Broken Parties Are Dragging Britain to Brexit

The long, slow and now sudden fall of the European centre-left is especially evident in Britain, where the forces of anti-establishment feeling which define much of Western politics are strong; and the topic of the European Union is the open sore of Britain’s party of government. Were the referendum simply an exercise in calculating risk and material interest, it would be no contest, and we can still count on powerful forces mobilising in favour of Britain remaining part of the EU, not least the City of London. The problem is that while the EU operates best by subtracting politics from governance, you cannot subtract politics from a popular referendum. And in this sense the structure of British politics is currently about as unfavourable as could ever have been imagined.