What is the emotional impact of Brexit likely to be on those living in the UK? Denisa Kostovicova draws on two examples – the breakup of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia – to illustrate how the emotions of individuals on both sides of the debate might develop over the coming years.
Devastation, sadness, jubilation, joy, regret, fear, anxiety, denial, disappointment, betrayal… All are emotions that the Brexit vote propelled into the public sphere. Following the result, the weekend editions of newspapers were peppered with confessions of trauma and anger, but also exhilaration.
This highly uncertain political and economic post-referendum period is also an emotional time. I want to reflect here on how the end of a political union feels, and how we can navigate through this whirl of emotions. What can we learn from the recent history of countries’ political divorces?
My claim to authority on this point is both personal and academic. I am half-Yugoslav and half-Czechoslovak – once a citizen of two non-existing countries. My career has been devoted to studying the political fallout of the former.
Before I proceed, though, two caveats are in order. This is no simplistic drawing of parallels with Yugoslavia’s bloody break-up (although no one should ever easily dismiss violence as something that happens to someone else far away). Of course, the European Union is a different type of political union; it is not a federation (although the rhetoric in the Leave camp had on occasions promoted it to the status of a dictatorial central state). Rather, I turn to instructive parallels.
Resentment
The stakes in this referendum that decided the political, economic and diplomatic future of the UK were high. Statistics tell us that the vote divided the young and the old, the capital and the rest of the country; and the nations, with Scotland and Northern Ireland on one side and England and Wales on the other. But politics always looks different from the ‘bottom-up’, from people’s perspective. The dividing line meanders perniciously through school playgrounds, neighbourhoods, and families.
Calls for unity bounce back against a feeling of resentment towards those who voted differently from us. One wishes to dispel it, and move on. But, it comes back. One keeps second-guessing strangers in a supermarket queue and friends. Is she a Brexiteer or a Remainer? The feeling is profound, unwilled and it is here to stay. Many ex-Yugoslavs will tell you how friendships were irreparably cracked by similar ‘historical’ votes, and the lingering resentment they caused.
Agony and acceptance
The realisation of the new future takes place in an instant, the moment one hears the outcome of the referendum vote – no matter what the reaction to it may be. But the process of the actual realisation of that new future takes a long time.
The UK’s extrication from the EU is bound to be a long and taxing process. To some, the two-year-long timeline already looks unrealistic. This may be pure speculation given the novelty of the undertaking for both parties involved – the UK and the EU. But one thing is certain: the UK will be in a period of limbo. While the negotiations unfold, many diametrically opposed arguments are going to be heard all over again – just as in the period before the referendum. The pressure will pile on negotiators to deliver a deal that is as close as possible to one’s preferences, given that the general direction of travel has been set.
The agony and uncertainty of the negotiating marathon will ultimately come to an end. The new reality will assume the concrete shape of a new agreement, and the acceptance of that new reality will follow. As former partners continue to cooperate on a new footing, it will be from the position of separateness rather than unity. Vibrant Czech-Slovak cultural cooperation in the post-separation period is a case in point. The same, almost unspoken, cultural code underpins the exchange. Nonetheless, political separation has been accompanied by subtle identity shifts that accentuate the difference. Nothing is ever the same.
Time marches on, and soon new generations, for whom the history of a political union is not even a memory, will step onto the scene, sealing the acceptance (but not necessarily the acceptability) of the ‘new order’.
Nostalgia
The rest of the people, for whom membership of the European Union was a part of their identity, are likely to experience nostalgia. As a considerable contingent of Yugo-nostalgics will tell you, this is not a simple harking back to a life as it was viewed through rose-tinted glasses. Neither is it a naïve political longing for old times to come back. Yugo-nostalgia is lived out in the virtual world as well as in reality: for example, through renewed appreciation of Yugoslav rock music. It is the remembrance and celebration of positive aspects of the political relationship, however complicated the political and economic context was at the time.
But, the more interesting question for the post-EU future of the UK is whether this feeling is politically consequential? The answer is unequivocally affirmative. The intensity of the feeling of nostalgia can become a benchmark of the acceptability of the ‘new order’, and, as such, a measure of its legitimacy. It should not be assumed that only Remain voters will be prone to nostalgia.
The emotional management of Brexit
Brexit requires not just deft management of the country’s political and economic affairs while recasting the UK’s relationship with the EU, but also of its emotional impact on the nation’s well-being. Scholars of political science and international relations have recently come to appreciate and study the role of emotions in domestic and international politics. Politicians should do so immediately.
Ironically, it is only the feeling of shock upon hearing the referendum result that unified both Brexit and Remain supporters. Their political positions are now further divided by a spectrum of feelings. Some happily invoke the fact that ‘the people have spoken’. To others, the same statement of fact comes across as gleeful triumphalism.
These divisive feelings are bound to be further intensified if the UK itself takes the road to becoming a former country, like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. As these examples teach us, how emotions are managed both during the negotiation of Brexit and in its aftermath will be crucial not just for the nation’s wellbeing, but also for the legitimacy and stability of Brexit itself.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the BrexitVote blog, nor the LSE. It was first published at LSE EUROPP.
Denisa Kostovicova is Associate Professor in Global Politics in the Department of Government and a Research Fellow at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit in the Department of International Development at the LSE.
A very timely reminder of the impact on Central European relationships and the enduring effect of the emotional upheaval and sense of betrayal felt by a large cross-section of the population. My greatest fear is for the way this will affect the young, the next generation on whom the Brexiters will depend for a future, for pensions, for a contribution to the continuation of the State. Why would those who have been so cruelly and selfishly betrayed feel any obligation to the Nation? Why should they feel any responsibility to contribute their talents, their skills or their fealty to a generation that has deprived them of choice in their own futures?
We are told by the Triumphalists to “get over it, we won!” or “we must all pull together for the sake of the country”, Well my question is Why? What right do you have, you who swallowed the lies and misinformation of self-serving politicians, who turned their backs on alliances and treaties, who betrayed the very foundations of British Honour and Fairness. What right do you have to expect loyalty from those you have cast adrift in an open boat in a raging storm.
I say let England drown in it;s own hubris. 1500 years of unity and it is all swept away by the vainglorious deceit of a crowd of snake-oil salesmen.Good bye Britain and good riddance.
(I apologize for my late comment)
It seems to me that on important difference is omitted her: the voting on Yugoslav referendums was in accordance with the demands/ambitions of ruling political elites (in Czechoslovakia there was no referendum, it was just a decision by ruling elites) … the brexit voting was chiefly against the demands/ambitions of most of the ruling elites… also, the remain vote, as well as the unity of GB is much more in accordance than in discordance with global capitalist hegemony while with the remain vote in Yugoslavia it was not the case…
And few questions for Laurence: How comes that half of the population of one of the world’s most developed countries succumbs to a snake-oil salesmen? Does that have anything to do with mourned “alliances and treaties”? Why they (brexit voters) should be loyal to the system that made them a pray of vainglorious deceit? Is there anything vaingloriously deceptive in the concept of EU itself?