Thread by @bctallis

Ever tried to Global #Britain but ended up accidentally pulling a little #England?
- Turns out you’re not alone.
A🧵on British identity, foreign policy & why we need to properly understand #Brexit to move beyond it.
- based on a new article I have out in @ISQ_Jrnl
1/25

The article, which I'm really happy to have in top IR journal @ISQ_Jrnl, challenges a received wisdom about #Brexit – that it both reflected & reinforced a general, almost tribal polarisation of British society.
2/
academic.oup.com/isq/article-ab…

This might seem counter-intuitive (& against the evidence) but stay with me - its not that simple & that’s important. Not only for understanding Brexit but for getting the UK’s international affairs right in future [spoiler: it matters for other countries too]
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The narrative of “a nation divided” quickly took hold after the 52-48 referendum result & has been variously claimed to be rupture of
- Nativists ❌ Cosmopolitans
- Conservatives ❌ Liberals
- Eurosceptics ❌ Europhiles
- Leavers ❌ Remainers
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Some have even argued that this schism, which exacerbated fault lines over British identity & the country’s place in the world has left the UK mired in the deep divisions of ‘tribal politics’ and turned it into a binary ‘Brexitland’ (Sobolewska & Ford). 5/

Researchers (named in the article) have claimed that all this has left the country deeply socially divided because ‘remainers & leavers’ continue to divide the world into ‘us and them’ know what kind of people fall into each ‘tribe’ & what views they hold on various issues 6/

A host of experts have written on this and some see that the ‘fundamental differences’ between ‘identity liberals’ and ‘identity conservatives’ extend to their worldviews – including their attitudes to #migration, and toward the #EU.
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In terms of its international affairs (& relations with the EU in particular) a lot of this hinges on how British people (& politicians) are claimed to see themselves - & others.
A key aspect of this is how different Brits think they are - how they evaluate this.

8/

'Identity conservatives’ are often linked to a British ‘exceptionalism’ that is regularly claimed to have driven Brexit: Britain is not only different to other countries, but better.
- This is a common view of the ‘island nation’ with its common law & victorious self-image

9/

The thing is that it's not just 'Leavers', 'eurosceptics' or 'identity conservatives' who avow such views.

Not only David Cameron, but Tony Blair & Gordon Brown made exceptionalist public statements on behalf of Remain (& at other times)

10/

But hold on you say, reasonably, isn’t there a difference between nasty nationalism & a perfectly understandable (if hubristic) patriotism – which still fits the 2 tribes identified above (& even with the little England/ Global Britain views of how to proceed after Brexit)?
11/

There is - but for this distinction to hold in this case, then the identity liberal/Europhile position should be based on a cosmopolitan/ multicultural/ civic view of British identity
- and should reject the “other side’s” nativism, essentialism & chauvinism

12/

&, If the 'tribal'/fundamental division thesis were to hold, then they should find themselves on opposite sides of the “chasm [that] opened up between the blocs & “regard the other with mutual incomprehension, leavened with no little distain” (Henderson & Wyn Jones, 2021)
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So I was really surprised to find both sets of views appearing, consistently, alongside each other across the ten year run of a popular collection of BBC series ...

14/

A lot of work’s been done on understanding the relationship between culture & Brexit. Culture is generally seen as influencing in a ‘resonant’ rather than ‘direct’ way but is important b/c of the emotional nature of the contest between Leave & Remain & its context
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The role of history in cultural productions has been extensively examined and is seen to ‘activate reasoning by analogy’ & provide commonsense understandings of Britain & Europe – but it has also tended to focus on a particular kind of cultural productions
16/

The kind of TV shows & films that are nostalgic for & glorify Britain’s wartime & imperial past or at least which showcase anglocentric perspectives, underplay the role of (e.g. colonial) others or reproduce the idea that the ‘island nation’ stood 'alone' in its finest hour
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In the polarising post-referendum climate, following the tribal lines, some might have been tempted to dismiss such films and TV shows as ‘as examples of Eurosceptic, conservative, nativist “Little Englander,” “Leaver” culture (whatever the merits of this).
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But you really couldn’t claim this about the BBC’s ‘Art of’ Collection of mini-series - where I saw this co-existence of ‘identity liberal’ & ‘identity conservative’ views -which according to the ‘Tribal’ divide approach should be highly unlikely)
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bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08…

These hugely popular series, which ran to 40 hours of programming over 10 years actively & enthusiastically engage with European cultures & seemingly epitomise ‘Europhile’, cosmopolitan, multicultural & thus pro-EU ‘remainer’ culture [for which the BBC was also criticised]
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As I show in the article, the series do have genuine cosmopolitan, europhile, ‘identity liberal’, remainer credentials
- but they ALSO reproduce the kind of chauvinistic exceptionalism associated with nativist, identity conservative, eurosceptic, anti-EU ‘leavers’.

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So why does this matter?
B/C if chauvinistic exceptionalism lurks in this unlikely setting of an ostensibly liberal, multicultural, cosmopolitan & Europhile popular & repeatedly commissioned programmes, it points to a potentially much wider issue
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This type of exceptionalism may not be ‘a disorder for half the population’ but, rather the kind of ‘common cultural inheritance’ through which all sides of the European debate think & argue (as @redhistorian described 🇬🇧attitude to empire). Even some who are unaware of it
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As shown in the article (& this one linked below), the way that states & nations differentiate themselves from others conditions their possibilities to interact & combine with those others, which opens up or closes down possibilities for cooperation
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
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So, if the UK is to develop more productive international relations & a more effective foreign policy after Brexit, this type of self-destructive exceptionalism is something worth reflecting on to avoid attempting to be Global Britain & accidentally becoming little England.
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BONUS - the challenges of exceptionalism are not limited to the UK, as anyone following German, Polish, French or US politics would likely acknowledge - & some convincingly argue that the EU is also developing a superiority complex at a regional rather than national level.

EXTRA - I'll do another thread on how the series reproduce both liberal-cosmopolitan-europhile AND chauvinistic exceptionalism - the 'fun' really lies in that detail (but this thread was long enough already) ... some teasers for now

The series variously: laud the tolerant culture & society of Al Andalus, regret shortcomings of🇫🇷 multiculturalism, criticise British colonialism; question the point of🇧🇪, criticise 'upstart nations' 🇩🇰&🇳🇱 & show how the UK was caused trouble by European extremisms in (eg)🇩🇪.

all the while they paint a historically questionable picture of the UK, that really contrasts to this and says a lot about cultural inputs to the construction of identity in relations between 🇬🇧🇪🇺.

PS – there is obviously much more in the article than can be put on Twitter even in a (long) thread! But I’ve tried to bring some key aspects of the article to life here & hope it will spur you to read the full thing - & future threads on this topic!
academic.oup.com/isq/article-ab…