A leading academic has taken apart the myth that Brexit is a challenge to the elites of Britain in a devastating interview.
Professor David Edgerton, from King’s College London, said that Brexit is “completely fake anti-elite politics” in a way that is “exactly analogous to Trump”.
Speaking to Channel 4 News, the historian said that far from being anti-elite, Brexit is nothing more than a “Conservative party policy supported by Conservative voters and some others”.
He said it is “extraordinary” to use Brexit to attack parliament, the judiciary and the BBC.
He continued: “A certain section of the British political class is suffering from terrible delusions of grandeur to the extent that they have come up with an utterly irresponsible programme.”
"The idea that Brexit is an anti-elite project is a nonsense."
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) October 11, 2019
Professor David Edgerton says, "a certain section of the British political class are suffering from terrible delusions of grandeur." pic.twitter.com/nCpV7DhdD9
The professor, who last year published a history of 20th-century British politics, called it “delusional stuff” and urged Brexiteers: “We’ve got to understand what our real place in the world is.”
Suggesting Brexiteers are living in a fantasy world, he argued that a serious plan to leave the EU would include a great deal more government expertise.
But what is actually happening, he said, is “in the most rudimentary form”.
“So there is no serious planning for Brexit, it seems to me,” he added. “The state has lost the capacity to think it through, and the Conservative Brexiteers have proved themselves utterly unable to understand what they’ve actually set out to do, whether it’s in relation to Ireland, or trade.
“And that’s the great tragedy of British politics.”
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