What would George Orwell make of Brexit?

In the London Review of Books this month, James Meek wrote a long article about Jacob Rees-Mogg and his ‘curious duality’ in being both a high Catholic, fogey Brexiteer and a founder of Somerset Capital Management, which the author sees as globalist and ruthless. The piece is elegantly done, but entirely sneery. It makes not the slightest attempt to enter into the Mogg’s (or any Brexiteer’s) mind with any sympathy. I was thinking about this because the LRB’s publicity emphasised that Meek is an Orwell Prize winner. How we need an Orwell on the subject of Brexit. Although he came from a declaredly socialist view, he understood what it is — to use the modern Goodhart distinction — to be a person from somewhere rather than a person from anywhere. In his famous wartime book The Lion and The Unicorn (its very title is pleasing for Brexiteers since Remainers are unremittingly unpleasant about unicorns), Orwell tries to enter into the patriotism both as felt by the upper and military classes and by the working classes.