The role of social capital explaining Brexit

The first part of this chapter analyzes the possible reasons behind Brexit. It tracks the performance of the UK economy and examines the social capital issues of increasing economic inequality and ethnic diversity up until 2016, when the Brexit vote was taken. Among other things, increasing economic inequality and the fear felt by certain sectors of the population of the expected consequences of a larger ethnic heterogeneity served as drivers that created a fertile socioeconomic ground for populism toward Brexit. However, Brexit occurred also because of the erosion of social capital determined by the feeling of ‘disconnectedness’ which is the common feature characterizing the British population who voted in favour of Brexit, namely older people, people leaving in rural areas and uneducated people, compelled to face on their own the negative consequences of globalization and technological developments. The second part of the chapter examines the protracted UK exit process from 2016 to 2019 in an attempt to demonstrate that it was also the result of continuing issues related to social capital and the growing fear of losing the benefits of being an EU member that pressed Brexit into a shambolic process. The chapter shows the slow shift of the British electorate mood from celebrating the vote to leave the EU in 2016 to second guessing their decision and having misgivings about leaving the EU once the negotiated settlement became a reality in 2018 and 2019. The authors contend that both the vote for Brexit and the later political chaos than ensued are related to an actual reduction in and in some cases a perception of decreased social capital, rather than hard economic factors. They examine the political carnage in the UK, from 2016 to 2019, over the decision of how to leave and the negotiation of the future relationship with the EU-27, including the thorny issue of what to do with the Northern Ireland border. The chapter also examines possible outcomes of Brexit and follows the messy exit process that forced three prime ministers out of office by the end of 2019