Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain

by Fintan O'Toole

There is a European technocratic elite (especially in unaccountable institutions like the European Central Bank) that has lost its memory. It has forgotten that poverty, inequality, insecurity and a sense of powerlessness have drastic political repercussions. The EU was founded on a kind of constructive pessimism. Behind its drive towards inclusion and equality lay two powerful words: or else. It was an institution that knew that, if things are not held together by a reasonable expectation that life will get better for ordinary people, they will fall apart. In the best sense, the EU itself was a Project Fear. Without that fear, the project became arrogant, complacent and obsessed with grand schemes like the ill-designed euro.