In praise of ambivalence- another Brexit story

ABSTRACT

The paper offers a defence of ambivalence as a response to the political polarisation of our era using multiple languages to present its case from psychology to sociology, political science, philosophy and critical theory. It suggests that the Brexit story can be told in a different key, whereby the politics that have led to entrenching ‘leave’ and ‘remain’ identities overlay a harder to assess ambivalence about the EU both in the UK and in the EU, a dynamic referred to as the ‘Machiavelli Trap.’ Accordingly, we ought to ground the future relationship in the recognition of the ‘Brexit paradox’ (you can leave and therefore you shouldn't), and its implications for the core principles that have shaped the Brexit debate and negotiations. In the end, the paper offers a plea for a politics that allows citizens to tune into their constructive ambivalence about the fundamental tension between control and cooperation which pervades both Brexit, EU and global politics at large.

KEYWORDS:

• Brexit
• Ambivalence
• European Union
• Mythology
• Machiavelli
• Polarization

Acknowledgments

This article is a revised version of the paper given by the author as the 2019 Annual Lecture at the College of Europe in Bruges, on 7 October 2019. The author would like to thank Olivier Costa, Thomas Christiansen, Richard Bellamy, Molly Cochran and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.