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Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics
*Running Time => 11hrs. and 20mins.*
Long-term social and demographic changes - and the conflicts they create - continue to transform British politics. In this accessible and authoritative book Sobolewska and Ford show how deep the roots of this polarization and volatility run, drawing out decades of educational expansion and rising ethnic diversity as key drivers in the emergence of new divides within the British electorate over immigration, identity and diversity. They argue that choices made by political parties from the New Labor era onwards have mobilized these divisions into politics, first through conflicts over immigration, then through conflicts over the European Union, culminating in the 2016 EU referendum. Providing a comprehensive and far-reaching view of a country in turmoil, 'BREXITLAND' explains how and why this happened, for students, researchers, and anyone who wants to better understand the remarkable political times in which we live.
©2020 Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford (P)2021 Tantor
Long-term social and demographic changes - and the conflicts they create - continue to transform British politics. In this accessible and authoritative book Sobolewska and Ford show how deep the roots of this polarization and volatility run, drawing out decades of educational expansion and rising ethnic diversity as key drivers in the emergence of new divides within the British electorate over immigration, identity and diversity. They argue that choices made by political parties from the New Labor era onwards have mobilized these divisions into politics, first through conflicts over immigration, then through conflicts over the European Union, culminating in the 2016 EU referendum. Providing a comprehensive and far-reaching view of a country in turmoil, 'BREXITLAND' explains how and why this happened, for students, researchers, and anyone who wants to better understand the remarkable political times in which we live.
©2020 Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford (P)2021 Tantor
11 pages, Audible Audio
First published October 15, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
May 21, 2022
I spent 4 months feeling a twinge of guilt every single time the UK was mentioned but now, after finishing my politics dissertation and this book, I just never want to think about it again. Time to forget everything, who is Margaret Thatcher again?
Review to come!
Review to come!
January 28, 2021
I have to admit to being a bit challenged by this book. I was looking for an authoritative account of the road to Brexit when viewed from a wider context. I am not sure how much of that was contained within the book. On the one hand I see it as flawed. On the other, it is a really important book. Perhaps it is best seen as an important account, but not quite a full account of Brexit?
The tectonic plates of British politics are shifting. The authors identify three key groups within British society - the educated identity liberals, the ethnocentric identity conservatives, and ethnic minorities. The base argument has two propositions. First, the expansion of the higher education sector has increased the numbers of educated identity liberals. These have largely been captured by the Labour Party. Second, large numbers of immigrants from the A8 EU countries have placed large stresses on fragile communities that have increased the sense of social isolation of the ethnocentric identity conservatives. These have been largely been captured by the Conservative Party. The argument has it that the bulk of the ethnocentric identity conservatives had a minor numerical advantage over the educated identity liberals and ethnic minorities in 2016, which is where the Brexit vote originated. This argument has it's merits, but has a very thin foundation.
I found myself reacting against the narrative of political life in the 1970s and 1980s. Whilst we can't deny that race was an issue, I think that to place race as the central issue of the times is far too much of a stretch. I rather felt that the data presented was somewhat hammered into a shape that fitted the narrative of the account. In this respect, I felt that the cart was placed before the horse. My recollection of the period is that politics was about class (we had a working class in those days) and de-industrialisation. The question of race didn't venture too far from the cities in which the ethnic minorities were located.
I did find the analysis of immigration into the UK quite useful. I liked the description of the two waves - the first from the New Commonwealth (mainly the Caribbean and South Asia) in the 1960s and 1970s, and the second from the A8 members of the EU after 2004. This is a really great point, but it doesn't quite fit the story that was being told by the authors. In order for the evidence to fit the story, that authors have to equate race with nationality. I think that this is a stretch too far. The hard question is whether the - mainly white - migrants from the EU constitute an ethnic minority? I think not, although I accept others disagree with me. A consequence of my view is that I find the main argument of the book flawed by this assumption.
There is a really interesting chapter on Scotland. Post-Brexit, the role of Scotland is likely to become a large constitutional question. I find the classification of the Scottish electorate useful and it is something that warrants a good deal more thought.
This is an academic sociological text. It is full of jargon and academic language, which makes it a very hard read. The use is statistics is idiosyncratic - at best - and seems to be manipulated to support the core argument, which I see as flawed. The equating of race and nationality is a step too far for me. The use of language is polemic, with too great a use of both positive and negative adjectives that are used to describe features which the authors support or otherwise. My view is that if an author does use academic language, that ought to be as value free as possible.
On the whole, I didn't enjoy this book. It is too badly written. It is polemic and too selective in the data used. However, it does have a point and the chapter on Scotland is worth the price of the book. Perhaps this is something for the more dedicated observer?
The tectonic plates of British politics are shifting. The authors identify three key groups within British society - the educated identity liberals, the ethnocentric identity conservatives, and ethnic minorities. The base argument has two propositions. First, the expansion of the higher education sector has increased the numbers of educated identity liberals. These have largely been captured by the Labour Party. Second, large numbers of immigrants from the A8 EU countries have placed large stresses on fragile communities that have increased the sense of social isolation of the ethnocentric identity conservatives. These have been largely been captured by the Conservative Party. The argument has it that the bulk of the ethnocentric identity conservatives had a minor numerical advantage over the educated identity liberals and ethnic minorities in 2016, which is where the Brexit vote originated. This argument has it's merits, but has a very thin foundation.
I found myself reacting against the narrative of political life in the 1970s and 1980s. Whilst we can't deny that race was an issue, I think that to place race as the central issue of the times is far too much of a stretch. I rather felt that the data presented was somewhat hammered into a shape that fitted the narrative of the account. In this respect, I felt that the cart was placed before the horse. My recollection of the period is that politics was about class (we had a working class in those days) and de-industrialisation. The question of race didn't venture too far from the cities in which the ethnic minorities were located.
I did find the analysis of immigration into the UK quite useful. I liked the description of the two waves - the first from the New Commonwealth (mainly the Caribbean and South Asia) in the 1960s and 1970s, and the second from the A8 members of the EU after 2004. This is a really great point, but it doesn't quite fit the story that was being told by the authors. In order for the evidence to fit the story, that authors have to equate race with nationality. I think that this is a stretch too far. The hard question is whether the - mainly white - migrants from the EU constitute an ethnic minority? I think not, although I accept others disagree with me. A consequence of my view is that I find the main argument of the book flawed by this assumption.
There is a really interesting chapter on Scotland. Post-Brexit, the role of Scotland is likely to become a large constitutional question. I find the classification of the Scottish electorate useful and it is something that warrants a good deal more thought.
This is an academic sociological text. It is full of jargon and academic language, which makes it a very hard read. The use is statistics is idiosyncratic - at best - and seems to be manipulated to support the core argument, which I see as flawed. The equating of race and nationality is a step too far for me. The use of language is polemic, with too great a use of both positive and negative adjectives that are used to describe features which the authors support or otherwise. My view is that if an author does use academic language, that ought to be as value free as possible.
On the whole, I didn't enjoy this book. It is too badly written. It is polemic and too selective in the data used. However, it does have a point and the chapter on Scotland is worth the price of the book. Perhaps this is something for the more dedicated observer?
April 28, 2021
Being honest, I picked this up because it had a clean, fresh looking cover (and they say don’t judge a book by it’s cover!).
The reviews on this were good and so I thought that I’d give it a go. The reviews were right. Based on the identity politics surrounding the Brexit debacle, the book is split into 3 parts: demographic change between 1945 to Thatcher-Major, New Labour to the Coalition and then “Brexitland” itself. I’m always wary when I read books like these, as some have an irritating ability to make you feel stupid, but this one was written in a way that was perfectly explained, and easy to read.
Chapter 9 (“Identity politics and political change in Scotland, 2017 to 2019”) was my favourite, because it was just *so* interesting. The regions of the UK often get forgotten, but this chapter really highlighted the genius tactics of the SNP which saw them have an explosion in support.
I think the best sentence in the whole book, and a metaphor that just about sums everything up has to be this one, and so I shall leave you with this:
“Snow drifts build slowly on a mountain for months before a backfiring engine sends them racing down into the valley below in an avalanche.”
The reviews on this were good and so I thought that I’d give it a go. The reviews were right. Based on the identity politics surrounding the Brexit debacle, the book is split into 3 parts: demographic change between 1945 to Thatcher-Major, New Labour to the Coalition and then “Brexitland” itself. I’m always wary when I read books like these, as some have an irritating ability to make you feel stupid, but this one was written in a way that was perfectly explained, and easy to read.
Chapter 9 (“Identity politics and political change in Scotland, 2017 to 2019”) was my favourite, because it was just *so* interesting. The regions of the UK often get forgotten, but this chapter really highlighted the genius tactics of the SNP which saw them have an explosion in support.
I think the best sentence in the whole book, and a metaphor that just about sums everything up has to be this one, and so I shall leave you with this:
“Snow drifts build slowly on a mountain for months before a backfiring engine sends them racing down into the valley below in an avalanche.”
March 1, 2021
The transformational processes of university expansion and rising ethnic diversity driven by mass immigration have produced a steady accumulation of demographic pressure in the electoral system, as the composition of the electorate has changed and new fault lines have emerged.
These demographic changes opened up new divides between ‘identity conservatives’ – white school leavers with an ethnocentric ‘us against them’ worldview – and ‘identity liberals’ – university graduates and ethnic minorities for whom anti-racism is a central social and political value.
The first wave of mass immigration in the 1960s began the process of ethnic change and triggered the first mass political mobilisation of these identity conflicts. Then, decades later, a second wave of immigration interacted with a political system where old loyalties were decaying, mobilising identity conflicts which have been working their way through the political system ever since.
There was growing evidence in the 2000s and early 2010s that the great tectonic plates of traditional party politics were beginning to shudder and creak under the accumulated pressures: New Labour’s persistent troubles with immigration; the backfiring Conservative pledge on migration control; the emergence of UKIP, all were symptoms of a system under strain.
The 2016 EU Referendum triggered the earthquake that released decades of built-up pressure, mobilising the identity divides which had been building for many years and forging them into new Leave and Remain political identities.
While the ethnocentric impulse to see politics as an ‘us against them’ battle is fundamental, the nature of the identity conflicts which activate such impulses depends on the political context. In England and Wales, ethnocentric voters have come to see first immigrants, and then the EU, as the primary threat, the ‘them’ that ‘we’ must control.
In Scotland, the same voters see England and Westminster as ‘them’, and often see immigrants and the EU as allies against this primary threat. Identity liberals are also sensitive to political context. Such voters regarded the immigration-focused mobilisation of ethnocentric sentiments in England and Wales as a violation of anti-racism social norms, and therefore strongly rejected both UKIP and the Leave campaign as agents of intolerance.
In Scotland, by contrast, though the SNP and Yes campaigns mobilised ethnocentric sentiments against England and Westminster, they also framed their political goal of independence in terms of progressive values, enabling a campaign which at root involved an ‘us against them’ battle palatable to voters on the liberal side of the identity politics divide.
The forces unleashed by the referendums have reshaped British political competition, changing both main parties. The David Cameron-led Conservative Party that called the referendum in 2016 was one where (grudging) acceptance of EU membership as being in Britain’s national interest was the norm.
The Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party, which won a massive election mandate three years later, is one where British EU membership is anathema, and even close post-Brexit alignment with the EU is regarded with suspicion.
The Labour Party of 2016 was one that sought to balance the interests of the large cohort of Labour MPs from the most strongly Remain constituencies with those of an equally large cohort of Labour MPs from the most strongly Leave seats. The Labour Party of 2020 is now dominated by MPs from identity liberal Remain-voting areas, but also reeling from a wave of historic defeats in longstanding, but Leave-voting, strongholds.
While both traditional governing parties have been shaken internally by the mobilisation of new identity politics conflicts, other parties have sought at various points to capitalise on the new divisions. UKIP and its rebranded successor the Brexit Party both caused turmoil by mobilising ethnocentric voters with an extreme ‘us against them’ message focused on assertive nationalism and opposition to the threats from Europe and immigration. The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party experienced polling surges by seeking to mobilise cosmopolitan, Europhile and anti-racist voters on the identity liberal end of the spectrum.
Thus far, new parties have failed to break the traditional two-party duopoly, but the summer 2019 polling surges for the Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party highlight the fragility of the old order in a political context where new identity conflicts continue to reshape loyalties.
The changes in Scottish politics since 2014 highlight how a polarising identity conflict – over Scottish independence in this instance – can upend the political order and replace it with an entirely new pattern of party competition.
The demographic changes producing this new instability are unstoppable. This process has not ended with Brexit, indeed it is likely to accelerate in decades to come as the cohorts who came of age before the advent of mass higher education and mass immigration fade away and are replaced by the most highly educated and ethnically diverse generations Britain has ever seen. Every year Britain’s politicians will face an electorate that is a little more diverse and a little more university educated. Every year the ethnocentric electorate of white school leavers will get a little smaller.
Such electoral climate change is unstoppable, creating unavoidable dilemmas for political parties, but as we have argued throughout this book, the parties are not spectators in this process – the choices they make in responding to these changes inform the way voters understand the conflicts they generate, framing how new and old divides are packaged together, and structuring the choices available to voters.
America’s recent political experience suggests that identity liberals, too, can mobilise politically in response to the emergence of a salient threat – in this case the threat identity liberals perceive from President Trump and his supporters. A similar ‘awokening’ process could occur in Britain if younger white graduates react to Brexit-related disruptions, or the emergence of new English nationalist or anti-Muslim political movements, by coming to see white identity conservatives as a threatening out-group, and intensifying their commitment to anti-prejudice norms and the defence of minorities in response to this threat.
We have shown that the mobilisation of ethnocentrism is a powerful political weapon. Yet the political power of identity conservatives also reflected the weakness of their antagonists, who did not mobilise to the same extent in the years prior to the EU Referendum. Now that Brexit has given identity liberal voters a common political identity, a set of power grievances regarding the political status quo, and a belief that political opponents pose a threat to their core values, politicians on the liberal left may have an opportunity to mobilise their side of the identity politics divide more effectively. The past decade has belonged to those who activated and mobilised identity conservatives. The next decades may belong to those who learn to do the same with identity liberals.
These demographic changes opened up new divides between ‘identity conservatives’ – white school leavers with an ethnocentric ‘us against them’ worldview – and ‘identity liberals’ – university graduates and ethnic minorities for whom anti-racism is a central social and political value.
The first wave of mass immigration in the 1960s began the process of ethnic change and triggered the first mass political mobilisation of these identity conflicts. Then, decades later, a second wave of immigration interacted with a political system where old loyalties were decaying, mobilising identity conflicts which have been working their way through the political system ever since.
There was growing evidence in the 2000s and early 2010s that the great tectonic plates of traditional party politics were beginning to shudder and creak under the accumulated pressures: New Labour’s persistent troubles with immigration; the backfiring Conservative pledge on migration control; the emergence of UKIP, all were symptoms of a system under strain.
The 2016 EU Referendum triggered the earthquake that released decades of built-up pressure, mobilising the identity divides which had been building for many years and forging them into new Leave and Remain political identities.
While the ethnocentric impulse to see politics as an ‘us against them’ battle is fundamental, the nature of the identity conflicts which activate such impulses depends on the political context. In England and Wales, ethnocentric voters have come to see first immigrants, and then the EU, as the primary threat, the ‘them’ that ‘we’ must control.
In Scotland, the same voters see England and Westminster as ‘them’, and often see immigrants and the EU as allies against this primary threat. Identity liberals are also sensitive to political context. Such voters regarded the immigration-focused mobilisation of ethnocentric sentiments in England and Wales as a violation of anti-racism social norms, and therefore strongly rejected both UKIP and the Leave campaign as agents of intolerance.
In Scotland, by contrast, though the SNP and Yes campaigns mobilised ethnocentric sentiments against England and Westminster, they also framed their political goal of independence in terms of progressive values, enabling a campaign which at root involved an ‘us against them’ battle palatable to voters on the liberal side of the identity politics divide.
The forces unleashed by the referendums have reshaped British political competition, changing both main parties. The David Cameron-led Conservative Party that called the referendum in 2016 was one where (grudging) acceptance of EU membership as being in Britain’s national interest was the norm.
The Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party, which won a massive election mandate three years later, is one where British EU membership is anathema, and even close post-Brexit alignment with the EU is regarded with suspicion.
The Labour Party of 2016 was one that sought to balance the interests of the large cohort of Labour MPs from the most strongly Remain constituencies with those of an equally large cohort of Labour MPs from the most strongly Leave seats. The Labour Party of 2020 is now dominated by MPs from identity liberal Remain-voting areas, but also reeling from a wave of historic defeats in longstanding, but Leave-voting, strongholds.
While both traditional governing parties have been shaken internally by the mobilisation of new identity politics conflicts, other parties have sought at various points to capitalise on the new divisions. UKIP and its rebranded successor the Brexit Party both caused turmoil by mobilising ethnocentric voters with an extreme ‘us against them’ message focused on assertive nationalism and opposition to the threats from Europe and immigration. The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party experienced polling surges by seeking to mobilise cosmopolitan, Europhile and anti-racist voters on the identity liberal end of the spectrum.
Thus far, new parties have failed to break the traditional two-party duopoly, but the summer 2019 polling surges for the Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party highlight the fragility of the old order in a political context where new identity conflicts continue to reshape loyalties.
The changes in Scottish politics since 2014 highlight how a polarising identity conflict – over Scottish independence in this instance – can upend the political order and replace it with an entirely new pattern of party competition.
The demographic changes producing this new instability are unstoppable. This process has not ended with Brexit, indeed it is likely to accelerate in decades to come as the cohorts who came of age before the advent of mass higher education and mass immigration fade away and are replaced by the most highly educated and ethnically diverse generations Britain has ever seen. Every year Britain’s politicians will face an electorate that is a little more diverse and a little more university educated. Every year the ethnocentric electorate of white school leavers will get a little smaller.
Such electoral climate change is unstoppable, creating unavoidable dilemmas for political parties, but as we have argued throughout this book, the parties are not spectators in this process – the choices they make in responding to these changes inform the way voters understand the conflicts they generate, framing how new and old divides are packaged together, and structuring the choices available to voters.
America’s recent political experience suggests that identity liberals, too, can mobilise politically in response to the emergence of a salient threat – in this case the threat identity liberals perceive from President Trump and his supporters. A similar ‘awokening’ process could occur in Britain if younger white graduates react to Brexit-related disruptions, or the emergence of new English nationalist or anti-Muslim political movements, by coming to see white identity conservatives as a threatening out-group, and intensifying their commitment to anti-prejudice norms and the defence of minorities in response to this threat.
We have shown that the mobilisation of ethnocentrism is a powerful political weapon. Yet the political power of identity conservatives also reflected the weakness of their antagonists, who did not mobilise to the same extent in the years prior to the EU Referendum. Now that Brexit has given identity liberal voters a common political identity, a set of power grievances regarding the political status quo, and a belief that political opponents pose a threat to their core values, politicians on the liberal left may have an opportunity to mobilise their side of the identity politics divide more effectively. The past decade has belonged to those who activated and mobilised identity conservatives. The next decades may belong to those who learn to do the same with identity liberals.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2021
This isn't a book about Brexit. It's a book that charts how we got there, and the tectonic shifts that were happening in British politics over generations. As such, it's a meticulously researched and tightly argued analysis of how identity eclipsed economics in motivating political choice. The provocations the book offers will sit uneasily for all political parties, who may have to reckon with a new political geography that disrupts their idealised view of who (and where) they represent.
December 7, 2025
This is a really interesting book with many items that provide food for thought. One of those most interesting items is that the Brexit vote was an identity conflict and the authors indicate that immigration could cause another such conflict and if the traditional parties in the UK (i.e. Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat) are unable to adapt, it could produce a more lasting political realignment with new parties promoting uncompromising positions rising to prominence.
Voters are reluctant to back 'new' parties even when they prefer them because the voters fear these parties will be unable to win locally. In normal political circumstances, this protects the traditional parties from support for newcomers. But if a new party overtakes the traditional parties in the polls or wins seats in local elections, this can set off a feedback loop as voters start to believe the newcomer is a viable option and they no longer have to accept second best.
If voters believe new parties can win, this belief becomes self-fulfilling. If voters ceases to believe traditional parties are unbeatable, this makes them beatable. In the next UK general election in 2029, this is what will happen and the centre political ground will be hollowed out, as voters go both left and right. Expect the same to happen in Germany.
Voters are reluctant to back 'new' parties even when they prefer them because the voters fear these parties will be unable to win locally. In normal political circumstances, this protects the traditional parties from support for newcomers. But if a new party overtakes the traditional parties in the polls or wins seats in local elections, this can set off a feedback loop as voters start to believe the newcomer is a viable option and they no longer have to accept second best.
If voters believe new parties can win, this belief becomes self-fulfilling. If voters ceases to believe traditional parties are unbeatable, this makes them beatable. In the next UK general election in 2029, this is what will happen and the centre political ground will be hollowed out, as voters go both left and right. Expect the same to happen in Germany.
September 17, 2021
Porfirio Diaz, the man who dominated Mexican politics for a generation until his downfall in 1910, once remarked that nothing ever happened in his country until it happened. What he meant was that there has always been an enormous time lag between cause and effect in Mexican politics and in the book Brexitland Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford show that the same is true of Britain. In doing so they have also managed to demolish the myth that is now an article of faith in Guardian-reading circles that nobody was bothered about the EU until a couple of years before the 2016 referendum. What the authors demonstrate rather well is that many issues that were of importance to the population were suppressed by the main political parties from just after the Second World War. Viewed in that light, Brexit is about more than just leaving the European Union: it is shorthand for a lot of long-standing factors that have led to a new political division in Britain.
Immigration, of course, is the most important factor and for that reason, several chapters of Brexitland are devoted to it. Starting in 1948 when the great and the good created a nationality act that allowed Commonwealth citizens to settle freely in the UK, the aim was to tie the fully independent White Commonwealth states to their mother country and to create an Anglosphere long before that word was even coined.
What nobody realised was that New Commonwealth people would take advantage of this liberalism, even though as their countries were not independent at that time they did not need this legislation. As Sobolewska and Ford point out, both parties supported immigration even when it became obvious that many of their traditional supporters did not.
The opposition to that policy, begun in places like Smethwick in 1964, continuing on via Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech in 1968 and culminating, possibly, with Margaret Thatcher’s 1978 comment about people being afraid of being swamped by new Commonwealth immigrants certainly helped the Tories acquire a reputation in the public mind as the party that was sounder on immigration than Labour. However, as Edward Heath proved when he decided to allow around 30,000 Ugandan Asians to enter the country, that soundness was often more in word than deed.
As the country moved into the 21st century, with Labour allowing a major influx of Eastern Europeans into the country and many of them settling in areas that had no previous experience of immigration, the people woke up to the fact that neither party was prepared to speak for them on that issue, so they began to support Nigel Farage and UKIP.
Other factors were in play, such as the growth of the university sector, which led to many inner-city areas becoming home to students and graduates who often made common cause with ethnic minorities to create a new voting core for Labour. That new core strategy was based on the gamble that the party’s traditional, collectivist, industrial working-class voters would stay onside as they had nowhere else to go, but UKIP proved the flaw in that argument. As the authors also make clear, the new core was not as tribally loyal as the old one had been and was quite willing to dump Labour if they disagreed with particular party policies.
Out of all this churning, new identities were created, and a new political division was created. The referendum campaign with its binary choice, forced people to choose one side or the other and having made their choice they often found that they had more in common with people on their side of the referendum debate than they had with the parties that they had once identified with.
Leading on from that, as the authors do, we can see that the referendum campaign made people aware of this new division as well as helping to shape it. Britain had “two new tribes aware of who they were, what they stood for and what they opposed,” at the end of it.
A good example of this in action is not included in Brexitland, probably because it happened too late for inclusion. During the European election campaign in 2019, Featherstone Working Men’s Club in Yorkshire played host to a Brexit Party rally. One of the main speakers was Anne Widdicombe, arguably one of Thatcher’s more ghoulish ministers, who was nicknamed Doris Karloff back in the day. The club’s members, men who had stood on the picket lines during the miners’ strike of 1984/85, cheered her to the echo much to the utter disgust of the Guardian.
The 2016 referendum was very much the victory of one identity, which was the geographically rooted, socially conservative, but often economically radical section of the population against the Metropolitan, white-collar graduate element. Although the authors do not quote Theresa May she may have had a point when she spoke about people from somewhere clashing with people from nowhere.
Brexitland is a heavyweight, academic text that should be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this new political alignment in Britain and how it came about.
An edited version of my review first appeared in The Brazen Head, an online literary and political quarterly https://brazen-head.org
Immigration, of course, is the most important factor and for that reason, several chapters of Brexitland are devoted to it. Starting in 1948 when the great and the good created a nationality act that allowed Commonwealth citizens to settle freely in the UK, the aim was to tie the fully independent White Commonwealth states to their mother country and to create an Anglosphere long before that word was even coined.
What nobody realised was that New Commonwealth people would take advantage of this liberalism, even though as their countries were not independent at that time they did not need this legislation. As Sobolewska and Ford point out, both parties supported immigration even when it became obvious that many of their traditional supporters did not.
The opposition to that policy, begun in places like Smethwick in 1964, continuing on via Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech in 1968 and culminating, possibly, with Margaret Thatcher’s 1978 comment about people being afraid of being swamped by new Commonwealth immigrants certainly helped the Tories acquire a reputation in the public mind as the party that was sounder on immigration than Labour. However, as Edward Heath proved when he decided to allow around 30,000 Ugandan Asians to enter the country, that soundness was often more in word than deed.
As the country moved into the 21st century, with Labour allowing a major influx of Eastern Europeans into the country and many of them settling in areas that had no previous experience of immigration, the people woke up to the fact that neither party was prepared to speak for them on that issue, so they began to support Nigel Farage and UKIP.
Other factors were in play, such as the growth of the university sector, which led to many inner-city areas becoming home to students and graduates who often made common cause with ethnic minorities to create a new voting core for Labour. That new core strategy was based on the gamble that the party’s traditional, collectivist, industrial working-class voters would stay onside as they had nowhere else to go, but UKIP proved the flaw in that argument. As the authors also make clear, the new core was not as tribally loyal as the old one had been and was quite willing to dump Labour if they disagreed with particular party policies.
Out of all this churning, new identities were created, and a new political division was created. The referendum campaign with its binary choice, forced people to choose one side or the other and having made their choice they often found that they had more in common with people on their side of the referendum debate than they had with the parties that they had once identified with.
Leading on from that, as the authors do, we can see that the referendum campaign made people aware of this new division as well as helping to shape it. Britain had “two new tribes aware of who they were, what they stood for and what they opposed,” at the end of it.
A good example of this in action is not included in Brexitland, probably because it happened too late for inclusion. During the European election campaign in 2019, Featherstone Working Men’s Club in Yorkshire played host to a Brexit Party rally. One of the main speakers was Anne Widdicombe, arguably one of Thatcher’s more ghoulish ministers, who was nicknamed Doris Karloff back in the day. The club’s members, men who had stood on the picket lines during the miners’ strike of 1984/85, cheered her to the echo much to the utter disgust of the Guardian.
The 2016 referendum was very much the victory of one identity, which was the geographically rooted, socially conservative, but often economically radical section of the population against the Metropolitan, white-collar graduate element. Although the authors do not quote Theresa May she may have had a point when she spoke about people from somewhere clashing with people from nowhere.
Brexitland is a heavyweight, academic text that should be essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand this new political alignment in Britain and how it came about.
An edited version of my review first appeared in The Brazen Head, an online literary and political quarterly https://brazen-head.org
January 20, 2021
Rigorous if sometimes unsatisfying centrist-y account of the historical and political trends that led to Brexit. The authors are academics and they lay their argument out in the meticulous, mildly infuriating way that some academics do. They're also demographers specialising in identity issues, so it's not much of a surprise that the story they tell about Brexit revolves around the identity cleavages deepened by long-term demographic changes (increasing ethnic diversity and higher education rates). It's an interesting angle which they present extremely well, with reference to about 10,423 different opinion polls. I particularly appreciated how carefully they trace the ways in which British political actors have mobilised and shaped popular views about race and immigration since day dot. The comparative section on the Scottish indyref was also fascinating as a showcase of how useful the book's theory and approach could be in another context.
Brexitland is studiously neutral on some hot button topics, to a fault. In the authors' telling, there are next to no actual racists, merely people who 'violate widely-held anti-racism norms'. It's not quite outright bothsidesism but it can get close. To me, the main road not taken here was in the authors' refusal to ask deeper questions about the historical/socio-economic/cultural/whatever reasons why certain worldviews (e.g. ethnocentrism) and norms (e.g. anti-racism) are more prevalent in some groups than in others - they're mostly happy just to demonstrate that these differences exist and then are made more or less salient by demographic shifts, political craftiness and events. All of which is relevant and interesting! But I wanted them to go a bit further. Why didn't they ask me first before writing it? Smh.
Brexitland is studiously neutral on some hot button topics, to a fault. In the authors' telling, there are next to no actual racists, merely people who 'violate widely-held anti-racism norms'. It's not quite outright bothsidesism but it can get close. To me, the main road not taken here was in the authors' refusal to ask deeper questions about the historical/socio-economic/cultural/whatever reasons why certain worldviews (e.g. ethnocentrism) and norms (e.g. anti-racism) are more prevalent in some groups than in others - they're mostly happy just to demonstrate that these differences exist and then are made more or less salient by demographic shifts, political craftiness and events. All of which is relevant and interesting! But I wanted them to go a bit further. Why didn't they ask me first before writing it? Smh.
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September 11, 2021Overall, a solid review of Brexit and the underpinning mechanisms that have brought about this geopolitical shift between Britain and Europe. I especially appreciated that the authors stayed firmly within the constructs of Britain and British identity and did not traipse across the globe trying to connect a swing right in the UK with other nationalist ideas. Instead, the history, challenges, and politics are uniquely British. In writing from this deliberate position, they have allowed the politics of Brexit to be best understood.
For keen followers of current events, the bulk of this book will be concepts and ideas you've come across previously but well organized. The conclusions at the end of chapters and the book will provide the insights you were looking for.
For keen followers of current events, the bulk of this book will be concepts and ideas you've come across previously but well organized. The conclusions at the end of chapters and the book will provide the insights you were looking for.
September 3, 2021
Had the pleasure of being taught by both authors this year so may be a little biased. However, I genuinely think this is a must-read account of Brexit and politics today. The concept of identity-conservatives and identity-liberals is really fundamental for understanding British politics right now.
January 3, 2022
Very good scholarly overview of the driving forces behind British electoral results leading up to and after Brexit. An academic piece of work, so a little technical at times, but authors work hard to make these accessible to the layperson (such as myself) as well
May 14, 2022
Absolutely fantastic book if you're interested in Brexit or British politics in general. Discusses the shifts in British society in the last sixty to seventy years that created the climate in which Brexit could happen. Sobolewska and Ford know their stuff and present it very well.
April 2, 2022
Excellent. Explains somewhat intuitive demographic and electoral patterns that have become quite complex in a very clear and accessible way. Highly recommended.
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September 4, 2024At the very core of this book’s argument is the notion that “Britain did not become Brexitland on 23 June 2016.” Instead, identity divides were developing for decades over the question of immigration as a result of the choices made by political parties since the 1960s. More recently, these divisions were mobilised by politicians through conflicts over immigration and then through conflicts over the EU. This line of argument is very similar to Ezra Klein’s Why We're Polarized, where it is applied to US politics.
There are three parts to the book. Part one is the most interesting theoretically, as it discusses the long-term drivers of identity conflict: changes in the demographic through educational expansion and increased ethnic diversity. As the authors note, the three different identities that these demographic changes result in (conviction liberals, identity liberals and identity conservatives) are polarised generationally and geographically. Here, Brexitland would have benefited from Ezra Klein’s concept of the mega-identity. Interestingly, the authors also point out that identity conflicts are magnified by social segregation and a lack of contact between groups. This reminds of the intergroup contact theory proposed in Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice.
Part two of the book considers the political and social changes that have occurred since New Labour. This part works well as a short political history, explaining why identity conservatives became disillusioned political class with little difference between parties. What is lacking, however, is a consideration of how New Labour economic policy influenced this disillusionment. Is it possible that New Labour’s embrace of the neoliberal economic theories also favoured by the Conservatives made poorer voters realise that the mainstream political parties did not have their best interests at heart? Part two also shows how UKIP was then able to tap into the large base of disillusioned voters by mobilising and increasing identity divides over immigration and the EU.
Part three of the book focuses on the EU Referendum and its aftermath, including an interesting chapter on how Scotland is different from England and Wales. The differences between the Scottish independence referendum and the EU referendum revolve not only around voter demographics, but also around political strategies.
On the one hand, Britain is a peculiar case because its transition to a multiethnic and increasingly educated society happened very quickly within a single lifetime (p.27). On the other hand, this book is still useful for international politics: “while the mobilisation of identity conflicts around the question of EU membership is unique to Britain, the divisions over education, ethnocentric and identity which it has laid bare are also visible in other countries, and have growing potential to drive electoral disruptions elsewhere too” (p.4).
In conclusion, this book’s focus on structural reasons over individual actors and its thorough consideration of the role of identity in politics make it a very interesting read.
There are three parts to the book. Part one is the most interesting theoretically, as it discusses the long-term drivers of identity conflict: changes in the demographic through educational expansion and increased ethnic diversity. As the authors note, the three different identities that these demographic changes result in (conviction liberals, identity liberals and identity conservatives) are polarised generationally and geographically. Here, Brexitland would have benefited from Ezra Klein’s concept of the mega-identity. Interestingly, the authors also point out that identity conflicts are magnified by social segregation and a lack of contact between groups. This reminds of the intergroup contact theory proposed in Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice.
Part two of the book considers the political and social changes that have occurred since New Labour. This part works well as a short political history, explaining why identity conservatives became disillusioned political class with little difference between parties. What is lacking, however, is a consideration of how New Labour economic policy influenced this disillusionment. Is it possible that New Labour’s embrace of the neoliberal economic theories also favoured by the Conservatives made poorer voters realise that the mainstream political parties did not have their best interests at heart? Part two also shows how UKIP was then able to tap into the large base of disillusioned voters by mobilising and increasing identity divides over immigration and the EU.
Part three of the book focuses on the EU Referendum and its aftermath, including an interesting chapter on how Scotland is different from England and Wales. The differences between the Scottish independence referendum and the EU referendum revolve not only around voter demographics, but also around political strategies.
On the one hand, Britain is a peculiar case because its transition to a multiethnic and increasingly educated society happened very quickly within a single lifetime (p.27). On the other hand, this book is still useful for international politics: “while the mobilisation of identity conflicts around the question of EU membership is unique to Britain, the divisions over education, ethnocentric and identity which it has laid bare are also visible in other countries, and have growing potential to drive electoral disruptions elsewhere too” (p.4).
In conclusion, this book’s focus on structural reasons over individual actors and its thorough consideration of the role of identity in politics make it a very interesting read.
October 11, 2025
An insightful account of the development of identity-based political attitudes in the UK leading up to Brexit and the potential implications for the UK moving forward (as of 2020). Valuable to me as a US reader both for understanding a critical outcome in modern British politics, and also for drawing connections with identity politics-based voting shifts in the US (though the authors wisely limit their analysis to the UK, with just a few mentions of how this relates to other political shifts in Europe and in the US). The book is especially comprehensive and well-balanced in its overview of different political attitudes regarding topics such as British ethnic identity, immigration, and anti-racist norms, with a keen understanding of how these topics are viewed by different groups within British society. The authors do largely equate "identity politics" here with ethnocentric attitudes, which makes for a cleaner narrative but probably is a little too simplistic, since after all they also acknowledge themselves that ethnocentrism is closely intertwined with socioeconomic status as well as with recent anti-establishment, anti-elitist attitudes. Thus, at times I think they overstate the level of independence of this identity-based dimension of political preferences from these other related dimensions, even if they do convincingly argue that the identity divides have emerged into the forefront following the Brexit referendum. Indeed, as of 2024, their individual votes on Leave / Remain seem to be less explicitly on the forefront of Brits' minds, even if immigration remains one of the top issues for many voters. However, I do think the authors are forthright about the limitations of viewing UK politics through this lens. And even if the scope of "identity politics" can be difficult to precisely define, they do acknowledge that it forms just one piece of a bigger picture, with plenty of uncertainty as to what level of prominence it will occupy in years to come.
February 4, 2021
Some excellent research and insightful ideas with great use of sources and data, but OH MY GOD THIS BOOK NEEDS A GOOD EDITOR.
The same points are reiterated over and over and over, sometimes in the same paragraph. The next chapter almost always begins with a paragraph recap of the previous chapter... I KNOW WHAT WAS IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER I JUST READ IT.
Meanwhile the ideas in the book of where British politics might head in the future had very little substance. There was very little evidence based research in this area, with the writers providing ideas that are no different than what anyone who follows British politics could tell you. "We may see the standard UK political parties fall in support if they cannot well represent their voters"... Great thanks... Honestly expected something more from two politics professors.
I follow Rob Ford a lot and genuinely think he provides very good analysis on current political trends. When I see his tweets I'm always sure to read them, but this book fell very flat to me.
For what it's worth if it was better edited it could have potentially been 4 stars. Some chapters are excellent if a bit too long, and some points are repeated too much.
The same points are reiterated over and over and over, sometimes in the same paragraph. The next chapter almost always begins with a paragraph recap of the previous chapter... I KNOW WHAT WAS IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER I JUST READ IT.
Meanwhile the ideas in the book of where British politics might head in the future had very little substance. There was very little evidence based research in this area, with the writers providing ideas that are no different than what anyone who follows British politics could tell you. "We may see the standard UK political parties fall in support if they cannot well represent their voters"... Great thanks... Honestly expected something more from two politics professors.
I follow Rob Ford a lot and genuinely think he provides very good analysis on current political trends. When I see his tweets I'm always sure to read them, but this book fell very flat to me.
For what it's worth if it was better edited it could have potentially been 4 stars. Some chapters are excellent if a bit too long, and some points are repeated too much.
December 23, 2022
BrexitLand analyses the new political mess of the UK—where it came from, how it came to be, and what it might mean. But it’s not just a book for us Brits. Its analysis invites readers anywhere to look at their own “land” and their own mess. Looking at the broader politics, history, and social problems of the UK invites obvious comparisons with those of the US and other countries. And the impossible Brexit becomes no stranger than the impossible Jan 6 insurrection. Profound social change might happen. But will it help? And how will the “radical right” interact with “diversification” and “identity politics.”
Brexit Land was a fascinating read for me because I’m British as well as American. It’s long, detailed, and somewhat depressing. But it’s fascinating too and highly recommended.
Disclosure: I heard one of the authors online and decided I should read the book.
Brexit Land was a fascinating read for me because I’m British as well as American. It’s long, detailed, and somewhat depressing. But it’s fascinating too and highly recommended.
Disclosure: I heard one of the authors online and decided I should read the book.
November 7, 2021
In 1888, the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Wales simply read "see England"; two allegedly serious political professors pull the same trick in a book published in 2020.
Now, if you are one of those people, like the authors, who consider Britain, England, UK and 'Brexitland' to be synonyms, along with "British" and "English", you may yet find value in this work.
The bias nonetheless shines through, with the authors desperate to repaint the SNP hegemony in Scotland as having strong parallels with the great evil of Brexit.
Englishness, by Henderson and Jones, is a work along a similar theme yet infinitely superior.
Now, if you are one of those people, like the authors, who consider Britain, England, UK and 'Brexitland' to be synonyms, along with "British" and "English", you may yet find value in this work.
The bias nonetheless shines through, with the authors desperate to repaint the SNP hegemony in Scotland as having strong parallels with the great evil of Brexit.
Englishness, by Henderson and Jones, is a work along a similar theme yet infinitely superior.
August 30, 2021
An interesting look at the forces that led to Brexit and why we may have new divisions in the UK. De industrialisation, increased migration and increased higher education have all led to a growing division between White school leavers and university graduates and ethnic minorities
A useful but not terribly optimistic view of where we are and a reminder that the disaster of 2016 was not inevitable but had a long history
A useful but not terribly optimistic view of where we are and a reminder that the disaster of 2016 was not inevitable but had a long history
December 3, 2023
This was incredibly dense, and didn't really strike me as a book, so much as a PhD thesis on political science, with graphs galore, and paragraph after paragraph explaining what the graph shows. The history was interesting, especially since it points the extreme beginning of this schism to 1948 and goes through until 2020, without Britain actually having left yet. The conclusions are to my mind, blindingly obvious, but we shall see...
February 9, 2021
Excellent analysis of long term trends in British politics. Would be good to see the analysis enriched by geography and economics
August 5, 2021
Interesting, possibly depressing to a 78 year old as change will probably not happen in my lifetime.
May 25, 2022
More of an academic read, but has some really interesting and credibly insights into identity politics in the UK
June 8, 2023
All analysis little narrative
December 4, 2023
Pfffft. Either you're a school leaver or a graduate. Worthy but not very exciting really. I think it's all more complicated that it appears in this book.
May 17, 2025
not a very sophisticated review I am afraid, but it´s a good book for non-Brits who are relatively new to British politics, attempting to understand the mess that Brexit has become
September 24, 2021
Brexit and the rise of populist parties has produced no shortage of books purporting to explain the EU referendum and the current state of British politics. Brexitland is the best Brexit inspired book yet. Unlike previous books like National Populism: The revolt against Liberal Democracy, Brexitland avoids blatant straw man arguments and mostly avoids the crude caricatures, irrelevant comparisons and strange arguments that permeate that Brexit inspired book.
One particularly strong feature of Brexitland is the discussion of historical reactions to ethnic diversity produced by immigration after the Second World War as many subjects of the British Empire came to Britain resulting in an extremely strong backlash against rising ethnic diversity. They show how popular Enoch Powell's views were among the public and discuss how Edward Heath's humanitarian decision to allow Ugandan refugees to settle in Britain cost him dearly.
They also highlight the importance of policy options to alleviate the backlash against immigration. Thatcher successfully used strict immigration policy to win over these ethnocentric identity conservative voters to her leadership. Something Blair, Brown and Cameron were unable to do as a result of EU membership.
There are however a few shortcomings of Sobolewska and Ford's explanation of identity politics driving British political behaviour. First, they repeatedly note the importance of educational expansion in creating the identity liberal group but they never explain why university expansion creates this alternative form of identity politics. Why is it that citizens who go to university are socially liberal? This is a consistent trend seen across countries. Is it simply socialisation whereby young liberals meet other young liberals from different backgrounds thus solidifying liberal beliefs on average? Or could it be something else. They do not say.
Ethnocentrism could have been discussed with a clearer delineation from related concepts like nativism, xenophobia and authoritarianism. They reference the important work of Karen Stenner in explaining the activation of ethnocentrism in British politics, but they seem unsure of whether ethnocentrism is a product of authoritarianism or something else. More discussion of this link and extra clarity when discussing their concepts would have been helpful.
The final issue I would have liked to see discussed is what constitutes racism and why the boundaries of racism shift. They avoid actually defining and discussing what constitutes racism in their view despite the abundance of available literature. They say that as anti-racism norms move quickly this leaves behind the identity conservatives who legitimately believe that racism is constantly shifting to encompass their legitimate resentments. What this misses is that racism is not a static phenomenon and that political actors can still use racism to their political advantage. Once it became politically unacceptable to discuss the racial inferiority of Black Americans, new coded racist dog whistles were used by the Nixon campaign to appeal to racist voters. This is one obvious reason why norms around racism will shift over time.
Brexitland is an interesting political science book which analyses the role of identity politics in British political history and compares the configuration of identity politics in the EU referendum with the Scottish independence referendum. It discusses how liberals and conservatives can become mobilised and actually displace traditional left/right political issues from the agenda in favour of cultural issues.
One particularly strong feature of Brexitland is the discussion of historical reactions to ethnic diversity produced by immigration after the Second World War as many subjects of the British Empire came to Britain resulting in an extremely strong backlash against rising ethnic diversity. They show how popular Enoch Powell's views were among the public and discuss how Edward Heath's humanitarian decision to allow Ugandan refugees to settle in Britain cost him dearly.
They also highlight the importance of policy options to alleviate the backlash against immigration. Thatcher successfully used strict immigration policy to win over these ethnocentric identity conservative voters to her leadership. Something Blair, Brown and Cameron were unable to do as a result of EU membership.
There are however a few shortcomings of Sobolewska and Ford's explanation of identity politics driving British political behaviour. First, they repeatedly note the importance of educational expansion in creating the identity liberal group but they never explain why university expansion creates this alternative form of identity politics. Why is it that citizens who go to university are socially liberal? This is a consistent trend seen across countries. Is it simply socialisation whereby young liberals meet other young liberals from different backgrounds thus solidifying liberal beliefs on average? Or could it be something else. They do not say.
Ethnocentrism could have been discussed with a clearer delineation from related concepts like nativism, xenophobia and authoritarianism. They reference the important work of Karen Stenner in explaining the activation of ethnocentrism in British politics, but they seem unsure of whether ethnocentrism is a product of authoritarianism or something else. More discussion of this link and extra clarity when discussing their concepts would have been helpful.
The final issue I would have liked to see discussed is what constitutes racism and why the boundaries of racism shift. They avoid actually defining and discussing what constitutes racism in their view despite the abundance of available literature. They say that as anti-racism norms move quickly this leaves behind the identity conservatives who legitimately believe that racism is constantly shifting to encompass their legitimate resentments. What this misses is that racism is not a static phenomenon and that political actors can still use racism to their political advantage. Once it became politically unacceptable to discuss the racial inferiority of Black Americans, new coded racist dog whistles were used by the Nixon campaign to appeal to racist voters. This is one obvious reason why norms around racism will shift over time.
Brexitland is an interesting political science book which analyses the role of identity politics in British political history and compares the configuration of identity politics in the EU referendum with the Scottish independence referendum. It discusses how liberals and conservatives can become mobilised and actually displace traditional left/right political issues from the agenda in favour of cultural issues.
August 1, 2021
I think most of the reviews on Goodreads are spot on. This is a challenging, serious read - rigorous but not an easy read. I think not enough is made about the toxic legacy of empire, but perhaps this is because this is difficult to quantify and there is a lot of quantitative information in this account!
January 4, 2022
Essential guide to understand long term trends that produced Brexit and where uk politics may be heading.
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