The chaos around Brexit in terms of Earl Hopper’s Fourth Basic Assumption

A corner of group relations theory, Earl Hopper’s “Fourth basic assumption” might offer a way to think about the turmoil around Brexit, as indicating an extreme anxiety arising from failed dependency

In the background is an idea from Wilfred Bion, that groups sometimes behave as if everyone has agreed to act in a particular way, but without there having been any discussion. His suggestion is that this reflects something happening at an unconscious level in the group. He coined the term “basic assumptions”, and named three common ones — that the group has become dependent on someone acting as “leader”, or has mobilised two people to work on its behalf as a conversation in a pair, or that it’s gone into a fight-flight mode. In the context of management, these ideas are useful as they can shed light on what’s going on when a group has gone from what it thinks it is trying to do, and there’s a sense of “something” getting in the way.

Earl Hopper’s fourth basic assumption

Other thinkers have observed other basic assumptions. Earl Hopper named a “fourth basic assumption”, with the moderately incomprehensible name “basic assumption incoherence, aggregation/massification” to indicate a situation where things have become very broken.

He joined together two things others had observed. One is called “basic assumption me-ness” to describe a situation where individuals feel sufficiently uncomfortable to mean they act as if the group doesn’t exist. This goes beyond “is the group trustworthy?” or “how do I find my place in the group?” to extreme withdrawl. It was first named in working with Roman Catholic monks and nuns after Vatican II: the point was that, faced with huge changes in their world, some were reacting by extreme withdrawl.

The other is “basic assumption one-ness”, describing a situation where people in the group act as if it is met for some higher transcendent purpose. Sometimes religion makes sense in these terms.

Hopper’s point was that both of these involve not engaging with the group. The sense is that the group has become an unsafe place, so people are disengaging at a very visceral level. Others have extended this to suggest this is visceral, gut-level stuff, that barely gets near conscious thought.

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Why are some people (wrongly) claiming petition to retract Article 50 notice has been fiddled?

A petition for Britain to revoke the Article 50 notice has gone viral, but supporters of Leave are claiming foreign interference (despite the fact that you have to sign from a UK postcode). This seems a snapshot of how fake news circulates because it fits with what people need to be true, rather than what is.

On the evening of Wednesday 20 March (2019), Theresa May gave a televised address which went down badly. Immediately after a petition on the government web site started to gather support, as if in reaction. As it headed towards 100,000 signatures someone pointed out that there was a petition in favour of a hard Brexit with nearly 400,000 signatures and suggested people shouldn’t be complacent. They needn’t have worried. In less than 24 hours it gained over 1,200,000 signatures, becoming the most-signed petition on the Parliament petitions web site and causing the site itself to crash repeatedly, struggling to cope with its highest-ever rate of signing.

The sense is of a huge surge of energy in favour of cancelling the Article 50 notice. As this can only be done “in good faith”, and not simply to buy more time before being re-issued, this would stop the Brexit process for the forseeable future.

A pro-Brexit response: fear of outside interference

From the pro-Brexit side things have been muted. Angela Leadsom said she’d only take it seriously if the number of signatories crossed 17.4 million (the number who voted Leave). The Daily Express headline that “Petition to CANCEL Brexit hits 1 MILLION signatures as Luvvies declare ‘national emergency’”, adding “ELITIST luvvies Hugh Grant, Annie Lennox and Jennifer Saunders are scrambling to cancel Brexit using a petition that has amassed an eye-watering one million signatures — though Leave voters are questioning its authenticity.”

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Possible backlash if Brexit doesn’t happen — or if it does

I’ve been hearing worry about the danger of a right-wing from people who’d feel betrayed if Brexit doesn’t happen. Might the risk be even greater if it does, and its supporters suffer an even-greater betrayal when the promised bright future doesn’t materialise?

I’ve heard a range of politicians say that we must go through with Brexit for fear of the damage that would be caused by doing anything else. Their concerns include the betrayal that would be felt by people who don’t normally vote but were motivated this time, by people whose “Leave” vote was a vote against “the elite” and would feel let down if “the elite” avoided Brexit, and by people who would see any attempt at a People’s Vote as a betrayal of the 2016 one.

Logically, this doesn’t hold that water. We don’t see it as undemocratic to have General Elections every few years. Even Jacob Rees Mogg is on record as suggesting two referenda, with a second one to come after the renegotiation is completed (though he now seems to have forgotten this).

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Is it time for Theresa May to admit that Brexit is impossible and retract the Article 50 notice?

If Brexit goes ahead in any form, it would need exceptionally-good government to address all the resulting challenges. The parliamentary chaos of recent weeks has shown a government a long way from this. Is it time to admit that Brexit can’t be delivered?

Theresa May has given it her best shot. It is hard to see anything else she could have done to make Brexit work. The game-changer of the last few weeks has been the sheer level of parliamentary dysfunction. It’s now clear that Brexit can’t happen on 29 March because of the sheer volume of legislation to be handled between then and now. If it can’t handle that, it has no chance of the sort of wise restructuring of our arrangements that would be needed for any form of Brexit to have even half a chance of working, and it has no chance of the tough decisions having widespread public support — particularly when they hit the jobs and prospects of people who voted Leave.

Under normal circumstances, when a government has lost credibility it would be time for a General Election. But right now, our two biggest parties are both deeply split. Neither can put forward a manifesto that’s more than an awkward compromise, so neither could form a credible government.

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