Can Brexit End the Scourge of British Nativism? Dominic Cummings Thinks So.

AROUND THE WORLD, Brexit is widely seen as an exercise in populist politics. Many observers believe the 2016 referendum vote was won on the back of a toxic form of nationalism combining racism, xenophobia, and imperialist nostalgia for the heyday of the British Empire.

The real story is not so simple. Arguments for Brexit were made on historical, constitutional, and democratic grounds. Their proponents ranged across the political spectrum, and they appealed not only to nativist plutocrats but to a significant number of minorities and immigrants, too. But more important, the conventional wisdom ignores the possibility that some Leave advocates might have been fighting to prevent a populist takeover of Britain—by strategically adopting the same position as a band of xenophobic extremists in order to strip them of their mobilizing force.

Dominic Cummings is one such Brexit advocate—and one who continues to wield great influence over Britain’s departure from the European Union. As the architect of the Leave campaign and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s newly appointed senior advisor, Cummings has been behind the scenes of Brexit at every turn. In 2016, after temporarily giving up politics to read about Greek mythology and mathematics, Cummings was placed in control of Vote Leave’s referendum strategy. He set himself the target of “hacking the political system to win a referendum against almost every force with power and money in politics.” By all accounts, he succeeded—and broke the law in the process. (The U.K. Electoral Commission fined the Vote Leave campaign, which Cummings directed,