OPINION: How an age of austerity prompted the Brexit vote

If you are unhappy, you want a change. Perhaps you don’t even care what consequences that change can have. Perhaps the unhappiness outweighs that risk.

This, it seems to me is what happened yesterday: unhappy people were given a chance to decide what to do and they voted to make a change.

Why, though, were so many people so unhappy with the way things were?

A year ago, it felt as though the possibility of Brexit was conceivable but largely dismissible. Yes, we thought, there may be some public unrest with the status quo; and yes, we agreed, Mr Farage has a direct line to a disenfranchised group of voters.

But surely everyone, honestly, believed back then that when it came down it, on the night, there would be no real question of it: we would remain in the EU.

This morning, though, we all awoke and felt that same sway of shock: it actually happened. We actually voted to leave.

To me it is clear that responsibility lies at the feet of both the British and European elite. By a thousand cuts it has immiserated, marginalised, impoverished and fragmented working class communities, some of which voted by overwhelming majorities to leave the EU.

This is a decision which, to a bigger extent than might be expected, goes beyond Europe and the policies of the EU. This vote represents the first time many people, feeling unhappy and ignored, have had a chance to say something.

This was a stand, a revolt of a kind.  For many people, the grinding realities of austerity and the lack of hope for the future manifest in the form of virulent anti-immigration sentiments. The politics of despair are rife.   There is no pretending this is not a victory for the hard, nationalist right wing in British politics.

It can be no surprise in the dire conditions and consequences of austerity that resentment is boiling not just in Britain, but across Europe. This vote is a seismic moment in the rolling crisis of Britain’s post-war economic and political system. It is a moment in the rolling crisis of Europe, where vast territories have been laid waste by waves of crisis and austerity.

Throughout the campaign, fears have been successfully channelled by the ugly dog-whistle politics of the Leave campaigns. This is extremely damaging, but there is nothing new about it. Provoking racism to deflect attention from their own actions has long been a tried and tested policy of right wing elites. And it can be a lot easier to blame other people at the bottom of the heap than to hold the powerful to account.

Yet nationalist resentment is not the only story. Many working class people reject racism – especially in London. The people of Spain and Greece show that a politics of hope is possible in their struggles against austerity, despite the awful conditions they face.

The one thing the Leave campaign could offer which Remain could not was change. Despite the promises and visions of a stronger future, remaining could only ever appear, to the majority of voters, as more of the same. And if they were unhappy with things – as was clear – then this was never going to exert much attraction.

Leaving Europe was always going to be a dramatic change. That in itself is seductive for those who have been looking, fruitlessly, for quick, short term results.

But more importantly, Brexit was unprecedented. The uncertainty of its consequences allowed Leave to paint an idealist picture of British future, immune from comprehensive rebuttals from Leave: “That’s not true,” – “But you don’t know it’s false”.

Like it or not, the struggle ahead will be over the meaning of Brexit. This is a huge challenge for people who believe in solidarity, open borders, love the diversity immigration brings and reject the delusion that stopping immigration will mean more jobs for “British workers”.

At its height in the early 2000s, the anti-globalisation movement rallied around the slogan “another world is possible”. Our common challenge is to find a way of making it happen.