By Alessio Colonnelli –
Boris Johnson’s is a political-cultural hegemony, as defined by Gramsci, yet against the rights of citizens. (Italian original here.)
“At midnight on Saturday (11pm in London) Britain will leave the European Union after 47 years. Yet, in practice little will change: a transition period of 11 months shall commence, during which London will still be in the single market and therefore subject to European laws and regulations,” the London correspondent for Corriere della Sera Luigi Ippolito reminds us today.
Is this overestimating things? There’s no danger, with Brexit everything changes; or rather, everything ends. The 31 January 2020 marks an epochal turning point.
True, until 31 December London will continue to respect the rules of the starred dodecagon. Among them, the freedom of movement for Europeans. But here emerge the first chiaroscuros. “British citizens living in Europe (one million, of whom about 50,000 in Italy) will see their rights reduced. In fact, they’ll be able to stay in the country of residence, but will no longer be able to move freely to other European countries,” Ippolito mournfully points out.
The British in Europe total around one and a half million; those in Italy over 60,000. Details aside, what the journalist said is basically correct: deprived of European citizenship, the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish won’t be able to enjoy the Schengen agreement and move around the continent at will; unless they are citizens of an EU country, as well as subjects of Her Majesty Elizabeth II.
Nevertheless, those who are solely British citizens will find themselves in difficulty. Let’s repeat that: they will no longer be European citizens. In other words: they will be Europeans without citizenship.
Now, a great many British people won’t care because none of this will affect them; but it’s also true that the 23 June 2016 referendum and the 12 December 2019 general election (Boris Johnson, who captained Leave, was confirmed Prime Minister) effectively took EU citizenship away from millions of countrymen who would like to retain it.
You wonder what crime one might have committed in order to have one’s own right of citizenship removed. To take away a right of such magnitude from a person – just like that, without compensation, without granting another of equal value – means not to give a damn about his or her life.
In this regard, Antonio Gramsci comes to mind; he argued that hegemony could be achieved by combining political power and cultural legitimacy. Johnson is succeeding in this, albeit in the opposite sense of what Gramsci hoped for.
And in fact Brexit is this: a project of political conquest, first internal and then external to the Tory party, to be monetized as soon as possible in terms of hegemony – even northern England now votes en masse for the Conservatives – all at the expense of ordinary people.
It is a political and cultural hegemony that not only takes away rights and mobility, but simultaneously provides justification for the cuts and austerity that have been going on in the UK for ten years, exasperating family upon family. It exasperates them and then appeases them by saying: it’s Europe’s fault, let’s get rid of it, it’s the only way. This is a hegemony with messianic and consolatory qualities; it mesmerises people.
So, it’s business as usual. For another ten years. This is it then, that’s what we’ve got to put up with today, Friday, 31 January 2020; and it’s certainly no small change, despite what the big newspapers may argue.
(Originally written by Alessio Colonnelli in Italian on 31 January 2020. Translated by the author. All rights reserved. Twitter: @co1onne11i.)
Alessio Colonnelli 