Introduction

Trust plays a major role in the network-institutional understanding of an economic system. The
institutions found in such a system must be trusted in order to allow for stability and continuity.
However, in the case of the EU-UK trust relationships, this paper will argue that the misplaced
trust of the UK public in regards to the intra-continental political-media institutions led to the
decision to vote for Brexit and explains for the shock felt by those who wanted to remain,
especially considering in England’s capacity.

The EU, albeit undemocratic or dysfunctional in some regards, may not entirely be at fault when
considering the plight of the English population over the past number of years. Institutions such
as free trade and globalisation has been known to have a negative impact on some groups
within populations, but generally beneficial to an overall economy. Policymaking however can
introduce greater wealth and wage inequalities if these impacts are not addressed. False
promises and information are continually adhered to in argument for Brexit and the sources of
such inequalities, yet when questioned seemingly these individuals turn to speechlessness,
aggression, and dismissal and blatant ignorance, suggesting widespread cognitive dissonance
and misunderstanding.

A Post-Truth World

People appear to believe want they want to in what many call a post-truth era, one in which
‘objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal
belief’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2018). When considering then the tripolar model of trust we can see
where this false explanatory process attacks, which tends to lie beyond reach during the
interaction process. Consider then figure 1 below. In this i and j represent individuals, I signifies
ideals they share, Rx is each of their roles in the social of division of labour which they interact
through, whilst SS is the steady state, which when closer to I implies greater functioning of G,
the governance system.
Running backwards from G is the embeddedness of the institutions governing the behaviour of
the individuals. Running contrary to that then is entrepreneurship, a potentiality for
replacement of institutions if the governance system is seen as unfit. Accordingly this tripolar
model places checks and measures to allow for rectification should things not work effectively
in the eyes of the individual, a balance of entrepreneurship versus embeddedness. Notice too
that the roles Rx individuals adopted within the social division of labour are also influenced by
the ideals I they share with one another.

However, in this instance when regarding Brexit it could be argued that two tripolar models
exist in the UK. One in which the continued trust of individuals’ embeddedness and therefore
continued adherence to the governance system has led to a blind obedience when the governing
political-media institutions themselves seemingly create half-truths and fake news pieces in an
reversed entrepreneurial manner directly playing on and manipulating the ideal of the
individual, artificially drawing the steady state closer to its perfect functioning. This could be
considered then the 52% who voted Brexit or Leavers.

In the other model, the entrepreneurship is misplaced seemingly like the continued
embeddedness of the previous tripolar model. Summed up effectively by a well-known
individual in an interview with the Guardian: “My feeling about Brexit was not anger at anybody
else, it was anger at myself for not realising what was going on. I thought that all those Ukip
people and those National Fronty people were in a little bubble. Then I thought: ‘It was us, we were
in the bubble, we didn’t notice it.’ There was a revolution brewing and we didn’t spot it because we
didn’t make it. We expected we were going to be the revolution.” (Hattenstone, 2017), this concept
of blind ignorance lying in both models suggests that the political-media institutions may be
directly targeting the ideals of the individual on the Remain side of 48% in the debate as well.

This is a consequence of the post-truth era in that the abundance of information and ability of
politicians and journalists alike to introduce said information manipulatively to a population,
allows for the direct targeting of certain groups and deep divisions between trust relationships.
This targeting can be widely or narrowly ranging to cater to precise targeting of certain groups.
In the example above two tripolar models exist. However, in reality there could be an over-
arching grand governance system such as concepts of morality that most abide by (for example
that murder is wrong), but with sub-governance systems of beliefs and understandings of
reality according to the network-institutional perspective. What examples are there of these
parallel groups co-existing with one another however uninformed they are on each other’s
institutional culture?

Baby Boomers to Millennials

When considering the divide in society in the United Kingdom, the divide can be shown through
demographics’ voting patterns. Dorling et al. (2016) point out the voting decisions of individuals
appeared most divided in age, then social attitudes, with education coming last. Statistics also
showed that those who were older, socially conservative and with lesser secondary to tertiary
education were more likely to vote leave over the younger, socially liberal and better educated
individuals. Dorling et al. (2016) suggest this divide might be equated to older generations
having memories of bygone times with decent wages, living standards, housing, etc.