Brexit and the Joy of Democracy
Brexit and the Joy of Democracy

Summary/Abstract: Earlier this year, the former UK Supreme Court judge, Lord Sumption, gave a rather chilling warning. If democracy disappears, he warned, we will not notice – at first. The institutions will be there. The rhetoric will be there. But democracy would have departed. The bad news is that the UK has been drifting in this direction for some time. But the process is not complete. The good news is that people have noticed. And have kicked back. Hard. Twice. This is the story of how an emerging Oligarchy (acting against the UK’s mainstream cultural values) acted to overturn democracy. And may yet succeed. To use a football analogy, I am writing this late in the second half. Scores are nil-nil. The game could go either way. But what we have seen so far allows us to draw some conclusions about Brexit and UK culture.

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