In Brexit’s wake: The birth of the left behind

Abstract

This paper addresses the problematisation of the ‘left behind’ in right wing populist governmental strategies in the aftermath of Brexit. As diverse political actors, journalists and commentators questioned and sought to account for the outcome of the vote, we explore Theresa May’s particular contribution, as the left behind came into view as a problem for state rule. We reveal May’s shifting and often ambiguous ontology of the left behind, highlighting the manner in which she deploys discourses of globalisation, as she challenges an avaricious and culturally detached business elite, and the state, for their failure to hold business in check and to advance the interests of the left behind. Nonetheless, we argue for the continuing relevance of neoliberal discourse for the way May questions the predicament of the left behind, and reimagines their government. Brexit’s wake, we suggest, marks not a radical break with the logic of neoliberal reason that Foucauldians in MOS have explored, but a compromised mutation that brings the state to the fore. Crucially, May’s intervention also portends the government of what came to be known as ‘culture wars’. On the one hand, the left behind were to be the target object of haphazard schemes for the remediation of the inequalities they experience. On the other, their cultural marginalisation was to be addressed by enrolment in countless cultural wars mobilised by elite political actors. Our paper contributes to the literature by offering a Foucauldian analysis addressing the consequences of Brexit for the marginalised and economically vulnerable.