The Left Case for Brexit: Reflections on the Current Crisis

by Richard Tuck

Liberal left orthodoxy holds that Brexit is a disastrous coup, orchestrated by the hard right and fuelled by xenophobia, which will break up the Union and turn what’s left of Britain into a neoliberal dystopia. Richard Tuck’s ongoing commentary on the Brexit crisis demolishes this narrative. He argues that by opposing Brexit and throwing its lot in with a liberal constitutional order tailor-made for the interests of global capitalists, the Left has made a major error. It has tied itself into a framework designed to frustrate its own radical policies.  Brexit therefore actually represents a golden opportunity for socialists to implement the kind of economic agenda they have long since advocated. Sadly, however, many of them have lost faith in the kind of popular revolution that the majoritarian British constitution is peculiarly well-placed to deliver and have succumbed instead to defeatism and the cultural politics of virtue-signalling. Another approach is, however, still possible. Combining brilliant contemporary political insights with a profound grasp of the ironies of modern history, this book is essential for anyone who wants a clear-sighted assessment of the momentous underlying issues brought to the surface by Brexit.

200 pages, Paperback

Published June 2, 2020

About the author

Richard Tuck is Professor of Government Department. Professor Tuck is a premier scholar of the history of political thought. His works include Natural Rights Theories (1979), Hobbes (1989), and Philosophy and Government, 1572-1651 (1993). They address a variety of topics including political authority, human rights, natural law, and toleration, and focus on a number of thinkers including Hobbes, Grotius, Selden, and Descartes. His current work deals with political thought and international law, and traces the history of thought about international politics from Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, Locke, and Vattel, to Kant. He is also engaged in a work on the origins of twentieth century economic thought; in it he argues that the 'free rider' problem was only invented, as a problem, in recent decades. Thus his interests to a remarkable degree span concerns in all subfields of the discipline.