The Socio-Political Links between the Pro-Brexit Arguments of “Comfortable Leavers” and the Thatcher, New Labour, and Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Periods in Britain

Over seven years after the in-out referendum in 2016, Brexit continues to divide British society. As seen in the 2017 and 2019 general elections, the 2019 European elections and the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, the labels ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ are still popular with the majority of the British population. Causing one of the biggest uncertainties in the last decade, the Brexit phenomenon has therefore been discussed widely in terms of its multiple consequences. Amongst the most popular accounts is the one pitting low-income, poorly educated, rural, “left behind” Leavers against well-educated, metropolitan, city-dwelling Remainers. However, a 2021 report jointly published by the NatCen Social Research and the academic think-tank UK in a Changing Europe demonstrates that this explains only part of the story. With a particular focus on the “more affluent Leave voters living in areas with relatively high levels of wealth”, this research elaborates on what the group of people called “Comfortable Leavers” expect from leaving the EU.

Given Britain’s tumultuous relationship with the EU over decades, European integration represents a long-running issue of contention cutting across different societal groupings in Britain. Therefore, this necessitates examining the pro-Brexit views of Comfortable Leavers from a broader historical perspective beyond Brexit in the light of the deep socio-economic transformation that the country underwent since the 1980s. As this long period encompasses the Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990), New Labour (Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, 1997-2010), and Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition (David Cameron/Nick Clegg, 2010-2015) governments, this paper aims to trace back the pro-Brexit arguments raised by relatively affluent Leave voters to these three distinct periods, around their intertwined socio-economic and European policy agendas. This is undertaken on the grounds of four primary themes, including ‘society’, ‘governance’, ‘identity’, and ‘economy’, based on the data presented by the abovementioned NatCen-UKICE report, which was collected from eight online deliberative workshops involving 138 participants (81 Leavers, 55 Remainers, two voting none). Based on this analysis, the main argument of this paper is that there are striking parallels between the views of Comfortable Leavers and the dominant political narratives of Thatcherism, New Labour, and the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, alongside a prevalent demand for “change”. However, as it is not certain whether the Comfortable Leavers’ complaints (such as lack of investment in public services, deindustrialisation, austerity) are anything to do with departing from the EU, this narrative of “change” is somewhat ambiguous, in effect unintentionally reflecting these voters’ disappointments with the three governmental periods.

As such, in the first part of this study, the socio-political affinities between the Comfortable Leavers’ views and the neoliberal project of Thatcherism are investigated, on the grounds of the latter’s commitment to “rolling back the state”, destroying the British welfare state framework, and entrenching “Tory Euroscepticism” in British society. Second, their views are examined with reference to New Labour’s Third Way-oriented ‘workfare’ strategy replacing the “system of rights” with a diluted “system of benefits”, as well as its hesitant pro- Europeanism doing little to “sell Europe in Britain”. In the third and final part, the Comfortable Leavers’ arguments are analysed against the background of the controversial policies applied by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition, not least the austerity measures put in place during the Great Recession and Prime Minister Cameron’s pragmatic approach to the referendum issue, unexpectedly resulting in Britain leaving the EU.