Why Everyone Is So Angry About Brexit

We are not so different to chimps

Okay, not everyone is angry about Brexit, but a lot of people are.  I was with a group of people a few days ago who were all of the same mind on the issue.  The language and venom they were using to describe the other side was both eye opening and blood curdling.  I have never heard such venomous language about a disagreement.  It was certainly worse than anything I have heard about politics or religion - it was even worse than the contempt some people express for users of Macs or PCs.


And yet on the face of it, it isn't really that big an issue.  It certainly wasn't one that was hotly debated before the referendum campaign.  And for an individual, the exact relationship between the state he lives in and the rest of the world, while not insignificant, isn't exactly a bread and butter issue.  It certainly isn't a question of life and death.  Aside from some excitable pro-EU campaigners nobody is saying that the UK is not capable of surviving outside the EU.  There are some real advantages to being in, but not of the kind that make a huge difference on a day to basis.

I think the explanation is that we are using a part of our brains that we are rarely aware of.  We might have clothes, cars and computers, but basically we are still monkeys.  And we are social animals that evolved in a hostile environment where we depended on our group to defend us against - among other things - other humans.  So what looks on the face of it to be a fairly abstract discussion about sovereignty and subsidiarity is getting interpreted as threat.  This is real gut level stuff.  It is triggering responses that were literally life and death matters in our evolutionary past.

The reason it is so divisive is that the same response can lead to two exactly opposite conclusions.  You can identify Britain as the group, and Europe as the other.  In which case the pro-EU types appear as dangerous traitors who can't be relied on.  Or you can identify with Europe, with the rest of the world as the other.  With this frame of mind the Brexiters look like, well dangerous traitors who can't be relied on.

I think this is what has put the heat into the argument on an issue that only a year ago didn't even count as the most important for 1% of the population.  And it was the reason why immigration was such a potent factor in driving the vote.  You can easily put forward the argument that having cheap Eastern Europeans to pick fruit is beneficial to our economy.  But our inner monkey is hearing that other monkeys are on the way to eat our fruits and berries and possibly kill us.

That the vote took place at a time when thanks to Syria migration was high on the news agenda helped the out vote a lot.  Paradoxically, I think it is even possible that the in campaigns 'Project Fear' helped the out vote too.  Stirring up emotion strengthens the subconscious and suppresses the conscious.  Nobody thinks rationally when they are running away from a fire.