The cliche is that it’s personal ambition that propels most politicians. Unfortunately, I think it’s true, at least for the biggest of them. What really drives most of them round the twist is not failing to get their policies enacted, but their ascent up the greasy pole being blocked.
For example, what really drove Anna Soubry mad was not the Brexit vote itself, but her being sacked from Cabinet. Same with George Osborne being removed as Chancellor. If he’d stayed as Treasurer, then, while he may not have liked the Brexit result, he wouldn’t have turned into the pantomine villain he now is. Boris Johnson has been all over the place since Gove withdrew his support for Boris’s leadership bid. David Milliband threw an epic wobbly and left the country when he didn’t win the Labour leadership. What drove Gordon Brown to despair was the thought that Tony Blair had reneged on his supposed promise to let Gordon take over after a while. Michael Gove has decided to remake himself as an environmentalist in order to overcome the perception (partly unfair, but partly earned) that’s he a sneaky little s**t, so that he can rebuild his leadership aspirations.
This doesn’t apply so much to non-politicians. A. C. Grayling, for example, really has gone mad because of Brexit, and not because of any loss of promotion prospects. He has a purer form of madness. Not that that makes him any better — in fact, he’s a dangerous loony. Anna Soubry, on the other hand, would probably drop the hysterics instantly if she was given a job in Cabinet again.
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But for the likes of academics, I think it's about power all the same.
Many of them have the status they have because of the networks they are part of. Even before Brexit, Grayling was the sort of person connected to the BBC and the Guardian who would wheel him out. To these people, things like being in the EU and supporting Hillary Clinton are like the pillars of their religion and for the same reason people had religions - as a binding force for a group. They support the group because the group supports them.
Of everyone I know, the biggest remain were the people in the most pointless government jobs. Because they all depend on the current structures and want them extended.
As it happens, it's really deeper than Brexit. The internet is changing the media, which is changing the message. Anyone attaching themselves to main parts of the liberal mafia like identity politics, journalism and academia is going to find themselves getting a bumpy ride over the next 20 years.
Identity politics will survive this, as it's so easy to cast a spell over voters by conjuring up Barbarians at the borders, neighbors making more than you do, and masses of people taking one look at your group identity and just deciding they hate all of you for no reason.
Yes, Remain is fundamentally Don't Kill The Job.
20 years? But with the way things are going the internet will be a Conservative-free zone by next year.
20 years? But with the way things are going the internet will be a Conservative-free zone by next year.