This article examines the relationship between nationalistic mobilisations, hidden funds and undisclosed campaign contributions, commonly known as dark money. Contextualising Brexit alongside the Icelandic economic crash of 2008 shows how nationalist mobilisation and racism can secure economic and political interests for a small minority and thus create space for what Zygmunt Bauman has called ‘evasion’ or ‘slippage’ as a primary technique of power in the present. Both the build-up to Brexit and the Icelandic economic crash were characterised by a strong national-centred rhetoric of ‘us-the-nation’ versus ‘others’ that diverted attention from massive minority interests, which had access to hidden funds. The Panama Papers showed that many of the same people celebrated in Iceland as the embodied representation of the country were simultaneously moving money into tax havens. Exposés have also revealed the way that dark money secretly funded campaigns using anti-migrant racism to facilitate the Brexiteers’ longer-term interests.
Gietel-BastenS., ‘Why Brexit? The toxic mix of immigration and austerity’, Population and Development Review42, no. 4 (2016), pp. 673–80; K. Ho, ‘Markets, myths, and misrecognitions: economic populism in the age of financialisation and hyperinequality’, Economic Anthropology 5, no. 1 (2018), pp. 148–50.
2.
BrubakerR., ‘Between nationalism and civilisationism: the European populist moment in comparative perspective’, Ethnic and Racial Studies40, no. 8 (2017), pp. 1191–226.
3.
StollerP., ‘Resisting the alternate realities of global populism’, Economic Anthropology5, no. 1 (2018), pp. 138–40; A. Gingrich, ‘Scholarship will suffer while national sentiments are stoked: critical engagement with Brexit’, Social Anthropology24, no. 4 (2016), pp. 485–86.
4.
FeketeL., A Suitable Enemy: racism, migration and Islamophobia in Europe (London: Pluto Press, 2009).
5.
BensonM.LewisC., ‘Brexit, British people of colour in the EU-27 and everyday racism in Britain and Europe’, Ethnic and Racial Studies42, no. 13 (2019), pp. 2211–28.
6.
BanksM.GingrichA., ‘Introduction: neo-nationalism in Europe and beyond’, in BanksM.GingrichA., eds., Neo-Nationalism in Europe and Beyond: perspectives from social anthropology (New York: Berghahn Books, 2006), pp. 1–26.
7.
ElgeniusG.RydgrenJ., ‘Frames of nostalgia and belonging: the resurgence of ethno-nationalism in Sweden’, European Societies21, no. 4 (2019), pp. 583–602.
8.
See discussion in Elgenius and Rydgren, ‘Frames of nostalgia and belonging’, p. 594; R. Brubaker, ‘Between nationalism and civilisationism’.
9.
Benson and Lewis, ‘Brexit, British people of colour in the EU-27 and everyday racism in Britain and Europe’.
10.
Banks and Gingrich, ‘Introduction: neo-nationalism in Europe and beyond’, p. 18.
ShaxsonN., Treasure Islands: tax havens and the men who stole the world (London: Vintage Books, 2019), p. 9.
13.
Banks and Gingrich, ‘Introduction: neo-nationalism in Europe and beyond’.
14.
AntonsichM.MatejskovaT., ‘Immigration societies and the question of “The National”’, Ethnicities15, no. 4 (2015), pp. 495–508.
15.
These were accessed at the archives at Landsbókasafn Íslands. Advertisements were collected from 1955 until 2008. See K. Loftsdóttir, Crisis and Coloniality at Europe’s Margins: creating exotic Iceland (London: Routledge, 2019); K. Loftsdóttir, and M. W. Mixa, ‘Bankar í ljóma þjóðernishyggju: Efnahagshrunið, hnattvæðing og menning’ [Banks glowing in nationalism: the financial crash, globalisation and culture], Skírnir 188 (autumn 2014), pp. 90–115.
16.
HinesJ. R., ‘Tax Havens’, Michigan Ross School of Business, Product Number WP 2007-3, 31 May 2007, https://www.bus.umich.edu/otpr/WP2007-3.pdf [accessed 27 September 2020].
17.
GeogheganP., Democracy for Sale: dark money and dirty politics (London: Head of Zeus, 2020).
18.
SassenS., Losing Control? Sovereignty in the age of globalisation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).
19.
ObermayerB.ObermaierF., The Panama Papers: breaking the story of how the rich and powerful hide their money (London: Oneworld publications, 2018).
‘Eignir Íslendinga á aflandssvæðum: Könnun starfshóps á vegum fjármála- og efnahagsráðuneytisins á fjármagnsflutningum og eignaumsýslu á lágskattasvæðum’ [Icelandic assets in tax havens: a survey of a working group on behalf of the ministry of finance and economics regarding flow of funds and asset management in tax havens], (Reykjavík: Fjármála- og efnahagsráðuneytið [Iceland’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs], 2017), p. 9.
MixaM. W.VaimanV., ‘Individualistic Vikings: culture, economics and Iceland’, Icelandic Review on Politics and Administration11, no. 2 (2015), pp. 355–74, http://www.irpa.is/article/view/a.2015.11.2.12 [accessed 15 September 2019].
35.
Sigurjónsson and Mixa, ‘Learning from the “Worst Behaved”’.
36.
Loftsdóttir, Crisis and Coloniality at Europe’s Margins; H. Appel, ‘Finance, figuration, and the Alternative Banking Group of Occupy Wall Street’, Signs40, no. 1 (2014), pp. 53–58.
37.
Loftsdóttir, Crisis and Coloniality at Europe’s Margins.
38.
Loftsdóttir and Mixa, ‘Bankar í ljóma þjóðernishyggju’; G. M. Pétursdóttir, ‘Sköpun alþjóðlegrar viðskiptakarlmennsku: Íslenskt tilvik’, in Silja Bára Ómarsdóttir, ed., Rannsóknir í Félagsvísindum XII (Reykjavík: Félagsvísindastofnun Háskóla Íslands, 2011), pp. 62–68; K. Schram, ‘Banking on borealism’, in S. R. Ísleifsson, ed., Images of the North (Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec and Reykjavík: ReykjavíkurAkademían, 2011), pp. 305–27.
39.
HaardeG. H., ‘Ávarp Geirs H. Haarde forsætisráðherra á Austurvelli 17 júní 2008’, Stjórnarráð Íslands, 17June2008 (Reykjavík: Forsætisráðuneytið, 2008), https://www.forsaetisraduneyti.is/radherra/raedurGHH/nr/2959 [accessed 10 November 2020] – ‘Íslenska þjóðin nýtur trausts og það er mikilvægt að fyrirtækin okkar geri það einnig, ekki síst fjármálafyrirtækin. Bankastarfsemi grundvallast á gagnkvæmu trausti’.
40.
Loftsdóttir, Crisis and Coloniality at Europe’s Margins, pp. 75–79.
41.
BergmannE., Nordic Nationalism and Right-wing Populist Politics: imperial relationships and national sentiments (New York: Springer, 2016); Loftsdóttir, Crisis and Coloniality at Europe’s Margins.
42.
Loftsdóttir, Crisis and Coloniality at Europe’s Margins.
43.
WojtyńskaA.SkaptadóttirU. D.ÓlafsH., Report from the Research Project: the participation of immigrants in civil society and labour market in the economic recession (Reykjavík: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, University of Iceland, 2011); Loftsdóttir, Crisis and Coloniality at Europe’s Margins.
44.
MixaM. W., ‘A day in the life of an Icelandic banker’, in DurrenbergerE. P.PálssonG., eds, Gambling Debt: Iceland’s rise and fall in the global economy (Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2014), pp. 33–46.
SigurjónssonÞ. O.SchwartskopfD.ArnardóttirA. A., ‘Viðbrögð tengslanets við gagnrýni á fjármálastöðugleika Íslands’ [Response of actor-networks against criticism of the financial stability of Iceland], Stjórnmál & Stjórnsýsla7 (2011), pp. 161–84, https://skemman.is/bitstream/1946/9660/4/a.2011.7.1.9.pdf [accessed 19 September 2019].
49.
Loftsdóttir, Crisis and Coloniality at Europe’s Margins, p. 95.
50.
HelgasonH., ‘Danir eru í árásaham og engra varna að vænta þar í landi. Verðum að verjast lyginni sjálf’, Fréttablaðið (Markaðurinn), 1November2006, p. 12.
51.
ÓlafsdóttirA., ‘Skýrsla Viðskiptaráðs kynnt í Kaupmannahöfn: Mishkin & Herbertsson vs. Danske Bank – Síðasti Fundur Mishkin Leiðangursins’ [The Chamber of Commerce report presented in Copenhagen: Mishkin & Herbertsson vs. Danske Bank – the last meeting of the Mishkin journey], Viðskiptablaðið, 28June2006.
52.
Áskelsdóttir, ‘Áhrif eigenda á íslenska fjölmiðla’ [Effects of owners on the Icelandic media] (MA thesis, University of Iceland, 2010).
Aciksös, ‘Beyond the “lesser evil”: critical engagement with Brexit: Brexit referendum first reactions from anthropology’, Social Anthropology24, no. 4 (2016), pp. 487–88; Gingrich, ‘Scholarship will suffer while national sentiments are stoked’, pp. 485–86.
Mayer, Dark Money, pp. 79–88; Geoghegan, Democracy for Sale, pp. 160–62.
69.
NanceM., The Plot to Destroy Democracy: how Putin and his spies are undermining America and dismantling the West (New York: Hachette Books, 2018), pp. 121–23; Wylie, Mindf*ck, pp. 117–32.
70.
Geoghegan, Democracy for Sale, p. 6.
71.
Geoghegan, Democracy for Sale, p. 217.
72.
Nance, The Plot to Destroy Democracy, pp. 198–208.
73.
Wylie, Mindf*ck, p. 7; BeltonC., Putin’s People: how the KGB took back Russia and then took on the West (London: William Collins, 2019).
74.
Wylie, Mindf*ck, p. 144.
75.
Wylie, Mindf*ck, pp. 121–32.
76.
O’RourkeK., A Short History of Brexit (London: Penguin /Random House UK, 2019).
SogelolaD., ‘Brexit, agenda setting and framing of immigration in the media: the case of the Daily Mail’, LSE Undergraduate Political Review1 (2018), pp. 128–42.
Sogelola, ‘Brexit, agenda setting and the framing of immigration in the media’, pp. 128–29.
84.
Nance, The Plot to Destroy Democracy, pp. 121–23; Wylie, Mindf*ck, pp. 42, 117–32.
85.
Sogelola, ‘Brexit, agenda setting and the framing of immigration in the media’, p. 135.
86.
Geoghegan, Democracy for Sale.
87.
Geoghegan, Democracy for Sale, p. 14.
88.
Geoghegan, Democracy for Sale, p. 35; MooreM., Democracy Hacked: how technology is destabilising global politics (London: Oneworld publications, 2019), p. 126; Cadwalladr, ‘The Great British Brexit robbery’.
89.
Geoghegan, Democracy for Sale, p. 36; Cadwalladr, ‘The Great British Brexit robbery’. These included ads focusing on immigration, particularly from Muslim states, proclaiming that migrants from Turkey, as well as from Syria and Iraq, would flock to the UK. Geoghegan, Democracy for Sale, p. 35; see also A. Kent, ‘Political cartography: from Bertin to Brexit’, The Cartographic Journal 53, no. 3 (2016), pp. 199–201; T. Bale, ‘Policy, office, votes – and integrity: the British Conservative Party, Brexit, and immigration’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2021): DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2020.1853909.
90.
Wylie, Mindf*ck, pp. 124–30. Wylie gives examples from the US on how views were amplified on racial competition (p. 127), and how subjects were asked if they felt uncomfortable about their daughters marrying a Mexican immigrant (p. 129).
91.
BurnettJ., ‘Racial violence and the Brexit state’, Race & Class58, no. 4 (2017), pp. 85–97, p. 92. The Institute of Race Relations also pointed out that racial violence is predominantly seen as individual hate crimes deprived of any political context, p. 94.
GavinN. T., ‘Media definitely do matter: Brexit, immigration, climate change and beyond’, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations20, no. 4 (2018), pp. 827–45.
CoatesJ., ‘“Edgy” politics and European anthropology in 2016’, Social Anthropology25, no. 2
(2017), pp. 234–47.
96.
DennisonJ., ‘How issue salience explains the rise of the populist Right in western Europe’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research (2019), pp. 14, 18–19: doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edz022.
CarterZ., ‘Rupert Murdoch’s tax play: News Corp. lobbied for trade pact with favored tax haven’, Huffpost, 19October2011 [Revision 6 December 2017], https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rupert-murdoch-corporate-tax-panama-trade-deal_n_1018600?guccounter=2 [accessed 24 September 2020]; R. Brooks, The Great Tax Robbery: how Britain became a tax haven for fat cats and big business (London: Oneworld Publications, 2016), pp. 163–65.
