| Summary/Abstract |
the election of 8 June was supposed to be about Brexit. In actuality, the election morphed into one about austerity and how not to fund social care for an ageing population. Put more schematically, it became an election borne of the extraordinary consequences of the 2008 crash and what they have entailed for intergenerational conflict in an ageing society. Although Brexit has its own historical origins,1 it is also a singular contingency in a political world that is being shaped by structural forces set in place by the policy response to 2008. In this political world, politicians cannot frame what elections will be about—even when the stakes are as high as they are for Brexit. Instead, the structural economic forces at work will keep manifesting themselves—even when, on the surface of what happens, they are difficult to see.
|