As Brexit has blazed through British public life, torching our constitution, party system, economic ties and diplomatic relationships, its appetite has been fed by a combustible mix of loss, betrayal and dispossession. These are not just powerful political emotions: they rest on claims about the past that carry extraordinary destructive power. All sides in the Brexit debate trade assertions about British history: that “we were lied to” in the referendums of 1975 or 2016; that “we stood alone” in the Second World War and can do so again; or that “no one voted to be poorer” when they voted to leave the EU. These are not merely the sparks tossed out by political conflagration; they are the dry tinder on which that conflagration feeds.
History is politically powerful, because it serves as a proxy for ideology. From Boris Johnson to Jacob Rees-Mogg, and from Dominic Raab to Liam Fox, Leavers use the past to imagine the future. They make historically based claims about Britain’s “natural” allies, markets or place in the world, based on curated memories of war and empire. They invoke the achievements of former generations as a model for the present; and, in so doing, give the false assurance that the path down which we are walking leads to old and familiar places. As so often, history becomes the mask worn by ideology, when it wants to be mistaken for experience.
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