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Studi Letterari E Culturali Reading Brexit Through Brexlit

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Studi Letterari E Culturali Reading Brexit Through Brexlit Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN Studi Letterari e Culturali Ciclo XXXII Settore Concorsuale: 10/L1 - Lingue, Letterature e Culture Inglese e Anglo-Americana Settore Scientifico Disciplinare: L-LIN/10 - Letteratura Inglese TITOLO TESI Reading Brexit through BrexLit: fictional responses to political crisis Presentata da: Sara Alessio Coordinatore Dottorato Supervisore Francesco Benozzo Maurizio Ascari Esame finale anno 2020 Abstract Reading Brexit through BrexLit is a dissertation centred on the 2016 referendum on British exit from the European Union and on Brexit Literature (‘BrexLit’). The thesis focuses on the relation between Englishness and the Leave vote, analysing themes and images at the core of the Brexit campaign in parallel with selected literary works published both before and after the political outcome, and on the impact of the referendum on literature itself. After an introduction that serves as a framework, the work is divided into three different sections. The first one is dedicated to an analysis of Brexit from a political point of view, outlining global tendencies and British peculiarities that influenced the vote and explaining Brexit as an English (more than British) phenomenon. The second section moves from the political aspects of the study to the literary ones, showing that Brexit themes are to be found in contemporary fictions published before the referendum and focusing on two novels that are particularly concerned both with the structures of feeling at the core of the campaign and with English identity: Speak for England (2005) by James Hawes and The White Family (2002) by Maggie Gee. The third and last section introduces the reader to Brexit Literature (‘BrexLit), which is a new sub-genre that has flourished from the referendum onwards. The section looks at the main characteristics of the sub-genre, distinguishing between two main categories of BrexLit fictions: political and intimate novels. This sections ends with the close reading of two BrexLit novels published in 2018, Perfidious Albion by Sam Byers and Middle England by Jonathan Coe, which are the most representative in relation to the two categories mentioned above and in the way they engage, as the novels of the previous section, with the structures of feeling exploited in Brexit discourse. Hope is exactly that, that’s all it is, a matter of how we deal with the negative acts towards human beings by other human beings in the world, remembering that they and we are all human, that nothing human is alien to us, the foul and the fair, and that most important of all we’re here for a mere blink of the eyes, that’s all. Ali Smith, Autumn Contents Reading Brexit: An Introduction ............................................................................................ 1 Behind Brexit: Cultural and Political Framework .............................................................. 24 Brexit from a global perspective: the rise of nationalist and populist parties ....................... 24 Brexit from a European perspective: the end of the European dream? ................................ 32 The ‘Awkward Partner’: British Euroscepticism .................................................................. 39 Divided Kingdom: Brexit and English national identity ...................................................... 47 Before Brexit: Brexit Discourse and Contemporary Fiction .............................................. 55 From Politics to Literature: The Nation and the Novel ........................................................ 55 Restoring a ‘Phantom Homeland’: The Brexit Dream in Speak for England....................... 67 From Nostalgic Dreams to Paranoid Nightmares: The White Family under Siege ............ 103 Beyond Brexit: BrexLit and English Identity .................................................................... 140 From Denial to (Nearly) Acceptance: Cultural Responses and BrexLit ............................. 140 Challenging Brexit Narrative: Brexit ‘Political’ Novels .................................................... 146 Into a Leaver’s Mind: Brexit ‘Intimate’ Novels ................................................................. 165 Darkin Versus Trina: The Two Englands of Perfidious Albion .......................................... 175 The Heart of Brexit is in Middle England .......................................................................... 185 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 201 References…………………………………………………………………………………. 206 Reading Brexit: An Introduction The day after the Brexit referendum, the British population woke up divided between two opposite impressions: day-dreaming or living a nightmare, with some Britons claiming victory and others campaigning for an immediate new referendum. Some of them were, in fact, bewildered, scared and angry at the results; some were, instead, flattered and confident. The then prime minister, leader of the Conservative party and pro-Remain supporter David Cameron resigned1, considering Brexit a personal débâcle; also Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), resigned2, having accomplished the very mission of his political career (withdrawal from the European Union); in Wales, prime minister Carwyn Jones from the Welsh Labour Party did not resign, but he defined himself «deeply disappointed»3 by the pro-Leave majority come out from the referendum; Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish prime minister and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), described the Brexit scenario as «democratically unacceptable»4 for Scotland (in which the Remain-side had won) and threatened a new referendum on Scottish independence; in Northern Ireland, fears about a hard Brexit and ‘the border question’ with the Republic of Ireland started to flow, with Sinn Féin (a major party in both countries) asking for a ‘special designated status’ within the EU.5 On the other side of the English Channel, reactions to Brexit were also confused and marked by bewilderment. British writer Julian Barnes, writing for the London Review of Books, recalls that «[a]fter the Brexit vote, many of my European friends expressed disbelief and astonishment. It seemed to them that we had run mad in the noonday sun»6. And so it seemed to some European leaders: French prime minister François Hollande described Brexit as a 1David Cameron’s full resignation speech in «David Cameron's full resignation speech: 'I'll go before the autumn' – video», The Guardian, 24 June 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2016/jun/24/david-camerons- full-resignation-speech-i-will-go-before-the-autumn-video (30 June 2018) 2Nigel Farage’s full resignation speech in «Nigel Farage resigns: The Ukip leader's resignation speech in full», The Independent, 4 July 2016, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-resignation-speech- brexit-ukip-leader-resigns-quits-read-in-full-a7118741.html (30 June 2018) 3Jones, C., cit. in Porter, G., « EU Referendum: First Minister 'deeply disappointed' but calls on Wales to unite», The Daily Post, 24 June 2016, https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/eu-referendum-first-minister- deeply-11519604 (30 June 2018) 4Sturgeon, N., cit. in Cooper, C., « Brexit: Scotland leaving EU is 'democratically unacceptable', says Nicola Sturgeon», The Independent, 24 June 2016, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-scotland- leaving-eu-is-democratically-unacceptable-says-nicola-sturgeon-a7100691.html (30 June 2018) 5President of Sinn Féin Gerry Adams asking for special status for Northern Ireland, in McDonald, H., «Gerry Adams: Brexit will be a disaster for the island of Ireland», The Guardian, 4 February 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/04/gerry-adams-brexit-disaster-ireland (30 June 2018) 6Barnes, J., «Diary: People Will Hate Us Again», London Review of Books, Vol.39, n°8, 20 April 2017, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n08/julian-barnes/diary (30 June 2018) 1 «painful choice» and «a tough test for Europe»; German prime minister Angela Merkel shared Hollande’s statement, defining the vote results as «a blow to Europe and to the European unification process»; in Italy, prime minister Matteo Renzi remarked that «Europe is our future», while Spain called for a joint sovereignty over Gibraltar, where ‘the border question’ is an issue as prominent as in Northern Ireland.7 However, there was also contentment at the results, in particular from nationalist and populist parties: for instance, Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, claimed Brexit was a «[v]ictoire de la liberté»8 and called for an EU referendum in France too, as Geertz Wilders in Netherlands and Matteo Salvini in Italy9. Then, was Brexit a victory or a débâcle? And, as writer Zadie Smith asks herself and her readers, «[w]hat was it really about? Immigration? Inequality? Historic xenophobia? Sovereignty? EU bureaucracy? Anti-neoliberal revolution? Class war?»10. Despite uneasiness and consternation of cultural elites and mainstream parties, what is certain is that the more Brexit is analysed, the less it seems possible to define it as an inexplicable outburst or an unforeseeable event. Rather, Brexit looks increasingly like a plausible outcome, connected to other events and tendencies outside the UK, but deeply rooted in British contemporary society. Firstly, Brexit appears to be, in fact, part of a global trend: as a manifestation of dissatisfaction
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