Brexit as Bereavement: Pro-European Identity Politics and Anti-Populist Counter-Mobilisation in the UK

Since the referendum in June 2016, a new phenomenon of bottom-up, self-organized pro-EU mobilisation has appeared in the UK. In this contribution, we explore pro-European mobilisation in the UK as an emotional counter-reaction to populist discourse during Brexit and its claim of a unitary representation of the sovereign ‘will of the people’. Pro-European protest is triggered as a form of ‘identity politics’ by those who feel marginalised by Brexit and who defend multiple belongings and/or identify politically or culturally as European. Collective identities are thus mobilised in the form of emotional responses by those who feel excluded from popular and homogenous conceptions of ‘the people’. From the perspective of these excluded minorities, Brexit is experienced as bereavement. Our study is based on protest event analysis and a survey of participants of pro-European marches in the UK. We discuss their emotional responses and the coping strategies they develop as a case of anti-populist counter-mobilisation against the broader public debates in the aftermath of the referendum.