THENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 18, 2019 71
A CRITICAT LARGE
FIRES IN THE MIRROR
Behind the U.K.’s problems with Europe lies a struggle with itself.BY ISAAC CHOTINER
T
he more sentimental believers in the
“special relationship” between the
United States and the United Kingdom
focus on synchronous developments in
American and British politics during the
past century. The Second World War, in
this telling, was won by a pair of anti-fas-
cists whose alliance and friendship made
the world safe for democracy. Even more
jaundiced observers cannot help but no-
tice commonalities. In the nineteen-fifties,
two moderately conservative regimes
turned their countries slightly to the right,
while establishing a decades-long, bipar-
tisan commitment to the welfare state.
A generation later, the conservative rev-
olution arrived in both countries, with
Margaret Thatcher triumphing over anenfeebled Labour government, in 1979,
and Ronald Reagan routing Jimmy Car-
ter, in 1980. In the nineteen-nineties, two
slick center-left politicians, Bill Clinton
and Tony Blair, transformed their par-
ties; just as the fifties conservatives had
made peace with a social safety net, Dem-
ocrats and Labourites made it clear that
they welcomed the role of free markets
and financial capital.
And then, in the summer of 2016,
the U.K. voted to leave the European
Union in a referendum hastily called by
David Cameron—a perfectly fine up-
date of a nineteen-fifties Tory Prime
Minister, and someone who, in his re-
cently released memoir, notes his ideo-
logical proximity to Barack Obama.Months later, the U.S. elected Donald
Trump, a man who referred to himself
as Mr. Brexit. These twin “populist” ex-
plosions have been the central drama in
each country ever since, feeding the
news cycle on both sides of the Atlan-
tic with the same mixture of apprehen-
sion and disbelief.
American Presidents are difficult to
dislodge in the middle of their terms,
but British law allows the party in power
to replace a Prime Minister without a
general election. Boris Johnson, the third
Tory premier in as many years, has a
slight physical resemblance to Trump,
comparable regard for women, and a
governing style that combines buffoon-
ery and demagoguery. If you can’t see
Donald Trump as the Brussels corre-
spondent for a major print newspaper,
as Johnson was in the nineties, you can
probably imagine him writing up two
versions of a newspaper column—or,
anyway, two versions of a tweet—on an
issue of national importance, and wait-
ing until the last possible moment to de-
cide which one to publish, as Johnson
did in the run-up to the Brexit referendum.
Trump and Johnson have managed
to rise to power only because of the in-
stitutional weaknesses of their respective
parties, and the willingness of conserva-
tive élites to stoke and then appease each
leader’s base. But there is one key dis-
tinction. The Republican establishment,
in acquiescing to Trump, has been cynical
rather than careless. Tariffs aside, Trump
has delivered to G.O.P. power brokers
most of what they wanted: deep tax cuts,
gutted environmental regulations, abor-
tion restrictions, conservative judges. No
such package of partisan gains will come
from the Tories’ placation of the anti-
European wing, regardless of how Brexit
is enacted, assuming that it is.
Brexit is despised by much of the
financial sector and many small-busi-
ness owners. When fifty-two per cent
of the U.K. voted to leave, no one in
power knew how such a decision could
be carried out. Three years later, accord-
ing to one poll, a majority of Conserva-
tive Party members were willing to see
the Party destroyed in order to achieve
Brexit; a majority also supported leav-
ing the E.U. even if it meant doing
significant damage to the British econ-
omy. The deal that Boris Johnson finally
PHOTOGRAPH: JOEL GUAY/SHODAN PHOTOS/GETTY struck with Europe could eventually lead
ILLUSTRATION BY TYLER COMRIE“Populist” explosions have become the central drama of the U.K. and the U.S.