The EconomistSeptember 28th 2019 951“T
he inventorsof modern democra-
cy”, lamented Bernard-Henri Lévy
last summer, have confused “the people
with the mob, the hatchet of the referen-
dum with the wisdom of theagora, a na-
tional rebirth with a plunge into the void.”
The French philosopher was in London on
a mission: to persuade those democratic
inventors, the British, to cancel Brexit. In
his one-man play, “Last Exit before Brexit”,
Mr Lévy showered his hosts with flattery,
pressing Byron, Nelson and Orwell into the
service of his argument that Brexit was fun-
damentally at odds with English liberal-
ism, which in turn had been fundamental
to the European project. “The software of
Europe is English,” he urged.
Eccentric as it seemed to some, the per-
formance reflected the continental estab-
lishment’s bafflement and dismay at Brit-
ain’s divorce from the European Union.
Brexit, in this reading, contradicts an old
perception of Britain as a pragmatic, un-dramatic sort of place. For Marc Roche, a
longstanding London correspondent for Le
Monde, France’s newspaper of record, that
establishment view is deeply mistaken. He
cites Mr Lévy’s speech in the final chapter
of “Le Brexit va réussir” (“Brexit Will Suc-
ceed”). “Fundamentally, I’m in total dis-
agreement,” he announces. “There is no
need to dream. Brexit will happen.”
“Die Flucht der Briten aus der europäis-
chen Utopie” (“The Britons’ Flight from the
European Utopia”) by Jochen Buchsteiner
takes a similar line. Mr Buchsteiner is an-
other veteran London correspondent, for
the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Ger-
many’s leading conservative broadsheet.Like Mr Roche, he believes that the conti-
nental consensus epitomised by Mr Lévy is
wrong; that Brexit is true to Britain’s his-
torical and philosophical traditions; and
that it could yet prove a success. In their
drastic departures from received wisdom
on the mainland, both books merit atten-
tion by Anglophone readers, too.
Both are rooted—and sharpest—in their
accounts of Britain’s exceptionalism. Mr
Roche is preoccupied by the monarchy, be-
ginning each of his chapters with an anec-
dote about the royal family. The queen’s
cameo in the opening ceremony of the
Olympic Games in London in 2012 is cited
as an example of Britain’s global cultural
reach; Prince Charles’s undeserved educa-
tion at Cambridge University is crowbarred
into a chapter extolling the knowledge-
based Anglo-Saxon economy. The monar-
chical conceit wears thin—but the wider
observations are acute. More elegantly, Mr
Buchsteiner steers readers through Henry
VIII’s break from Rome, the English civil
war, the psychological legacy of the British
empire and the enduring role of the second
world war in Britons’ self-image. But the
two authors agree about what makes Brit-
ain unusual: a strange mix of pragmatism
and pride, openness and complacency.
Both argue that this exceptionalism
makes Brexit a natural development. Brit-
ain’s empirical tradition and messy state,European solidarityAdvance, Britannia!
BRUSSELS
Not everyone in the rest of the European Union thinks Brexit is a disasterDie Flucht der Briten aus der
europäischen Utopie.By Jochen
Buchsteiner. Rohwolt; 144 pages; €15
Le Brexit va réussir.By Marc Roche. Albin
Michel; 240 pages; €18.50Books & arts
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