Like America’s president, Brexiteers resent the very idea of governing as complex and based in facts.
A common thread linking “hard” Brexiteers to nationalists across the globe is that they resent the very idea of governing as a complex, modern, fact-based set of activities that requires technical expertise and permanent officials.Soon after entering the White House as President Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon expressed hope that the newly appointed cabinet would achieve the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” In Europe, the European Commission — which has copious governmental capacity, but scant sovereignty — is an obvious target for nationalists such as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary.
The more extreme fringes of British conservatism have now reached the point that American conservatives first arrived at during the Clinton administration: They are seeking to undermine the very possibility of workable government. For hard-liners such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, it is an article of faith that Britain’s Treasury Department, the Bank of England and Downing Street itself are now conspiring to deny Britain its sovereignty.
It is thought that Mr. Davis’s real grudge was with the unelected official, Olly Robbins, who had usurped him in his influence over the Brexit process. The problem was that Mr. Robbins is willing and able to do the laborious and intellectually demanding policy work that Brexit will require, while Mr. Davis is famously not.
.. But another byproduct of the anti-government attitude is a constant wave of exits. Britain leaves the European Union, Mr. Johnson resigns from the cabinet. The Trump White House has been defined by the constant churn of sackings and resignations. With astonishing hypocrisy, wealthy Brexiteers such as Mr. Rees-Mogg, John Redwood, Lord Lawson and Lord Ashcroft have all been discovered either preparing to move their own assets into European Union jurisdictions or advising clients on how to do so. No doubt when Britain does finally leave the European Union in March 2019, they will distance themselves from reality once more, allowing the sense of victimhood and the dream of “sovereignty” to live another day. Meanwhile, someone has to keep governing.
The Huge Challenge Facing Theresa May
May had earned a reputation as a law-and-order type, whose actions, such as beefing up anti-terror laws and placing new restrictions on immigration, pleased the Conservative faithful and outraged defenders of civil liberties. In 2013, for example, May supported the detention at Heathrow Airport of David Miranda, the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who helped to break the Edward Snowden story.
.. In a government dominated by the products of tony private academies—Cameron: Eton; Osborne: St. Paul’s—May had been largely educated at public schools. She also serves as the M.P. for Maidenhead, a middle-class commuter town about thirty miles west of London, and there, evidently, she has come to recognize the gaping chasm that many of her constituents perceive to exist between themselves and the London-based élites.
.. With the Labour Party having shifted to the left under Jeremy Corbyn, and now seemingly embarking on a civil war, some Labour voters might be attracted to a less élitist form of Conservatism.
.. On the British end, they will be led by David Davis, a former chairman of the Conservative Party who campaigned on the Leave side, and whom May has appointed as “Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.” It wasn’t immediately clear how Davis will interact with Boris Johnson, the controversial Brexiteer-in-chief, whom May, to the surprise of many, appointed as Foreign Secretary.
.. May’s other challenge will be liberating the British economy from the fiscal straitjacket that Osborne has confined it to for the past six years, in an ideologically driven effort to reduce the size of the state.