What if Britain’s EU referendum had taken place in Africa?

Conservative party politician Amanda Milling (left) and former London mayor and Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson walk through buildings inside the Houses of Parliament and Portcullis House in London on June 27, 2016. PHOTO | AFP

What you need to know:

  • The referendum campaign over whether or not the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union was a bitter and turbulent affair, undermining investor confidence in the small island nation.
  • Populist demagogues including Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson have exploited the opportunity to advance their own careers, demonising the European Union as the reason for the country’s challenges.
  • The referendum has exposed deep fault lines within the ruling Conservative Party, once again demonstrating the lack of internal party unity and cohesion in this immature party system.

The people of the United Kingdom woke up to find that they just voted to leave the European Union in a result that cost the Prime Minister his job.

It has been a controversial campaign that has revealed deep social and political divides. In a completely unrelated development, I recently had a conversation with some friends in which a Ugandan student complained about the way that African elections are covered by the western media.

He argued that there was an unhelpful tendency to focus on on ethnicity and violence and to always emphasise the sensational over the mundane, which leads people in America and the UK to overlook continuity and calm in favour of chaos and change. His argument got me thinking … How would the EU referendum be covered if it was taking place in Africa?

Exclusionary politics fuels fear of instability

The referendum campaign over whether or not the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union was a bitter and turbulent affair, undermining investor confidence in the small island nation.

Early debates about the best way to develop the economy quickly gave way to the politics of belonging, after which an exclusionary form of identity politics took centre-stage. The divisive language used by a number of political leaders has revealed deep tribal and regional cleavages and shone a new light on the country’s fragmented and incoherent national identity. Neither bodes well for the prospects for democratic consolidation in a state that has yet to do away with its Royal Family and allows unelected traditional leaders to wield great influence through in the legislature.

The campaign was marred by the spread of misinformation on both sides. Those in favour of remaining within the European Union stand accused of employing the politics of fear, invoking a winner-takes-all logic regarding the risks of going it alone in order to scare their supporters into line.

For their part, the leaders of the leave campaign consistently inflated the cost of remaining within the EU, despite the fact that their claims were discredited by independent experts. However, in the context of low standards in public life and a partisan media –much of which is owned by a shady foreign businessman – such factual inaccuracies are rarely corrected.

Partly as a result, the quality of debate has been particularly low, with little attempt to find common ground or build consensus. Instead, it has been identity politics and not policy issues that have shaped the campaign and will determine how people vote.

TRIBAL TENSIONS

Of the many overlapping ethnic and regional cleavages at play, one of the most significant is the ongoing tension between English nationalists and Scottish secessionists. Populist demagogues including Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson have exploited the opportunity to advance their own careers, demonising the European Union as the reason for the country’s challenges.

Both hope to rise to power on a wave of nationalism and xenophobia, appealing to the politics of belonging in order to tap into the ancestral claims of English voters over land and territory. These references to autochthony have been particularly effective in the economically underdeveloped parts of this poorly educated country.

In turn, this has stoked tribal tensions between the English and historically marginalized Scots, who voted strongly in favour of remaining within Europe.

Whereas the English largely voted to leave in order to pursue their nationalist ambitions, Scottish voters worry that Brexit will leave them vulnerable to domination from the tyranny of the English majority.

This has raised serious concerns that the victory of the leave campaign will encourage Scotland to hold another, just as significant, vote on whether to leave the UK. Seasoned international observers have already expressed fears that such an eventuality could see this fragile state could come apart at the seams. In response, some ambassadors have advocated for the formation of a power sharing government to avert political stability.

Meanwhile, the failure of party leaders of all stripes to effectively marshal their troops has contributed to a growing sense of political uncertainty, leading to a slide in the value of the national currency that has alerted the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to the potential for economic crisis.

Weak parties and political uncertainty

The referendum has exposed deep fault lines within the ruling Conservative Party, once again demonstrating the lack of internal party unity and cohesion in this immature party system.

Despite the Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, leading the “Remain” campaign, prominent members of his party have openly rebelled against his authority. Worse still, as the campaign became evermore conflictual and personalised, attacks on the government’s position increasingly took the form of attacks on Cameron himself. In the wake of the victory of the “leave” campaign, this led to a palace coup that cost Cameron his job, and most likely his political career.

In such an uncertain and unstable context, the fall of the Prime Minister is likely to lead to slowing economic growth, further increasing the prospects of political unrest. This risk is compounded by the volatile political system, in which the strength of parties varies markedly between elections.

Although the Liberal Democrats made gradual gains in the 2000s, they were dropped like a stone by the electorate following the failure to deliver on election promises, contributing to a fluid and unpredictable political system.

Whereas a few years ago the Liberals would have had a prominent role in the debate, they have now been eclipsed by the United Kingdom Independent Party and other hardliners, leading to the growing polarization of the political system.

The populist threat to political stability

One of the most striking and worrying features of the campaign has been the rise of a destructive and unpredictable populist sentiment throughout a section of the political elite and citizenry.

In line with other divided societies with high levels of inequality, populist language has proved to be effective at stoking fears and expectations on both sides of the debate. As in much of Latin America and Africa, such rhetoric has focussed on blaming the country’s problems on a combination of foreign enemies and domestic experts.

This led senior Brexit campaigners to launch a campaign against technocrats, academics and other experts who they have depicted as deliberately colluding with European elites to mislead ordinary people.

Similarly, foreign leaders who have sought to intervene in order to encourage the UK to remain within the European Union have been accused of overstepping their remit, and have largely withdrawn from the debate for fear of doing more harm than good.

Drawing on the strategy of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, the leave campaigners exploited concerns about sovereignty and external influence to brand rivals as “outsiders” and “enemies of the people”.

Many of those targeted have made plans to go into exile in France, Spain, or Germany in the wake of Brexit. This will further swell the numbers flooding into holiday camps across the region, which are already close to bursting point.

Domestic civil society groups fear that the rejection of expertise and valorisation of “ordinary people” will have problematic long-term consequences, leading to a rejection of informed economic and political advice in favour of knee-jerk policy changes and further cycles of economic instability.

The United Kingdom is still recovering from a period of economic collapse that was facilitated by weak government regulation, which in turn gave rise to a complex system of corruption and fraud within the financial sector - a typical feature of neo-patrimonial regimes.

Given this, the country can ill afford a period of political turbulence. However, the fall of the Prime Minister, and a fresh challenge to the leader of the opposition from within his own party, are likely to result in a damaging period of political musical chairs. It turn, this has raised fears of further instability and the delegitimisation of the wider political system.

Nic Cheeseman is an associate professor of African Politics at Oxford University in the UK.