Bibliografisk note

As dawn broke on June 24, 2016, UK politician Nigel Farage was celebrating the triumph of a dangerous narrative. Farage, who until yesterday headed the UK Independence Party, declared the vote in favor of Britain leaving the European Union a victory for ordinary people. “We will get our country back, we will get our independence back and we will get our borders back,” he promised.

An hour later, Farage proved that facts and the Brexit vote were not one and the same. The Leave campaign had for instance promised to take the £350 million a week that the UK sent to the EU and spend it instead on National Health Services, going so far as to emblazon this vow on the side of a campaign bus. Confronted with this promise, Farage declared it had been a “mistake” and that he could not guarantee the funds would be redirected to the health fund.

He did not appear to feel any discomfort about back-peddling. After all, in the age of the post-factual democracy, politicians sometimes get what they want by getting the narrative right and the facts wrong.