Brexit and Britain’s Radical Right
| Author | Danny Dorling |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2041905818815197 |
36 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2018
As the summer headline in the
Guardian tried to make clear:
‘Moderate Tories need to
understand: the extremists are
unappeasable’. You would have thought
that moderate Tories would understand
their less moderate colleagues better than
a liberal Guardian newspaper columnist;
however sometimes, when you are too
close to someone you have known for
many years, it is harder to see the reality of
their position. You look for the good in your
political party colleagues.
Moderate Tories in Britain have confused
the bombastic style of hard Brexiteers
as simply reflecting countless evenings
practising such peacock behaviour at
Oxford, Cambridge or Durham Union
debates. Dressed in a dinner jacket and
bow tie at Oxford, Jacob Rees Mogg and his
chum Boris Johnson may have appeared
to be sharp-witted buffoons; but they were
Brexit and Britain’s
Radical Right
Two decades ago, leaving the European Union was a minority pursuit.
Now British politics is defined by Brexit. Danny Dorling explores how
the radical right has grown and why its dreams of reviving Britain’s
imperial ambitions are likely to fail.
practising, practising for the high point of
their ever so important lives to be, for the
final act, for their moment of triumph. They
have been on a mission.
As the first autumn leaf of 2018 fell, Boris
Johnson proclaimed that ‘the UK had gone
into battle with the white flag fluttering
over our leading tank … [and would] throw
away most of the advantages of Brexit’. The
former Foreign Secretary was arguing for
a hard Brexit, for what Jacob Rees Mogg’s
father had also long sought.
In 2008, Lord William Rees Mogg, former
editor of The Times had claimed that a
liberation was coming and those: ‘who will
gain most from this liberation [will be] the
brightest, most successful and ambitious’
© Press Association
Political Insight December 2018.indd 36 01/11/2018 09:02
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