The Unpolitics of Brexit

This paper is an attempt to present, develop and deploy the use of the concept of ‘unpolitics’ in relation to Brexit. The paper starts with an outline of the concept of unpolitics and then turns to its application to Brexit. The argument is that in the politics of Brexit, specifically in the appeal of part of the Leave campaign and in the behaviour and appeal of Johnson, we can identify unpolitics as playing a significant role. For the Vote Leave we can identify unpolitical tropes as explicit elements of the campaign. And, during Johnson’s premiership and his campaign in the 2019 general election, the appeal and the behaviour exhibit elements of unpolitics. Johnson’s political demise was not due to Brexit, COVID-19 or Putin but represented the playing out of his unpolitics. And so we can see the subsequent fortunes of the Conservative Party as, in one sense, the playing out of the consequences of unpolitics.