Of course there are a wide range of Brexiteers. But we do know that support for Brexit rises with age, and is stronger amongst men than women. Support for The Brexit Party, for example, was close to zero amongst women under the age of 35. Whatever is ailing Britain, in its desire to elevate a nihilistic liar to Downing Street, so as to pursue a catastrophic economic policy, it is something that emanates disproportionately (though obviously not exclusively) from ageing men. It is a feeling that young people have it too good, that poverty is exaggerated, gender roles too blurred, punishment too mild, and that only a good hard shock of some kind – if not a literal war, then some kind of proxi – will restore traditional values and fixed identities.
At the risk of analysing en masse, it is perhaps also a deep feeling of resentment that compassion wasn’t on offer in the 1950s and ’60s, so it damn well shouldn’t be on offer today – that is, precisely a rage-filled yearning for the care and empathy that Boris Johnson is the last person in Britain to offer. Johnson stands as a guarantee that, if “my generation managed without being hugged or cared for, then this one should have to manage it too.” It is a feeling that is ably stoked by a set of declining and deteriorating newspapers, that now predominantly cater for the resentments and fears of a demographic who rarely enter large cities and haven’t been near a university campus in decades. Whether democratic politics (that is, dialogue) is remotely adequate to sort through this tangle of anger and fear, who knows? We can wait for it to gradually shuffle out of view, one year at a time, but who’s to say what damage will have been done in the meantime.