ABSTRACT
Three-and-a-half years after the Brexit vote, British politics endured, during 2019, one of its most disunited years since the inter-war years. The narrow Leave victory, 52–48%, had not brought about any clear conclusion. Remain voters claimed they could not accept a vote based upon such naked misinformation, the consequences of which, moreover, would be widespread economic harm. Many British people, perhaps reassuring themselves that Britain does not go in for extremism, rather hoped we might escape the collapse of the centre ground occurring all over Europe and the USA. Cultural issues are often treated separately from ‘political’ ones which are held to be mainly economic. Brexit had divided the UK into two rival factions which for three years hurled contumely at each other. The coronavirus (see Box 25.1), however, unified the nation against a common, worldwide threat and calmed the tone in which politics was conducted closer to ‘business before Brexit’.
