Anti-establishment

The term anti-establishment broadly means against the 'established' authority of the royal family, the aristocracy and the privileged. In the United Kingdom, there have been several occurrences of this since World War II.

Anti-establishment movements have come from varying ends of the political spectrum, including:

• the Left, with the original counterculture movement of the 1960s;
• the anarchism of the 1970s;
• and the conservatism that helped Nigel Farage gain popularity, ultimately leading to Brexit.

The key strand that links all of these notions together is populism and the necessity of appealing to the masses to overthrow the elite.

Anti-Establishment Movement

The anti-establishment movement rose to prominence in the decades after World War Two. How did this happen, and what were the ruling classes getting so wrong?

The 1960s

This decade, also referred to as the Swinging Sixties, was a time of liberation and the first real anti-establishment movement, save for the racist Teddy Boys of the 1950s. It came about as a crystallisation of numerous factors and originated on university campuses. A combination of the destruction of WWII, the threat of nuclear disaster from the Cold War, and the continuing conflict in Vietnam led the youth to put the older generation's way of life under a microscope.

Fig. 1 - President Kennedy was a beacon of hope for young people before his assassination

Here are some important events that defined this period and demonstrated a backlash against the establishment:

• Mods and Rockers filled the vacuum of a post-war identity. In the 1964 Battle of Brighton, there were clashes between the two groups that caused alarm to the establishment. Similar seaside clashes occurred in other coastal towns.
• At Grosvenor Square in 1968, there was a 3000-strong protest outside the US Embassy against the Vietnam War; a few protesters caused violence trying to break through police lines, with 11 arrested and eight policemen injured.
• Protesting the British colonial involvement in South Africa and Rhodesia of some of its investors, students at the London School of Economics (LSE) stormed into the university. Over 30 students were arrested and the school was closed for 25 days.
• The zenith of the Swinging Sixties was the Woodstock Festival. A confluence of musical expression, sexual freedom and illegal use of drugs was the ultimate anti-establishment act. Those involved in music and drugs were dubbed hippies.
• As the students of the 1960s grew up, civil rights concessions were made by the government, the Vietnam War de-escalated, and the original anti-establishment counterculture was brought to an end.

The 1970s

Older generations remember the 1970s as a turbulent decade for the United Kingdom. The following issues brought disillusion with the establishment once more; this time, however, dissatisfaction did not come from those privileged enough to study at universities but from the working class.

• In 1973, the Yom Kippur War led to oil organisation OAPEC cutting the oil supply to the West, causing gigantic inflation in the UK. It reached 25% in 1975 as prices rocketed. Firms attempted to save money by laying off workers, which infuriated the workforce who organised strikes through trade unions.
• In an attempt to balance the books in 1976, Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan borrowed almost $4 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, the loan came on the condition that interest rates rose and public spending was cut.
• The economic crisis, along with a decline in traditional industries such as mining, left a huge number of people unemployed, which continued to rise to almost 6% before the end of the decade and climbed even higher in the mid-1980s.
• The workers' voices grew louder as trade unions organised huge strikes demanding pay rises from James Callaghan's government. This culminated in 1978 and 1979 in what is referred to as the 'Winter of Discontent' when 29.5 million working days were lost due to strikes.

With the backdrop of a faltering economy, the race issues that had begun rearing their ugly head in the United States during the 1960s came to the forefront in 1970s Britain. The Notting Hill Carnival in 1976 was an example of the Afro-Caribbean community, marginalised and victimised, pitted against the police (who represented the establishment). It ended with the arrest of 66 people and the injury of 125 policemen. Other race riots occurred across the country, such as those in Bristol in 1980.

Anti-Establishment Conservatism

We can trace anti-establishment conservatism back to the premiership of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, who was a Eurosceptic. The introduction of the single market left some conservatives wondering where the line would be drawn; would the European Union soon be governing participating nations?

A split within the Conservative party developed and a crack soon became a fissure, largely down to one man: Nigel Farage.

• He echoed the concerns of Thatcher, who was worried about a European super parliament filling the chasm left by the collapsed Soviet Union.
• Disgusted at Prime Minister John Major's decision to join the EU in 1992, Farage left the Conservative party labelling them elitist and just an 'old boys' club, in reference to many of their member's private school origins.
• By the end of the 1990s, his use of nationalism and populism gained him a platform on the European Stage, with rhetoric urging the masses to topple the establishment.

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), led by Farage, began to become a force in the European Parliament in the early 2000s. Farage's criticism of the European project became an emblem of the frustration some people felt.

Tim Montgomerie sums up the appeal and myth that Farage successfully cultivated:

Anti-Establishment Brexit

With the free movement that the European Union brought, the existing divide in the Conservative party became even deeper. In 2012, the number of EU migrants to the United Kingdom was less than 200,000, a couple of years later, it was almost 300,000. ³

Fig. 3 - David Cameron

Prime Minister David Cameron was caught between a rock and a hard place. He pledged to reduce immigration but the United Kingdom was still part of the EU.

This, coupled with austerity, meant trust in the establishment was really on the wane. Cameron miscalculated and called a referendum, asking the British public to decide to stay in or leave the European Union, expecting a decision to stay.

Farage was a prominent face of the Leave campaign, in cahoots with influential Conservative members Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. In 2016, the voters decided to leave with a 52% majority and more than 17 million votes, sending shockwaves across the world and characterised as a victory for the 'little man' by Farage. Brexit had become a reality and the anti-establishment had rocked the elite.

These quotations demonstrate a disconnect with the establishment. Despite the different values of each anti-establishment group, each shared a necessity to find an outlet. Be it the Mods' preoccupation with fashion, the race pride of the British Black Panther Movement, or the peace and love of the Beatles, each anti-establishment ideal found something to give it hope.

The Leicester Square quotation symbolises how the country was left to rot by the ruling elite, who did not take care of their population. Finally, Farage appealed to the desire of the masses to bring down a leader with whom they cannot identify.