[This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts on the seismic events triggered by the EU Referendum result. This is my attempt to take a step back and take a broader look at what’s happening.]

The most fundamental question in politics – that comes before “how are we to live together and govern ourselves?” – is “who is the ‘we’ that will live together in this polity?”. 

I do not believe, with Rousseau, that humans were originally noble, isolated, individuals who come together in a ‘social contract’. Nor do I agree with Hobbes that we were likewise isolated, but ignoble, individuals and needed ‘Leviathan’ (government) to force us to live together in some sort of order.

We are a social species – we have always lived together in groups much larger than our immediate family. As Peter Singer so memorably puts it, “we were social before we were human”.

Continue reading “Britain after the EU Referendum: So Who Are ‘We’ Now?” →