Temporalities of Emergent Axiomatic Violence in Brexit Scotland

Abstract

Following an acrimonious referendum on European Union membership, the UK was plunged into chaos as people attempted to negotiate a deeply divided domestic political landscape. In Scotland, things were further complicated by the independence question and the Scottish National Party's (SNP) call for a second independence referendum. In light of the Brexit result, since 2016 many citizens of Scotland have re-thought their position on independence owing to emergent axiomatic violence located in the UK's split from Europe. This article examines the different temporalities involved with the emergent axiomatic violence of Brexit as experienced in Scotland. For those who once supported the Union, Brexit is understood as a moment of violent and unforeseen rupture, emerging from a one-off event in the present. In contrast, nationalists speak of Brexit as representative of the accretive slow violence brought on through historical imbalances in UK politics; Brexit was to be expected, emerging from long-term processes. For EU migrants, the violence of Brexit is built into their futures, as they contemplate work and family life in a drastically changed socio-political landscape. Although the 'emergent' aspect of the violence inherent in Brexit is dependent on perspective, all agree that the violence is axiomatic, part of everyday life in Brexit Britain.

The possibility of possibility: Between ethnography and social theory

“…The SNP considers itself to be a civic nationalist party who argue in favour of independence for democratic -rather than historical -reasons (Manley, 2019(Manley, , 2021. In 2014, this position led them to reject traditional historically-grounded nationalist narratives, re-framing instead their pro-independence message as one entirely concerned with Scotland's future possibilities.…”

Hope and time work in dystopian contexts: Future-oriented temporalities of activism in post-referendum Scotland and Turkey

“…SNP activists have long-since felt that the Scotland's place within the rest of the UK represents a broken partnership (at best) or a colonial invasion (at worst), often pointing towards Westminster and the UK government to explain Scotland's economic, social, and cultural troubles. For over three decades, the argument presented by the SNP and their activists has been as follows: Scotland wishes to be a left-wing, liberal nation, yet it is shackled by the right-wing UK Parliament and must therefore become independent, to be the nation it wishes to be (Manley 2021). Within the current political landscape of the UK these claims are not entirely unfounded, as Scotland as a nation has voted for a centre-left party every general election since 1964, a voting pattern that puts them greatly at odds with the more conservative England 1 (Torrance 2017, Keating 2009.…”

“…Whilst Scotland had voted once again strongly in favour of staying withing the EU (62%), the overall UK vote was heavily skewed by the larger English vote to leave (53.4%). This was a traumatic event for many activists, who lamented seeing their greatest political fears materialise within a system they had repeatedly attempted to escape; not only was Scotland still a part of the UK, but the political imbalance they had been campaigning against for decades had torn them away from the EU, which many considered to be the 'last good thing about the union' (Manley 2021). As SNP activists often told me, Scotland had entered its most dystopian future.…”