Abstract
Perhaps one of the most significant votes in British history occurred in June 2016. Primarily dominated by buzzwords such as ‘control’, ‘borders’ and ‘immigration’, Brexit has been a hugely divisive process for the UK. This division and internal wall-building is nowhere more evident than in domestic British race relations; indeed, in the week following the referendum, the number of racial hate crimes committed rose by 500%. This article examines the idea of borders in a contemporary British context, drawing on historic and recurrent iterations of empire (historical colonialism and the Windrush Scandal) and the Second World War as a founding national mythologies. It argues that Brexit represents post-war paranoia regarding European invasion, nostalgia for the glory days of Empire, and a fear of the post-colonial ‘other’ as a threat to monolithic tenets of British identity. Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth, is harnessed throughout as a means of giving literary scope to these arguments, and as a means of highlighting how this manic obsession with borders is a long-standing aspect of British life (the novel was published in 2000 and therefore preceded the Brexit conversation). Moreover, discussion of the themes of non-white British identities, inter-racial breeding and genetics in Smith’s novel will be placed alongside a contemplation of ‘maternity tourism’ which has recently abounded in the British press. ‘Maternity tourism’ comprises, I argue, a fear of the post-colonial female body and a distrust of the maternal body as a weak border which threatens the cohesive, white homogeneity of British society.
Highlights
Perhaps one of the most significant votes in British history occurred in June 2016
As David Lammy pointed out to the House of Commons recently, Brexit “cause[s] an extra 638 hate crimes per month,” prompting a “UN rapporteur to warn of increased racism in our country.”
White Teeth, outlining that “the text depicts questions ranging from pedestrian scenarios, like the nature/nurture debate through twins separated at a young age, to the inflammatory, such as the eugenicist who funds research in genetic engineering” (617)
Summary
Perhaps one of the most significant votes in British history occurred in June 2016. Primarily dominated by buzzwords such as “control,” “borders” and “immigration,” Brexit has been a hugely divisive process for the UK. Following on from Powell’s fearmongering regarding invasion by non-white mothers and unborn post-colonial subjects, the recent gaslighting surrounding the notion of “maternity tourism” in the UK press exhibits a national concern with the maternal body and miscegenation Headlines such as “foreign mums rip off NHS to get free treatment” and “SCANDAL revealed: Foreign mums rip-off NHS” claim to have uncovered a growing number of foreign women travelling to the UK in the late stages of pregnancy in order to have their babies (MacDermott; Sheldrick). Brexit Britain chooses denial, clinging to a fast fading fantasy and indulging the idea that resurrecting borders can claw back some sense of exclusionary “Britishness.” This process has, as evinced in White Teeth and the media frenzy concerning so-called “maternity tourism,” included the reclamation of the maternal body as a border of nation, as well as the attempted cordoning off of racial groups which disrupt binary definitions of Britishness. The delusion that, with the abjection of people of colour and the tight policing of British citizenship through birth, Britishness can become, once again, “independent” and “sovereign” threatens to impose borders between Britain and the world, but between factions of British society
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