Remain’s risk-control logic and Leave’s speculative rhetoric framed referendum choice

Evidence

In the final weeks before the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership, calls for a “remain” vote urged increasingly for “common sense and practicality” to avoid a “protracted period of economic and political uncertainty” that a “reckless experiment” (such as voting to leave) could trigger. The louder voices of the campaign were certainly those with the clearest neoliberal credentials, from New Labour and centrist figures such as Tony Blair and London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, to the Europhile wing of the Conservative Party. Such voices represented a risk-control logic in their assessment of the future, positioning uncertainty of outcome as a risk factor to ward off by use of distinct measures (be they fiscal or budgetary). … It was on this latter issue that the “leave” campaign’s rhetoric began to converge more clearly with the tropes of speculative finance. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 288

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly usable for the reader’s stated goal of explaining how speculation migrated into politics — remain-vs-leave recast as risk-control vs. speculative bet.