Culture and Brexit: A Catastrophic Partnership

Abstract

This article considers the cultural characteristics that have shaped UK politics before and throughout the era of Brexit, contrasting the principal drivers of the UK’s approach with the prevailing characteristics of its’ EU partners. Using an established model of national culture, this article provides a new perspective on the Brexit process, up to and including the recent ‘accession’ of Johnson to the UK leadership. While many of the UK’s friends and EU partners remain puzzled and depressed at the UK’s Brexit tactics, the cultural fundamentals – deeply rooted in the essence of what makes the UK and many of its principal EU partners different from each other – provide at least some rationale for the seemingly irrational. Finally, the article proposes a ‘cultural reconciliation’ that may, at some point in the future, allow argument to proceed in UK politics - without descent into ‘win or lose’.