The Establishment’s Finest Hour Came After Losing Brexit

There is much truth in this charge, as incumbent politicians and policymakers, led by a president more concerned about the use of toilets than about Islamic terrorism at home, offer no policies to meet the needs of what we might call the collateral damage of globalism—the much sympathized with, but in the end ignored, middle class. The globe may warm in a few decades, but coal miners must feed their families today; Obama’s “arc of history” may yet defeat ISIL (how many troops does the arc have?), but it is not a reliable force on which to rely; open borders might be good for those who need their pools cleaned, their lawns mowed, and their labor costs kept down, but they don’t create jobs for or raise the wages of unskilled workers.

All ignored, it is reasonable to say, by the Establishment, at least in part. And yet, in the wake of the financial turmoil following the decision of Britain’s citizens (technically, “subjects”) to Brexit there is some evidence that a world without an Establishment would not necessarily be a better place. Consider the reaction of the self-styled populists to that of the Establishment when our stock market plunged 600 points, the British pound fell out of bed, the dollar soared to levels threatening the competitiveness of our exports, and talk of another Lehman Brothers was repeatedly heard from experts on talk shows.

What did the anti-Establishment crowd contribute to calming the financial waters? Very little. Donald Trump took the opportunity to liken British to American voters: nothing from the billionaire businessman about markets over-reacting, or how his experience reveals we have survived such upheavals in the past. Just some more “me, me”.

“When the pound goes down, more people are coming to Turnberry, frankly,” said the man whose vision rarely extends beyond himself. Worse was the performance of Nigel Farage, head of the United Kingdom Independence Party, a nativist, populist party with one seat in Parliament but more strength in parts of the country than that would suggest. Early in the evening of polling day Farage concede to the Remain side, but as the votes came in the telegenic Farage switched, roaring to televised crowds about the Leave triumph, seemingly drunk with newfound power and whatever. But showing no respect for or a willingness to reconcile with the 48 percent of British voters upset and frightened by the prospect of “isolation” from Europe and a rupture with the EU.

Contrast that with the constructive view of the Establishment, the clear loser in the referendum. Prime Minister David Cameron both agreed to stay on long enough to arrange a smooth transition within the Tory party and to leave in time to have a successor navigate what will be choppy waters to reach a divorce settlement with the EU. Nothing became him in office as the leaving of it. Cameron, just one year after a surprise victory in a general election and surely at the pinnacle of the British Establishment, however it is defined, said,

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England and the member of the Establishment who had characterized a possible Brexit as “the biggest domestic risk to financial stability,” rushed out a statement assuring markets that the Bank would “support the functioning of markets….[and attempt to] prevent disorderly movement of exchange rates.” The British economy, he assured disgruntled Remainers, is “resilient.” The Bank then issued a statement assuring all and sundry, “We will work to ensure the financial system can function effectively as they [necessary adjustments] take place, so that any effect on jobs and growth is not magnified.”

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund and one who had predicted drastic declines in everything from house prices to available jobs if Britain detached itself from the EU, also used her position as a leader of the international financial Establishment to state her respect for the decision of the British people, and have the IMF “stand ready … to smooth the transition to a new economic relationship” between the EU and the U.K., not a minor chore given the desire of many in the Brussels bureaucracy to force punitive terms on Britain as a lesson to other countries that might be unhappy with the rent-seeking, unaccountable Brussels bureaucracy.

Which brings us to Boris Johnson, the man who can reasonably claim to have led the campaign to untangle Britain from the EU. If ever there was a member of the Establishment, American-born Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is the man: Eton, Balliol College, Mayor of London, Member of Parliament, influential columnist. And, despite all of that, a populist, or at least an Establishment member capable of communicating not only with British voters wishing to restore the primacy of their Parliament, but with those who feel beleaguered by immigration and globalism. On the day Britain’s decision was announced, Johnson praised Cameron, the man he is an odds-on favorite to succeed, as “a brave and principled man… one of the most extraordinary politicians of our age.” Johnson added that his long-time friend Dave had made the correct decision in allowing the British people a referendum in which to choose their future relationship to continental Europe, a decision much criticized both by the losers and by those who prefer representative to direct democracy.

The reaction of The Establishment—calming, supportive of a decision its leaders did not wish for and feared—somehow seems more appealing than that of the chortling representatives of the populist leaders in the U.K. and the U.S. Perhaps those of us with ambivalent attitudes towards an Establishment that in the past was both snobby/exclusive but also managed a successful bipartisan foreign policy for decades—politics stopping at the water’s edge—should contemplate a world with no such institution. Or a world in which referenda replace representative democracy. And listen more skeptically to populists who would drive the Establishment from our public life.