Brexit and the Tautology of Being

Abstract

How should we understand theoretically the former Prime Minister of Britain Theresa May’s phrase “Brexit means Brexit”? This paper argues that we must start from the category of the Event, as theorised in the work of Alain Badiou. Insofar as an Event in Badiou’s sense involves a decision as to whether a singular multiple belongs to itself – what I here call the “tautology of being” – it seems that Theresa May’s statement does indeed designate such an Event. This would also, from a Badiouian perspective, make it politically emancipatory. Badiou himself would of course not accept such a conclusion, given that Brexit was convoked by the British State, thereby disqualifying it from being considered a singularity. However, I argue that if we are able to separate Badiou’s “social ontology” from his philosophical ontology, Brexit might still be considered an Event in the above sense. I support this argument with reference to the work of Jacques Rancière, who I feel completes such a separation of theoretical realms. Nevertheless, I add that we still need elements of the Badiouian theoretical edifice in order to think new forms of sovereignty and patriotism today, of which Brexit would be an example. Another lack in Rancière is that he refuses to use the word populism, which seems to me to be a good term to describe the ideology of a political subject qua singularity. Should we therefore turn to the arch-populists Laclau and Mouffe, and their category of hegemony, to think Brexit? I think not, since, as I argue, hegemony does not allow us to think a political singularity, of the Brexit type. Nevertheless, I believe we should insist that Brexit be considered a “populist” emancipatory Event.