey’s accession to the EU.

    “When Turkey comes up, light the blue touch paper and take a step back,” one Vote Leave source said at the time.

    “People say ‘this is insane, this country is totally wrecked if that happens. These are countries at war, they are full of terrorists.’”

    While EU membership is a complex problem and people voting on all sides did so for a number of reasons, let’s be clear that the overwhelming reason is immigration. Even when people say, “I don’t want Brussels controlling my domestic policy,” the number one thing on their mind is they don’t want Angela Merkel determining their immigration policy. I suppose they also don’t like having to subsidize the lower human capital groups in Southern Europe, but again that’s another HBD thing.

    Going even further, demographic change would eventually mean not being able to control your domestic policy in your own elections. Already its clear the number one issue dividing the electorate is regular people versus elites. Since elites don’t have enough votes, they need to bring in a dependent class of NAMs to vote for them in exchange for welfare payments. The fact that this will one day give Europe Caliphate demographics, culture, and government doesn’t bother them.

    I understand you need a “Cato Clever” rational for this outcome so you can say Brexit isn’t about immigration/racism (the greatest sin in all of history!). If that helps get the desirable outcome then ok, but that’s just PR and everyone knows it. This is about not turning our demographics into low quality NAM stew thus ruining our countries forever.

  6. Someone who supports immigration but believes that immigration systems should be administered competently, transparently, and by the rules, gets labeled “anti-immigrant” and obviously necessary administrative reform is forever swept under the rug.

    • If you’re a former council employee, 65 years old, a lifelong Labour voter, you get labeled a “bigoted woman” by Gordon Brown himself. Not to your face, but in the car, driving away from Rochdale. That’s how a Labour leader talks about a Labour voter.

      So when party leaders and TV talking heads in London say that they care about what’s in the best interest of their voters, those voters can’t reconcile that with the real hatred that their guardians keep demonstrating and making plain.

  7. Does the three-axis model apply to foreign policy, generally? If so, you might well have expected progressives and libertarians to support the Iraq War (because Iraqis were no doubt oppressed and coerced), and conservatives to oppose it (because at least Sadaam kept things together). Similarly, you’ve said before that you mostly live on the freedom-coercion axis, but shift sharply when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Perhaps there are different axes altogether when it comes to foreign policy.

    In Europe, there is certainly a postnationalism-nationalism axis along which the progressives think. “Nationalism” here means not national pride but a small-minded ignorant and probably malevolent desire to promote one’s own country at the expense of others. On this view, nationalism is what caused the World Wars, and postnationalism is what prevented another.

    • Samantha Power, Michael Ignatieff (became leader of the Liberal party of Canada for a time) and other academics from the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy supported the Iraq war. In her book “A Problem from Hell”, Power argues that governments should use every tool in their toolbox to prevent/stop genocide. I believe that both Power and Ignatieff later regretted their support. I remember Daniel Pipes supporting the invasion but being against the neocon nation building aspect. He wanted to install a U.S. friendly strongman which is an alternative option to isolationism that also fits the conservative barbarism axis.

  8. It seems to me that both progressives and conservatives are leaning on the civilization/barbarism axis here, but they have different senses of what barbarism means. For conservatives, the threat of barbarism is mass immigration by immigrants with foreign, illiberal values. For progressives, the threat of barbarism lies in the perceived racism, xenophobia, and provincialism of their own lower classes.

  9. It’s kind of a flip question, but actually a deeply significant question of ethics.

    If people want to move to our country, are we opressing them by opposing that?

    (I’m interpreting Brexit as not simply “anti-immigrant” but anti-“potential future immigrant”).

    To provide some background for Arnold, many of us are “ethical simpletons” when it comes to figuring out what our obligations to others are. We can figure out that we don’t have to give a dollar to the guy flying a panhandling sign at the expressway exit ramp. Other than that, I think some of us are clueless (I know I am). If we aren’t careful, some of us think we should just “be nice.”

    The three axes don’t much help. Has anyone suggested a “kind-helpfuless” axis?

    • It just occurred to me this morning that one reason for confusion is that a wealthy state must use coercive force in order to to prevent unauthorized migrants from infiltrating it. For example, Australia takes boat people to some isolated island near Papua Guinea. Israel does all kinds of things to prevent unauthorized migrants.

      But the general principle is that the use of coercive force does not mean than one is an oppressor.

      I believe the aphorism “Justice without force is a myth” is apropos.

      Brainy Quote gave me this:

      “Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.
      –Blaise Pascal.

      Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/blaisepasc118337.html

  10. You would also want to explain the opposing position predominating in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is somewhat surprising how different these areas are. Is it that they see themselves as possible emigres rather than disturbed about immigrants, or they see more in common with the continent than England, especially Northern Ireland with Ireland.

  11. I think your oppressor-oppressed axis does not quite capture how modern leftists feel about civil government (i.e. not the police or armed forces). In their eyes, civil government is not an oppressor, but it is an ally of the oppressed. Or maybe a neutral authority who the oppressed can appeal to for support.

    So in this construction, weakening the civil government weakens the oppressed indirectly, because it weakens the chief ally of the oppressed. Voting to Remain was a vote for a strong central European civil government.

  12. The civilization-barbarism view is that immigration has to be restricted in order to protect British civilization. That would be the language in which conservatives would express support for “leave.” I think we more or less see that.

    Given 70% of the voters for Brexit probably had mixed feelings on the vote, I would agree with the Civlization-barbarism view except the civilization is a hard split on the issue. (think Pat Buchanan) The poorer civilized citizens feel like the elite Civilized are breaking their Civil Society Contract. That outsourcing to China or using immigrant labor the elite civilized are breaking down the poorer civilized population with lower wages and hurting their ability to be civilized, go to church and have functioning families. (To Pat Buchanan there is PSST in the marketplace but it is up to economic elite to help the civilied PSST workers. If you read some of the 1900 -1950 moguls you do see some of this protection.) I believe this is very thesis of Pat Buchanan and a lot of other social conservative writers, such as Rod Dreher, Michael Dougherty, and even to lesser extent Ross Douthat and soon David Brooks. (His Sullivan Travel articles are awful!)

    In many ways, I do see some their arguments and I do believe the the competition of the modern economy has impacted young people who are putting off family formation.

  13. In the competition for “most oppressed group” the educational results point to working class white males. They perform the worst, so according to the logic of the sociologists and the journalists, they are the most oppressed.

  14. I’d add a new axis to the model: globalist vs nationalist

    There are those on the left wing who hate when their fellow citizens are oppressed, but not when foreigners are (blue collar unions, UK labor party)

  15. Let’s not forget that in the oppressor-oppressed dynamic there is the presumed savior, and to oppose the savior is to oppress the oppressed.

  16. Funny how people get hyped up on a non-binding reffie that is irrelevant. Brexit is a myth. They can’t do it. I don’t care about the political side. It is irrelevant. The UK has never been a big political connection to the EU and its divorce on that side, will make little difference.

    They try to leave the market, they are dead as a country with the Tories. The UK will implode into a 1000 pieces and it will be total anarchy and succession. Lets note the Permindex/Rothschild/Murdoch machine that powered Leave.

  17. Very interesting issue and views on the 3 axes:
    Oppressor (bad) – oppressed; Civilization – barbarism (bad); Freedom – coercion (bad).
    Why do the axes do poorly? Because the self-identifying agents disagree about where they are on any of the axes, and there’s no clear agreement on how to define the parameters of the axes to aid in defining positions:

    “The oppressor-oppressed view would have to treat the immigrants as the most oppressed group”
    No it doesn’t. Poor native Brits feel the Poles (and Slovaks) being invited in by the elites are oppressing them, by accepting jobs for less money. The Poles get extra benefits as compared to the old or status quo; the natives lose jobs and are therefore somewhat economically oppressed.
    This is just one good example of how the axis itself is not really objective — who is to identify what makes one group or another oppressed?
    The elites would like to claim that it’s the poor immigrants who, if any anti-immigration laws are passed, will be oppressed by the law. Therefore, these elites are on the side of the oppressed. Poor native workers claim they are victims (of the system), and they objectively are.

    The immigrants include both some (few?) terrorists, anti-Christian/ anti-Western value immigrants, as well as economic immigrants looking for a better material life.
    There’s no good way to separate the terrorist immigrants from the economic immigrants. If “anti-terrorism” means anti-immigrant, than that’s the clear anti-barbarian side.

    There were LOTS of Leavers complaining about too many gov’t regulations, too much petty coercion, from Brussels. The freedom-coercion axis for Leavers means more anti-Brussels coercion.
    ” restrictions on immigration are an especially cruel form of coercion” << this is the elite interpretation.
    Looking at France and the Muslim no-go areas, where Muslims DO coerce other French folk, areas created by French acceptance of immigrants, it's dishonest to claim anti-immigration is especially cruel in comparison with actual results of large-scale Muslim immigration.
    Many French people feel they were coerced, and lost freedom, in accepting Muslim immigration. The fact that I don't agree with your subjective judgement about whether Remain or Leave coercion was greatest indicates that the axis is not so clearly applicable.

  18. I do not think that immigration was main issue and definetly not the only one.
    Polls, like here for example, http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/How-the-UK-voted-Full-tables-1.pdf
    asked about reason to vote leave.
    Clear winner was: “The principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK”
    Distant second was: “A feeling that voting to leave the EU offered the best chance for the UK to regain control over immigration and its own borders”

    And third: “A vote to remain was a vote for having little or no choice about how the EU expanded its membership or its powers in the years ahead.”

    Lot of people like to treat this vote as anti-immigration, remaisers can sneer about xenophobia and media likes to play immigration angle. But take this episode few years back when Gordon Brown labeled 65 years old lady as “bigoted women”.

    It was funny exchange. Brown was talking with this lady in front of the cameras. The lady asked and talked about taxes, about tuitions,about national debt, about different social benefits, talked about education, talked about her work and grandchildren and then there was one segment (maybe ten seconds) when ladyasked about immigration. Simple question, nothing special, but that was enough. When Brown left (and forget that mic was still on) he sneered “bigoted women” and media had a field day.

Comments are closed.