This is the text of a letter written by Richard Bronk, a Visiting Fellow at the European Institute of the London School of Economics, to two Conservative MPs, one a friend, with whom he was in correspondence. The letter (which has been anonymised) was written to foster a better understanding of how many of the 48% who voted Remain are thinking and feeling following the vote – and thereby contribute to efforts to bridge the dangerous chasm opening up between most of the UK’s great cities, universities and the young, on the one hand, and the new Brexit government on the other.
Getting real, the young, and protecting the moral ethos and tone of debate
- You argue that we all have to ‘get real’ and imply that much of the reaction among the 48% who voted remain has been hysterical and smacks of being sore losers:
I have had scores of conversations with Remain voters in the last four days in three very different locations – West Dorset, Oxford and the LSE and City of London – and several features are striking:
(a) Large numbers of normally balanced, sensible and professional people from a great variety of walks of life tell me that they have indeed been in tears, felt sick or have hardly slept for days and are deeply afraid. This should not be put down glibly to their being on the losing side in a battle of interests. The genuine fear and anguish comes from four concerns:
- First, a loss of identity: many Remain voters in our great cities, universities and beyond genuinely identified with being European, with being outward looking and tolerant. They deeply value two-way migration for cultural as well as economic reasons. And many of them – me included – are in profound shock at waking up to find it is suddenly acceptable in broad swathes of the country (and among leading Leave campaigners) to blame the other, the foreigner, those of other religions for social ills that are almost entirely home grown.
- Secondly, a feeling of bewilderment since the whole tenor of their professional and social lives involves integration with the continent, and this is now under threat. Of the four families I know well in West Dorset with children in their early twenties, every one of them have sons or daughters who either work in other EU countries or live here with Continental partners. At the same time, university departments frequently have up to a third of their staff and many of their brightest PhD students from the continent, and they know that, without EU framework funding and EU students being able to work here while studying, all these links are under threat. Our great universities are European centres of excellence, rather than narrowly British.
- Third, there is a genuine fear about the social fabric and upsurge of naked racism. It is not just well reported cases of Polish centres daubed with graffiti or the terrible murder of Jo Cox. It is much more widespread. For example, my son campaigning in Central London was told ‘I am voting leave so that we can get these immigrant c**** out’; my wife campaigning in Lyme Regis was accused of ‘wanting a bloody mosque in Lyme Regis’; and a London cabbie told me he had voted out because he wanted to hear his own language spoken in his East End street. A Jewish friend with a parent who survived the holocaust says it all reminds her of Germany in the early 1930s. Do you remember the collective determination of all parties and institutions to stamp out Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood narrative? Well now, thanks to the poison of the Farage narrative – echoed and exploited none too subtly by Boris and his friends – it is considered widely acceptable to demonise foreigners even if they are hardworking citizens of our closest allies.
- Fourth, the Gove narrative that ‘we are tired of experts’ – and the implication that facts are irrelevant and all that matters is the passion and simplicity of your narrative – is deeply corrosive of public discourseand decision-making. It also effectively downgrades the esteem in which our educated young and older professionals are held. No wonder they are profoundly depressed.
(b) Among the businessmen and women I have spoken to, the common theme is this: they can only see uncertainty and policy instability stretching out for years and they expect immediate delays to investment and an imminent loss of jobs. For me, the most shocking thing about Friday was watching Andrea Leadsom faced with victory calling for ‘a period of quiet reflection’ while she and her colleagues worked out what to do. Ruth Davidson was right the Tuesday before to warn that these were revolutionaries without a plan. The Brexiteers are mostly so divorced from the real world that – having put a bomb under the post-war order – they think they have the luxury of talking among themselves for months while the country sinks into recession and our continent into turmoil they have inflicted. You ask me to get real. Well, Tory politicians on the Leave side need to get real. And getting real involves understanding the following:
- Our business and diplomatic partners abroad now see us as a regrettable source of instability, as unreliable partners, and as prone to sudden lurches in policy and naked national opportunism.
- Article 50’s two-year time horizon only covers the divorce with the EU, while the negotiating of the trade deals that must replace our membership will take much longer. Trade deals always take many years to negotiate, even if as a country you have more than a handful of negotiators with any experience. Moreover, in the case of the EU, any new association agreement or trade deal will have to be decided on by unanimity (so that, for example, Spain can insist on Gibraltar in return) and often with national referenda and the consent of the European parliament. Contrary to popular opinion, the EU does not consist of ‘unelected bureaucrats’ able to force through measures. The EU with whom we will be negotiating is a collection of elected governments with vetoes in key areas, and a directly elected parliament. (Incidentally it is on our side that terms will be mostly decided by unelected special advisers and lawyers behind closed doors and by a new Tory prime minister elected by a few tens of thousands of Tory party members.)
- Foreign direct investment and investment at home is already drying up much faster than you and your colleagues realise. Many companies are already planning to relocate some operations to Dublin, Paris, Frankfurt or elsewhere; and many more to cut investment and jobs at home. I know personally of several local companies in the South West whose directors on 24 June felt they must begin planning redundancies in the coming weeks. More generally, universities, property and construction companies, and many other firms in the process of rapid expansion, are left dangerously exposed by the Brexit downturn and any disruption of free movement.
- Relying on a low oil price to deter Scottish independence may be foolish since, if Scotland became independent, it could be the recipient of large amounts of foreign direct investment and a pool of young mobile talent now likely to shun England.
- You may dismiss credit rating downgrades, and a slump in sterling in the face of Brexit as overdone reactions. But, like many other people much more qualified than me, I would be genuinely surprised if we do not find out within weeks that ‘project fear’ was ‘project understated warning’.
- You suggested that highlighting how the views of the young have been swamped by the votes of the elderly is tantamount to accusing the elderly of being selfish. And you also implied that there is something unseemly in the young and cities not accepting with grace that they have been outvoted by those with identities and interests different from (and at odds with) their own. On both counts I think you are profoundly mistaken:
(a) First, I found the generational divide was an effective campaigning tool because – when pointed out – many elderly voters were very receptive to considering what their children were telling them. And the key thing is this: this is not a clash of interests between the young and old. It is a clash of world view and a lack of knowledge (on the part of most of us over fifty) about how the modern world works. The world has changed so fast that the Platonic idea of respecting the greater wisdom of the elderly is out of date. One of our 25-year-old campaigners in Dorset was yelled at several times: ‘You don’t know what you are talking about’. But, in fact, it is most of us over fifty who have no idea how social and economic life really operates in the interdependent, fluid and digital age in which our children live.
(b) Secondly, it is overwhelmingly students, young people and our great cities that vote for parties of the centre left that advocate, unlike your party, increased redistribution and investment into the UKIP voting areas that have suffered the ill-effects of globalisation. What the young and cities do not take kindly to is populist politicians stirring up the mistaken view that social ills in the forgotten towns and villages are the fault of immigration or European integration or London ignoring them. They know that the fault lies with our own policy makers. And they know that the negative effects of globalisation for those in the East and North will only get worse if Brexiteers deregulate further and we suffer an unnecessary recession.
(c) The danger now is that a cry of despair in this vote from those in the North and East whose identity and interests have been eroded by globalisation will now lead to a policy lurch that will damage the identity and interests of our young and our great cities, while at the same time inflicting further dislocation and hardship on our forgotten communities. Far from being a positive or zero sum game, Brexit is likely to be negative sum game.
- Finally, many have implied that Remain campaigners have only themselves to blame for defeat since they lowered the tone of debate by accusing some of the leaders of the Leave campaign of lying. This view is based on an outdated view of civility among honourable gentlemen:
(a) I used to respect the House of Commons rule of not calling another MP a ‘liar’ in the days when MPs behaved honourably and in a gentlemanly like manner. But it has been widely reported that Boris Johnson has in the past been sacked by both The Times and Michael Howard for allegedly lying. More importantly, his whole Leave campaign was built on lies and innuendo. He knew the £350m a week for the NHS was a lie because it was not the net contribution and did not take account of the lost revenue from Brexit dislocation, but still he had it on his battle bus. He knew that Cameron could not explicitly rule out Turkish membership of the EU without doing irreparable damage to relations with a major NATO ally; and he knew full well that, even if the UK government did decide not to veto Turkish accession at some far distant point, every nation (including the French with a referendum, Cyprus and Greece) would have to agree, which made it almost inconceivable. The Turkish lie did great things on the doorstep for the Leave campaign and it was a deeply dishonourable tactic.
(b) So, like most Remain campaigners, I applauded John Major for calling a spade a spade, a lie a lie. If we are not to be ruled permanently in future by demagogues willing to lie their way to power, we have to confront lies with resolute condemnation even if it offends the sense of propriety of some.
(c) And it is not only lies that matter – it is the use of jokey asides, verbal references and innuendo that suggest what you can then disclaim: Boris Johnson repeatedly used the Farage line about ‘independence day’ (usually in combination with fatuous references to ‘glorious futures’) thereby subliminally adding his weight to the viciously racist undertones of the UKIP campaign; and when he explained President Obama’s opposition to Brexit with a reference to his part-Kenyan ancestry, he shamed himself, his party, and our country.
I remain, I hope, your friend, and a colleague in the task of reuniting our country.
Best wishes,
Richard Bronk
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the BrexitVote blog, nor the LSE.
Richard Bronk is a Visiting Fellow in Political Economy at the LSE’s European Institute.
Given my warm personal relationships with many ‘leavers,’ I have found these Brexit conversations exasperating and personally very challenging. This post has a directness and even a hard edge in spots, but it also presumes what I desperately hope actually exists: a set of Leave supporters who are prepared to face the unpleasant implications of their choice. I’m particularly struck by the arguments about the generational divide. As parent of three twenty-something kids in the US, I’m certainly happy that our large labor market allows them to go where their skills are most useful and in demand. If Britain loses the functional equivalent of this advantage in the EU single market, it will be an extraordinary loss. I’d be tempted to call it a self-inflicted wound, but of course by the author’s reasoning, that’s not quite true: it’s a wound on the younger generation inflicted by the older.
Indeed it would seem vary much to be the case.
The EU is a huge big entity which rules the people without democracy and imposes agendas which are not the agendas that the people want. It serves the big corporations and the banksters and pays lip service to democracy or the wishes of the people. The EU is a dictatorship. We the poople want better from our own government and we want better for our nation. Belonging to this diniosaur the EU, is unnecessary for life to be sustained. We want to have our views and wishes listened to and respected. Thos under 50 can not remember Harold Wilson or the world after WWII which was full of hope. The end of our integration n the EU is a CHANGE and you Remainers are resisting change. Is this change going to be for the better or for the worse? It will be what we make of it, what we DEMAND from our governement. It is time the British people appreciate that it is we the people who are sovereign in Britain and we must take back control, not just from the EU but from our parties, from Parliament and from the banksters who are ruling over us and dictating to us. Make the Brexit the opportunity for us to make a better nation for ous all to live in. Let us be the leaders of Europe by setting them a splendid example.
The attacks on non indigenous people in the UK is not something that the Brexiteers want but we do have to be realistic about economic migration when our own people are being forced out of their homes and are begging in the streets, that is if they have not committed suicide. Suicide is an awful thing and it is escalating. .What does one do when one is pennilless and homeless?
There is a saing that charity starts at home, I always add but it doesn’t end there. How many brits are using food banks, suffer malnutrition and are going hungry and cold?
In the 60s when we had mass immigration from our foremer colonies, the economy was fantastic, there were so many jobs, one could get sacked 3 times in a week and have a job the next. Council homes were given out and the waiting list was not terribly long, the rents were cheap and the wages, better than we had ever had. In the 70s, we all had sufficient, some more than others but we allhad. In the 80s, jobs and industries moved abroad and some regions of the UK have never recovered, such as in Wales and in the North. The economy is not working for everyone AND the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than that between the earth and the sun. Many of us in our fifties do not like where our nation is headed, we can see the dictatorship and we are aware of how things are changing for the worse.
We want a better Britain, a Britian for all, a farier Britian, an accountable government and banks that serve the pople. Hey anyone under 30 remeber that? No, you do not remember it. We want a caring Britian which serves the needs of us all and hers the voice of us all.
Something else we remeber is the lack of red tape. Today we cannot do ANYTHING. There are so many rules and regulations that they make us dizzy and unable to think as we trip over yet another rule or regulation. Those who govern us are dictating to us and ordering our lives in ways that we dislike.
Today, we have the very worst of socialism, a type of communism, a dictatorship of the multinationals banks and government but none of the care we had before.
They are real problems of poor governance but there is no reason to think that leaving the EU will solve them.
I applaud you passion, but the passionate well thought out article by Richard appeals to me more, probably because I, as a person who voted remain share of their values.
I am 82, I was brought up in a household who held strong political beliefs which were regularly discussed and dissected. In a family of eight it was difficult for us to all agree and we grew up appreciating and learning from this interaction. Our interests therefore stretched to other areas of the world. When we were informed by David Cameron that he was presenting up with a referendum, I was horrified that it consisted of a yes or no answer, that did not fit in with my upbringing. I also listened to the rhetoric being spouted by many of our leading politicians and the resultant effect this had on the people of our nation, for the first time since the nineteen thirties it became acceptable my some members of the public, in this i include some politicians, to use racist, xenophobic and misogynist remarks. The appalling acceptance of some members of the public of the lies put out by right wing groups, and the tendency to the press and some politicians on character assassination was and anathema to me.
In the weeks leading up to the referendum i undertook to find out as much as I could about the EU and our part in it. The meant approaching many friends and my wider family, both at home and abroad, as well as following news in the media, I also read information on the EU and theUK’s parts within the EU. I listened to studies undertaken by academic bodies, one employed both by Scottish govt, and the UK govt. It was an eyeopener.
Many differences came out in discussions with friends, for example, one wanted to continue with workers rights but his fear of immigration won him over to the leave side. Their support for this came from their belief in the propaganda of Nigel Farage UKIP. My immediate family openly discussed the whys and wherefores and all including my four grandchildren voted remain I did not try to belittle their views, the young are always idealistic as I was at their age. I spoke to many young people in their late teens and early twenties and they voted remain due to their belief that they felt european, they had studies and looked at the european model compared it with the UK, their decision was that the drawbacks of leaving the EU were greater than being inside and initiating the changes needed was a safer option. As for socialists being dictatorial, who was it who tried to push a unilateral decision through on Brexit, that to me was very frightening, showing the first signs of dictatorship. I appeal to the more liberal element of the Conservative party to control the extremely right wing rhetoric and actions of their Cabinet, and back bench MP’s.
My own feeling during the run up to the referendum and after was one of despair, The action of many people and politicians was very reminiscent of the 1930’s. Yes I went through that and the second world war and although I can understand where your fear is coming from, we are better working together than apart.
Thank you Richard for writing this article, there is a genuine fear among many remainers that we are being left out of the brexit equation. I just hope your two MP friends have enough ‘gumption and generosity of character’ to take up your offer.
Excuse the Typos, the keyboard is also faulty
Bravo. Excellent piece
Dear Richard,
I want first of all to thank you so much for the beautiful, thoughtful, passionate letter you have written.
It is expressing so well every sentiments, feeling, emotions i am passing through since Friday morning although sadly I predicted to my friends the result of this foolish referendum a long time ago.
With every minute passing, I am increasingly depressed and worried, anguished both for me personally (what will happen to me a French citizen in the UK since 16 years) and for the country and Europe?
On the plus side, he gave me additional motivation to engage myself with a political party (the lib-dems in my case that I have joined this week end), take a stand (on social medias). But I want more. I would be delighted to meet you, talk to you see what we can do to both keep pressures on the government, avoid further drams like Boris johnson being Prime Minister, Farage and UKIP progressing and, god forbid, being involved into the negotiations with the EU. But also on a more poistive note, work to increase voting franchise to 16 and 17 years old, to help them mobilise, join the political debate, vote, participate. And finally work on reducing the social and territorial fracture by providing support to people in these areas like for instance contributing to create after class support, training, mentoring, etc. I am ready to engage and involve myself for free to help people with the skills I have to live a better life, improve their socio-economic situations,etc. But we do need to initiate a movement, organise, crate an army of voluntary with the objective to mend this fracture, this fragmentation.
I want to do something. We need to act. Now.
Thank you again for your beautiful letter.
Kind regards
Jean-Stephane Gourevitch
A wonderfully clear and well articulated article. I hope they are listening, both as they consider what to do next and as they choose their next leader…
A stunningly incisive analysis of where we are. I, like you and your colleague, found myself bewildered and lost as to the reasons why this has happened. As an Irish national, my first act was to initiate renewal of my Irish passport and commence applying on behalf of my children. We are Europeans and I cannot bear to think of the loss of our rights and freedoms, as your piece so clearly illustrates. But my action is not an option for the majority of those who voted remain and will have to live with this awful act of national, political and human rights vandalism.
If “the young” truly wanted a say in the Referendum, more than 34% of voters under 25 should have shown up at the polls. They didn’t. They stayed home to play on their phones or took to social media to piddle around and laugh at those silly Brexit twits while older voters got their wrinkled butts in gear and made it to the polling stations. You can’t cry foul at the workings of democracy if you can’t be bothered to participate.
They foolishly assumed that their elders were wise.
Thank you Richard for so ably setting out exactly how I’m feeling about the debacle that was the referendum result and the consequences. I will be sending this around my friends in order to share in your words exactly what I would have liked to have said about what the leavers have done. Could you do another one about the despicable Mr Farage.
I am trying to get over this but your article now has me in tears again. It all feels so hopeless now. I hope one day that Europe can forgive us
It would be difficult to know what to forgive, the yes vote itself or the fact that the yes campaign was based on lies and this has only been publicized subsequent to the vote.
Brilliantly put, Richard.
Thank you Richard.
Thank you for putting it into words the huge divide now operational on our small island, and the emotional response of those who wished to remain European…
I’m tired of hearing “the British people voted to leave”. Yes, a large number did, but 52% of a turnout of 72% makes that only 37.5 % of registered voters. How is that a democratic mandate for such a momentous and irreversible step? A simple majority of those who turn up to vote might be OK for a general election where you get another vote in a few years time, but not for something that will permanently affect the future of the country.
Agreed.
If you want a divide then there will be a divide. Alternatively, instead of wallowing in self-pity (whichever way you voted) we could all just get on with the job at hand.
I think he’s deluded.. ‘Loss of identity as Europeans?’ haha! That’s a new one to ninety nine percent of Brits. We are by default European, but we’ve never felt it in a statehood sense. Rising racism and far right? This vote has kept the far right at bay by giving normal working people a voice. A few isolated incidents by morons in the wake of Leave hysteria hardly equates to the population going hard right. The majority are moderate and inclusive right wing who voted Leave, and quite a few left I hear. I don’t see what’s wrong with voting to hear the national language spoken in your own street in any case…only an imbecile would think that was extreme!
An eye opener for the illinformed BREXITs. Do they know what has been done in their name by liars like Boris, Michael Gove and Farage, who will now be running the country.
Not the typical hysterical tone of the bitter remained which I appreciate, but still basically middle class, privileged, special pleading.
1. Identity, there is no loss of identity. We’re leaving the EU which is a mere institution and nothing to do with identity. We are European and nothing will change that, Norway and Switzerland are no less European because they aren’t in the EU. If anyone really bases their identity on the EU then I feel sorry for them.
Anecdotes about Dorset families with children who work in Europe or have European partners is the stuff of a Christmas round robin letter, it’s not really relevant. Those who work in the EU will continue to do so and the partners will continue to be able to live and work here. UK citizens work around the world without needing a structure like the EU. Less than 1% of the population work in another EU country, it’s not a good reason to remain.
Most UK businesses don’t trade with the EU and those that do will still be able to in future. It is silly to suggest that we won’t have a trade deal with the EU, I don’t know what it will look like, but mutual economic interests will ensure a deal is done. The EU is a declining economic force, our future trade with the rest of the world is more important and countries are already queuing up to strike deals with us.
Businesses move all the time, but the UK is more business friendly and competitive than most EU countries and likely to get more so. We will attract more than we lose.
I supported Scottish independence in 2014 and if that’s what they want I respect their democratic right. I doubt that it’s possible at present with $50 oil creating a £15bn budget deficit. Any plausible amount of FDI isn’t going to plug that gap in the Scottish government’s finances.
The credit rating agencies are a joke, if you’ve seen The Big Short you’ll understand why. The market ignores them – look how cheaply we can borrow.
2. The young are entitled to be enthusiastic about all sorts of things, it’s one of the privileges of youth, it doesn’t mean they have good judgement. They haven’t seen as much of how the EU operates, nor have they had to pay for the Brussels gravy train. When I was a student I thought the Euro was a great idea – no more changing currency when I travelled around Europe. Thank goodness older and wiser heads kept us out of that slow motion train wreck. In 10-15 years the young people will thank us for Brexit, in the short term they will whine “it’s so unfair”.
3. This line that the leave campaign “lied” so voters were duped and this somehow invalidates the democratic result of the referendum is a feeble argument. Remain’s Project Fear was based entirely on threats, false projections, twisted statistics and lies. As many remain voters were scared into reluctantly supporting EU membership as leave voters to reject it. Politics is dirty, politicians on all sides say whatever they need to win. Voters are grown ups, we know what politics is like, we are used to seeing through the BS and making our minds up. The punishment budget was more dishonest than pointing out that Turkey’s membership of the EU is British government policy.
I disupte – the EU was very much about identity – it was about a diverse group of people working together for common good. (maybe it didnt always work 100% but that was the ideal). It has a beautiful flag and for me that symbolised modernity and freedom etc etc – so yes it was a big part of my identity and a bigger part than being British. Being British only just won out for me over being Independent Scottish at Indy referendum but being Scottish and European (EU) would be the bigger identity for me.
And I do realise its different from just being European … but that is not the same – in that case you are different or just visiting. The EU meant we all shared each other’s countries – we had just as much right to stand in a French street etc as any French person (and vice versa) …. to me that feels eroded now.
Perhaps, but why should one’s open and accepting attitude towards others be determined instead by others with a much more restricted view?
There was no special pleading in Richard Bronk’s letter. quite the contrary, his was a forensic dissection of the barren and empty claims of Brexiteers.Not one single claim, aspiration, rainbow-coloured dream sequence, criticism or judgement was backed up by a scintilla of evidence by the Brexit Campaign or the Self-serving Politicians who had no qualms about destroying their country in pursuit of their own petty ambitions. No sooner was the result in than the real motivations and hidden agendas were revealed. They cannot even trust each other so how in God’s name can the electorate trust their blandishments and promises of “jam tomorrow”
I want to talk about Identity. As another of those pesky “Experts” I am well-versed about the nature and origins of my personal identity so I will speak (or Write) in general terms.
key concepts (Source: thecriticalmediaproject )
Identity is a socially and historically constructed concept. We learn about our own identity and the identity of others through interactions with family, peers, organizations, institutions, media and other connections we make in our everyday life.
Key facets of identity—like gender, social class, age, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity—play significant roles in determining how we understand and experience the world, as well as shaping the types of opportunities and challenges we face.
Social and cultural identity is inextricably linked to issues of power, value systems, and ideology.
The media uses representations—images, words, and characters or personae—to convey specific ideas and values related to culture and identity in society.
The multi-various and complex elements that contribute to a person’s identity are not a subject for judgement or criticism by any one other than the person concerned. You can have no idea of what constitutes anothers identity and have no right to determine the validity of the perception they have of them selves. It is simplistic in the extreme to suggest that a person’s identity is limited by an accident of geography alone. The idea of The European is not based on whether you were born at a specific place on the planet.It is a combination of ideas, constructs, experiences and beliefs. The belief for instance in a commonality of purpose, of culture, of aspiration and opportunity. The experience of sharing common goals, ideals, cuisines, culture, even of living on the same street. These all contribute to a sense of identity that we can use to relate to others. The Brexit idea specifically limits and damages that possibility.It is an inward looking and selfish point of view.
Your negating of the very real experiences and opportunities enjoyed by the generation who will inherit this planet whether they live in Dorset, Birmingham or Auchtermuchty is irrelevant to any argument. The future is theirs, our generation squandered ours but you seem to think it is fine to deny those who must repair the damage done to our world the best chance of doing so. It is again simplistic to suggest that working abroad poses no difficulties.There are work permits, visas, passports, medical clearances even issues such as sexual orientation or gender or race than inhibit the free movement of people. It is entirely ingenuous of you to suggest that things will go on as before. Nothing will ever be the same again. This act of self-harm has achieved the glorious objective of damaging the life-chances of millions and added to the global state of insecurity and anxiety. And for what? The risible notion that any individual State can survive in isolation, that Sovereignty is a God Given right and England needs no close friends except on its own terms is frankly arrogant. To make the assumption that we are so important to the world that no one would dare to upset us or refuse us the special privileges we just gave away is juvenile.
I see no need to argue the economics with you, that has already been done by the Chairman of the Bank of England, the Treasury, the World Bank et al et al, but your dismissal of the intellectual capabilities of “the young” is frankly specious. Wisdom and common sense have no correlation with age whatsoever. Some of the wisest and most knowing people I have met in my long life have been children let alone young adults. Older (and wiser? not at all necessarily) heads are more likely to be stuck in rigid thought patterns and the prejudices that they have acquired in order not to have to adapt to changed conditions. The “Young ” have the advantage of seeing through the bullshit fed to them by the Press and vested interests and are far more likely to see the world not just as it is but as it could be. I would sooner trust THEIR judgements than those of the cynical, corrupt bottom feeders that pass for Leaders today. In 10 or 15 years the young will be cursing you and your ilk and demanding retribution for the short-sighted irresponsible abdication of proper proper accountability and judgement.
And finally, if you think that a campaign of lies, twisted logic, assumptions pulled out of the ether, braggadocio promises made with nothing to back them up and abandoned as soon as the result was in are a basis for deciding the future of this or any other country then you should be living in North Korea.
As I understand from what I have read the BREXIT yes vote was mainly fueled by the voters’ dissatisfaction with the current performance of the Tory government and leaving the EU will not deal with that, it is more likely to increase it.
Excellent piece! I have joined the Liberal Democrats who will continue to fight to stop this madness.
Well said Bill. All this scaremongering and mass hysteria after one week is ridiculous behavior. One of the first facts I looked at was Norway and Switzerland. Both small compared with the UK.
Both are in Europe and are seen as such by the world and both are in the top 10.
(see Wikipedia – List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita).
Neither is bothered with EU membership.
But Norway and Switzerland both pay for access to the EEA, accept free movement of people and have no say in the development of EU law. At least one of those conditions will be unacceptable to the Brexit ministry, and should we wind up accepting both, further key promises of the Brexit movement will have been abandoned in addition to all the losses felt by the Remain supporters
“Our business and diplomatic partners abroad now see us as a regrettable source of instability, as unreliable partners, and as prone to sudden lurches in policy and naked national opportunism.” It is more complex that that. I have spent half my life working in or visiting the People’s Republic of China and voted remain because I feared that a leave vote would worsen our relationship with that country. However, recent comments in People’s Daily and China Daily (mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party) are only mildly regretful and emphasize potential opportunities for the PRC in re-negotiating trade and travel agreements.
Andy – just where and what is this wonderful country that believes in and acts upon all the good things you mention? Can’t think of one myself. ‘There is a world elsewhere.’ (Coriolanus) In my dreams.
A brilliant piece summing up some of my own feelings.
But I’m giving up.
I’m tired of fighting the good fight, of having to say something to racists emboldened in the erroneous belief that “half the country” is behind them.
I’m fed up of constantly seeing self-proclaimed Facebook experts mocking true expert opinion with oversimplified soubdbites straight from the mouths of politicians.
I’m exhausted by the lies from politicians and especially the one that started this whole issue. That EU membership is a matter for the people to vote on. We don’t have time or the inclination to become learned voters, we have had to rely on the spin from politicians. The issue of EU membership is incredibly complex and should have been an issue for Parliament and the Government to do what is right not for their political agendas but for the country.
As it is, they screwed it and us over.
I’ve had enough. I’m leaving this once Great Britain and emigrating to somewhere that realises the true benefit of immigration, of multiculturalism, intellectual opinion, true debate and building a better society not tearing one down.
Well said Andy. You are not alone in feeling this way. We all need to just wait a little to see what happens though I think but yes, I certainly won’t rule out leaving this place.
I am so disappointed and ashamed both in the behaviour of our politicians and such overt hatred and blinkered stupidity especially on a local level.
I thought I had woken up one morning to find half of the people I know had turned into monsters but then sadly I thought maybe they have always been and I simply hadn’t noticed. It is heart breaking.
Where are you off to then?
Yes – I have felt like hiding under my duvet all week and also felt physically sick. If I had known this would happen then I probably would have moved 20 years ago. My last hope is that Scotland can stay in the EU and become independent. You are very right – it was impossible to read enough to understand all the issues – certainly if you had an actual job !! or a family etc – you just would not have had time. I quickly managed to read that the £350m figure was false so that put me off Leave completely – the Guardian at least does some good journalism on this and exposed that one early on (before the election !)
Excellently put. Thanks.
Quite the most profound blog I have read since the Bexit result.
This also makes it clear why Boris Johnson had no right to run
for the Tory leadership!!
Really good piece Richard. Really appreciate it.
Thanks so much Richard – you sum up so well the terrible and continuing dismay that I am encountering in many, many friends and neighbours, academic colleagues, and NHS contacts.
If I wanted to play into the narrative that says Remain bitterness is driven by the rage of upscale elitists resentful at the oiks taking over, I don’t think I could have come up with better lines than…
“Of the four families I know well in West Dorset with children in their early twenties, every one of them have sons or daughters who either work in other EU countries or live here with Continental partners.”
or
“the Gove narrative that ‘we are tired of experts’ … effectively downgrades the esteem in which our educated young and older professionals are held. No wonder they are profoundly depressed.”
If “educated professionals” (typically, of course, paid well above the median) are depressed by their “downgraded esteem”, then obviously the price of Brexit must be too great.
Unfortunately, the same snobbery infects much of the letter. How about condescending to the befuddled older voter:
“it is most of us over fifty who have no idea how social and economic life really operates in the interdependent, fluid and digital age in which our children live.”
Implicitly, that ‘most of us’ means ‘except those, like the author, who voted Remain’.
How about dredging up some cliches about youthful idealism and the noble urban poor…
“What the young and cities do not take kindly to is populist politicians stirring up the mistaken view that social ills in the forgotten towns and villages are the fault of immigration or European integration or London ignoring them.”
To which, one might point out that ‘the young’ (18-24) were so exercised that barely any more voted to Remain than for other age groups – it’s just that their turnout was so low it looks like they were mad for it. As for ‘cities’ – it was typically the more prosperous cities which voted to Remain; of the rest, there were some close votes either way, and some that were decisively for Leave. The idea that the Leave vote was confined to old buffers in Tory shires is pretty much discredited by the sheer scale of it – more than have voted for anything in the UK’s history.
Coming back to these voters, I found this point…
“it is overwhelmingly students, young people and our great cities that vote for parties of the centre left that advocate, unlike your party, increased redistribution and investment into the UKIP voting areas that have suffered the ill-effects of globalisation.”
… entirely lacking in awareness of what happened in the last general election, let alone in the referendum. Set aside students and young people, who aren’t big on voting anyway, our “great cities” have indeed routinely voted in the centre left to increase “investment”, and have often received it. But having more money doesn’t address the fact that they’d like less immigration, something the centre left can seemingly never countenance any more. Perhaps they’re supposed to be grateful for their crumbs off the table, but I think we can understand why they’re not.
I would dispute what you say. Yes no doubt West Dorset sounds lovely. But I have come across the same in Glasgow. The fact is those now aged around 50, Thatchers Generation, where I live we came out of school to find hardly any jobs and great unemployment. But with time, things have gradually got better. Admittedly this was just for some. Unfortunately some got left behind. Personally i blame drugs as a massive reason for problems in society. But…to get back. … the fact is that some people managed to climb out of this mess, but now it feels like its even been ruined for them too. This will benefit nobody. Any problems I would personally blame the financial crisis, and perhaps the idea of public borrowing for PPI etc as opposed to the EU. Public and private borrowing and a lack of valuing of industry and creative industries – those making things. Too often our innovative startup companies are quickly bought up by large American corporations etc – we do not protect our intellectual property … lots of problems to be sorted. And the last thing we need is a whole lot of extra problems/jobs for civil servants/polticial types as they try and extricate us from the EU.
I’m guessing you voted ‘Leave’ – like those campaigning for that side you simply deride what is said.
This letter is to explain how people feel. There is no right or wrong – it just is.
If you cannot accept where people are without trying to put them down you essentially imply there will never be any reconciliation. Or do you think everyone should just submit and agree with you? Then what value is democracy or free speech?
Nature’s tendency is towards increasing integration and complexification.The exit vote flies in the face of this multi-billion year tendency. It is unwise to say the least
Given my warm personal relationships with many ‘leavers,’ I have found these Brexit conversations exasperating and personally very challenging. This post has a directness and even a hard edge in spots, but it also presumes what I desperately hope actually exists: a set of Leave supporters who are prepared to face the unpleasant implications of their choice. I’m particularly struck by the arguments about the generational divide. As parent of three twenty-something kids in the US, I’m certainly happy that our large labor market allows them to go where their skills are most useful and in demand. If Britain loses the functional equivalent of this advantage in the EU single market, it will be an extraordinary loss. I’d be tempted to call it a self-inflicted wound, but of course by the author’s reasoning, that’s not quite true: it’s a wound on the younger generation inflicted by the older.
I hate the way Remain accuses Leave of lying, without admitting the massive whoppers they themselves told.
– Where’s Osborne’s punishment budget? Oh, wait, there isn’t one.
– Why’s Mark Carney now downplaying the economic impact, when a week ago he forecast doom?
– Why’s the stockmarket above where it was before the vote?
– Why are the French now saying it’s possible to negotiate about freedom of movement?
– Why did Obama say we’d be at “the back of the queue”, then Paul Ryan has already come out in favour of a bilateral USA-UK trade deal?
– Why did Remain claim that the EU was democratic, when Jean-Claude Juncker has failed to resign over what is the biggest crisis in the EU’s history? What would make him quit, exactly?
– Why are most businesses say the decision won’t affect their planned investments?
– Why has the EU already told Scotland it can’t just break off and stay in the EU, and would instead have to go through an incredibly painful process to get back in that most Scots won’t vote for?
In order:
Before he was sacked, Osborne had to abandon the plan to balance the budget by 2020, which means years more austerity. What his successor will do is not yet known but could in effect be a series of punishment budgets, so it’s too early to say that it won’t happen. But it was a threat and that’s probably part of why he’s out of the job.
Carney was trying to reassure the markets after the vote, it’s his job.
The majority of the FTSE 100 companies are traded in US dollars but the FTSE is quoted in Pounds Sterling; the fall of the pound (as accurately predicted by the Remain campaign) makes dollars more valuable, so the ‘rise’ is a simple exchange-rate effect and noting to do with underlying business confidence.
Whatever the French might be saying about freedom of movement (can quote a source?) it won’t be up to them alone to decide and freedom of movement is one of the fundamental tenets of the EU.
Of course the US wants a bilateral deal with the UK if we’re out of the EU; no other kind would be available unless we were to join NAFTA. They see an opportunity to drive a hard bargain – we have few experienced negotiators and so would be at a severe disadvantage in the negotiations (especially as we’ll by trying to conduct dozens of others at the same time) and likely to get a poorer deal than we now have through the EU.
Just like a prime minister, Junker is in post until the end of his term. He was chosen by more people than Theresa May. If he’s the cause of the problems (and his comments during the campaign weren’t helpful) then he should help sort them out rather than running away like David Cameron and Boris Johnson did. There may be a mechanism to remove him but the vast majority of EU member states, to whom he answers, think he was doing the right thing, so why would they?
What evidence do you have that ‘most’ businesses are still saying this won’t affect planned investments? On the day after the referendum, Richard Branson announced that he would not be going ahead with a plan that would have created 3000 UK jobs; RyanAir and EasyJet are moving their focus (and one of them their headquarters) to the continent, many big banks and financial firms are lookjng at moving.
The EU has to apply the same accession criteria to any country that wants to join. Again, what evidence for your statement? The EU has made it clear that Scotland cannot remain ithe UK and the EU if the UK leaves.
The Remain outlooks is still the more realistic.
Thank you for this very thoughtful writing, Richard.
Thank you – wonderful piece and I wholeheartedly agree. Even more depressing than the result itself is the degradation of the political culture. Apparently it is now OK to base an entire campaign on what you acknowledge to be lies. This is deceit several orders of magnitude greater than selective or overly optimistic general election manifesto promises. I cannot think of any examples of a GE being won on a promise that was wholly false at the time it was made. The fraudulent claims of Boris et al are what make it so hard for Remainers to come to terms with the result. It is like being Lance Armstrong’s runner up in a Tour de France. And to be told that we are undemocratic to reject this utter perversion of democracy is the final straw.
Absolutely!
Ignoring all the annoying distortions in “Andy”‘s rambling piece, and noting he is “tired” and is “giving up”, ( my 68 years old self was tired during endless footslogging canvassing for this result and no I do not feel conned, thank you)….just one question….where IS the country that he is running off to now he feels so disillusioned with UK? This place with better democracy (yes ours far from perfect), no “lies”, better everything? And will they take him? Whoops that is 2 questions.
I thought that when ever there is an election the majority rules but I guess I was wrong. It seems that if an election is won it dose not matter whether the majority of voters win or not. That is okay because if we don’t like it we can just call for a new one. Dose that mean that we will keep on having election after election until those who don’t approve win. I think that as the majority of the people voted for LEAVE that it should be respected. I do know that I have great respect for being British as no matter what situations we get into we always come through OK. Right now I am a little ashamed of all the bickering that is going on instead of getting down to and doing the best for Britain. There is a lot of work to be done but we can do it and we can do what is best for the U.K. Don’t listen to what other countries all over the world saying they are looking out for their own interests. The people Voted. Get on with it. Rule Britania.
First of all, I am one of the 25 359 people who spoilt their ballot papers, which, while annoying to those counting votes, is a long-standing practice. I spoilt my paper by voting twice, but even if I and all the others had voted Remain, Leave would still have won. I dreaded the holding of the referendum, just as I dreaded its aftermath, and would have still have felt discomfort had Remain won.
I felt torn apart by this referendum, as someone whom you would think would instinctively vote Remain, given that I have a master’s degree, grew up abroad, speak several European languages and have often felt more comfortable being around people of other nationalities than with my own. I spent a third of my life in South London, and when I moved to the South West, I dreaded being seen as ‘white flight’.
Do I have sympathy with the views of those who voted Remain? Absolutely, because twenty-five years ago, I held them, or ones even more radical, as a Eurofederalist, and still feel that the problem with the EU is not that it has gone too far in that direction, it is that it has not gone far enough. However, I resent the idea that the UK has been the one stopping it from doing so, or is the culprit for ‘neoliberal’ policies being imposed on southern Europe.
There already was a forum for European countries before the European Communities, called the Council of Europe, of which the UK is a founder member, and no one in the UK has suggested it should join Belarus in leaving. Sure, it’s easy to laugh at Daily Express readers for thinking the European Court of Human Rights is a tool of Brussels, but how many Remain voters know the difference between the EU and the Council of Europe?
The whole point about universal suffrage is that anyone over a certain age can vote, and much as I would like to have restricted the franchise in this referendum to people who have degrees in international relations like me, who have taken the EU’s concours exams with a view to working in its institutions, that’s not how it works. The vote of a semi-literate yob in Romford is worth the same as that of a polenta-eating luvvie in Islington.
Are you suggesting that the Norwegians who voted against EU membership, and the Danes and Swedes who voted against adopting the euro were all white supremacist knuckle-draggers? As it happens, many people in Sweden on the left voted against EU membership because they saw it as a threat to environmental and social legislation, much of it brought about through the Nordic Council, which also pioneered freedom of movement.
Nothing ever, ever, justifies racial abuse, and I am sure that even if Remain had won, there would have been vindictive acts by mouth-breathers who would find any excuse to behave reprehensibly. No, they wouldn’t have run around with machetes like in East Timor in 1999, but there would still have been a toxic atmosphere, as in Quebec, where the independence campaign blamed ‘money and the ethnic vote’ for its (very narrow) defeat.
Higher education in this country was already damaged by marketisation decades ago, with non-EU students being treated as cash cows, so as the child of a British expatriate in Southeast Asia stung for overseas tuition fees, while classmates at my boarding school with a Dutch parent being considered home students, I have little sympathy, even for UK students studying at Dutch universities, who only do so because they now teach in English.
I loathe the way Daniel Hannan goes on about how he speaks French and Spanish, but pro-EU sentiment seems to be a cult of ignorance, which absolves one from knowing anything about the countries of Europe, their history, their politics, their cultures and their languages. Labour’s decision to make foreign languages optional at GCSE was an act of cowardice, but given the damage it did to education decades before, hardly surprising.
However, I would favour a second referendum, not because I want to reverse the decision, but because in the absence of a written constitution which can only be amended by referendum (as in Ireland) or compulsory voting (as in Australia) there should be a 40 per cent threshold, as there was in the Scottish devolution referendum in 1979, as well as a legal requirement to implement the change if approved (as in the AV referendum in 2011.)
“This post represents the views of the author and not those of the BrexitVote blog, nor the LSE.”
it represents mine though.
This excellent letter sets out every fear I have for the future of the UK.
An utterly delusional piece of writing and a morally unacceptable one. The whole “Brexiters are racists” line is a fantasy-just look at the tide of vituperation aimed at Leavers (let alone what is happening in the Labour Party now). Jo Cox was mudrerd by a man who was a long-term racist and probably mentally ill. His actions say nothing about other people. The Alliance of Bad Losers needs to justify its sense of viruous superiority and entitlement. The rest of us don’t have to pay any attention.
Well Done – your views reflect mine completely – I also have many many friends who either work abroad and live here (ie commute during the week), or have children who live and work in Europe. It is now a way of life. The wealth of our country is dependent on stabilitity and the ability to trade with Europe and elsewhere, all arranged via trade deals. With any instability this will fall through and our country will become poorer. This will be of no benefit to anyone.
So, in that the Brexiteers did not have a plan, lets call a hoalt to the whole thing.
I also wonder if there are possibilities of legal challenges – ex-pats have been quoted as not receiving voting forms. I also wonder about the European citizens who live and work here but had no vote. And also the lack of young people voting – was this due to the poor timing where many young people have left university for the summer and maybe head abroad to work/go on holiday/ Euro2016 ? and others are embroiled in exams. A polling organisation who phoned me said they were struggling to get hold of 18-24 year olds to survey. My kids at that point were away at the beach with pals, post exams !
As I understand from friends the yes vote was in a sense very much a mindless protest vote against the Tories which for them had unexpected consequences
Send something better than an email.
http://lettertoyourmp.com
Send a letter. Fill their desk with letters.
Paul , sadly or perhaps not so sadly, I am not a member of the British electorate.
How about the Labour supporters who wanted Brexit. They do exist you know. I am sure most in all European nations consider themselves European after their own national identity. The E U at the top level is an unaccountable organisation. Where did the Latvian Replacement come from, .for the British Commissioner.. The vast majority of leave voters are not Racists from Britain First or The E’D’L. And we definitely do not want to send them home. If they are legally here they are welcome to stay.
I meant the migrants and refugees are welcome.. Not the racists group.
Racism, along with many other ‘isms’ like tribalism, ageism, sexism etc., etc., is unconsciously ingested in childhood and is therefore a learned social dysfunction. This dysfunction can be unlearned as an adult, punishment of any kind is inappropriate.
So cultural diversity is great, but its ok to show disdain to the London cabbie who has concerns about the preservation of his culture. Furthermore his comments are lumped alongside those containing abhorrent racist abuse and the actions of a murderer. Unpleasant snobby article
The lies and deception in this campaign seriously undermine the validity of the result, and the speed with which the 2 leading orchestrators (…traitors?) of the leave campaign have been consumed by the fires they have fanned and fuelled speaks volumes.
Farage’s public appearances sink to a nadir with his despicable ‘not a shot fired’ comment just days after Jo Cox MP was murdered in an act clearly linked to a key core group endorsing the leave campaign’s objectives, through to his (in his mind) valedictory speech at the European Parliament. the sheer brass neck of the man who for 17 years has taken money, only to undermine and abuse the ‘goodwill’ of the EU – his ‘sponsor’. Who, from an earlier career of opportunist paper shuffling, turned around and posed to gloat that none of those others present in the chamber had done a day’s work before becoming MEP’s. Instead he showed himself to be a dwarf amongst giants, and my only regret is that some of the giants slipped into heckling and booing – a silent and visible boycott might have been even more effective – perhaps steadiiy, obviously and silently rendering the session inquorate, so that the chair could invoke standing orders and invalidate Farage’s last speech to the assembly, potentially striking it from the official record.
So where have we arrived now? Perhaps at a turning point in UK politics where, at a stroke we have the opportunity to break the 2-party prize-fight which has degenerated into a system seriously vulnerable to the influence of powerful external institutions and the individuals who own and run them. Both of the comfortably established parties are imploding with divisive infighting which will not disappear when they have a ‘result’. We have clear unfinished business with 57 Tory MP’s whose seats could be voided for election fraud in 2015, We have MP’s whose duplicity of campaigning fervently for the remain cause has now become one of working to deliver a departure, with no thought to seek a mandate from their constituencies.
We have the very result founded on campaigns of lies and fabrications, and some serious questions which bear further investigation, on the way that voters have been disenfranchised by cock-up … or conspiracy, or ‘shepherded’ much in the same way that Jim Sillars of the SNP was ousted in Govan, by Labour, in a highly organised mobilisation of voters who would favour their cause. Three interesting questions to ask
1) Many of the British Citizens living and working in Europe who retained a voting right, applied for postal votes. They were sent the wrong papers, and wrong return envelopes, late, with some not making the posting deadline at all, and others uncertain over ballots posted with less than 48 hours to the poll date. There are also many furious British Citizens who through circumstances of their long term employment have been denied a vote. So just how many postal vote applications were received, what papers were sent out and when, and how many postal votes came back, in time, or delayed. Given that there is a clear commitment to vote implied by requesting a postal or proxy vote, once would expect a high percentage of postal votes being returned. How can we find this out?
2) The high percentage of older voters voting should be scrutinised closely. How does this compare with other votes for example. I sense that the age profile for this poll is skewed by comparison with almost every other recent election. Many older voters are a key audience for campaigners to offer ‘help’ to when it comes to voting. Options can extend beyond a lift to the Polling Place, and include assistance with filling in forms for a postal or proxy vote. It would not be a first time for a ‘production line’ processing operation, as noted by those living near to party offices in past elections. It might be an interesting sampling exercise to see the percentages for personal, postal and proxy voting by age band. i have a strong hunch that the highest level of personal voting was from the youngest age groups, and if there is a major disparity between ratios for any age group, over recent polls, this deserves closer inspection.
3) Personation – I’ve owned, and first lived in, then rented a flat in a Glasgow close for the past 26 years, and a few years ago stood for a place on the local council. In doing this I got to study the electoral register, which included the 8 2-bedroom flats in that close. There were 18 registered voters, and 6 (apparently) at just one address. With my local knowledge I knew that only 2 of those people listed, still lived in the close, and some had moved away over a decade ago. Despite pointing out the inaccuracies, and learning of further shortcomings (well known personalities no longer living in Scotland, apparently still registered at their former addresses) I was still finding that Polling Cards for these long absent voters were still being delivered, and at one stage had a pile of at least 10 cards, which could have easily been used for personation by an organised group. An interesting, and challenging detail to square up? It may also explain why we may have apparently low turn out for some polls if there is such a high percentage of void voters on the electoral roll.
Weave in also the the call by way of parliamentary reforms to consider the ability for a constituency to irritate the de-selection of an MP who has clearly changed their position from that on which they were elected, by, for example, crossing the floor.
We now also have in essence no government, with the Prime Minister resigning but doing this without offering a date on which this takes place. Without a government our Head of State must surely be anxious to get one back in place, but also to get a government which has the mandate of the people. the clearest solution, and one which would, at a stroke sort out the melt down of the 2 major parties has to be a General Election, and sharpish please. Constitutionally, I believe it is possible to petition the Head of State, but how to go about this?
One consequence of this campaign and result is that it has forced many out into the daylight to ‘Come Out’ (ironic to use such a term commonly used by the LGBT community for some of the individuals and groups so vehemently hostile to them). The one ray of sunlight here is that we now know who these individuals are, and their divisive and hostile views towards others in the national, and world community. Let’s make the most of these opportunities to deliver that one world vision.
Yes, and yes again, an inclusive vision is what needs to be promoted.
This is the best piece I have read on Brexit and the grief it fills me with.
I am 33 and a qualified translator. The EU has offered me a huge amount of opportunities; free movement, funding and a pan-European social network. I consider myself English, British, Welsh and European.
I am discussed with the vote and will be leaving the country as a result. With me I will be taking the fluent German, French and Russian knowledge that the EU gave me. And believe me this country needs language skills. I am not the only young professional who will be leaving the country as a result. I have seen the benefits of the EU first hand, and am utterly unconvinced by the vision of a future Britain put forward by those arguing for Brexit. It seems to me a bad idea about to tested to destruction.
It’s been a while since the Brexit referendum passed. Instead of doing the will of the winning majority, what I see are a bunch of losers. Whining, moaning, complaining, crying and bitching all day long. Now, these bad losers are thinking of redoing the referendum. Are they frickin’ kidding me? There is no good reason for redoing the referendum unless there is evidence of shenanigans. The British voting process is one of the most admired and democratic in the world. Even more democratic than the US. If these dumb-ass Brits get their way to redo the referendum, it will turn the whole British political system on its head. The global consequences will be far more greater than Brexit. London will lose its most coveted standing as the #1 world financial center because the integrity factor is gone. In the financial world, if you lose your integrity, you lose everything. You are pretty much screwed. On the other hand, hypothetically, redoing the referendum might turn out to be a good thing. Hell, yeah. Give them what they want. Stick it to them. Who cares. It’s their god damned country anyway. How bad can it get. Let’s face it. This country already has gone to the dogs. It can’t get any worse than this. God save the Queen!
The yes campaign was based on lies, where is the integrity in that?
The people responsible for ‘doing the will of the winning majority’ are the government. It turned out that none of the incumbents wanted that responsibility, including those who led the Leave campaign, except for Michael Gove, who didn’t even come close to getting the PM’s job. This alone could be considered ‘shenanigans’ that would make the outcome unsafe, without looking into the major repeated lies that formed central planks of the Leave campaign’s arguments and which were all dropped within hours of the result.
I agree that a second referendum with a different result would lead to at least as much bad feeling as the first one has but if it had proper thresholds set for vote and turnout no one could make the arguments that are now being made. London will probably lose its standing as the financial centre anyway post-Brexit unless it can renegotiate the passporting agreement that allows firms base there to trade across the EU.
As for looking stupid, we already do in the eyes of most of the world. Whether we make ourselves look even stupider is up to us.
The leave campaign was fueled by the lies told to the electorate. Everybody now seems to accept that surely this alone invalidates the referendum.
Send it to all 650 MPs like Professor Grayling did! Excellent! I’m going to share it with my Remain Group, if you don’t mind. We are just getting stonewalled by MPs.
Before I make any other comment, may I point out what my father used say, “People insult others of whom they are afraid”. May I suggest that we would all be well advised to stop this divisive and unintelligent practice.
Anybody with logical, honest, analytical capabilities should admit that the EU as it currently functions cannot survive. Maybe, with centralised (dictatorial) Government, economic and legal policies, the Euro (and therefore the EU) stands a chance: but at the probable expense of democracy.
If anybody truly wants that, then we are never likely to compromise amongst ourselves.
In my more philosophical younger days, I thought that a world Government would one day be necessary. Then, after reading the book “1984”, studying economic history, banking and the rise and fall of empires, it was clear that humans in power cannot restrict themselves only to the good of all: the desire of those with power is an overwhelming aim of keeping power, because they always know better.
Any honest commentator must also admit that the UK has had almost nil success when attempting to improve the EU from within – one good example is the CAP, which the Germans and French promised to reform, but reneged on with their inaction. Anything with which they do or did not agree with is ignored.
As a multi-lingual, former export salesman plus economics from same ‘school’ as Jeremy Warner and with many years to discuss these affairs with intelligent people in German (y) et al, may I suggest that the original writer should also have talked to families and Managing Directors on the Continent and in the north of England, employing his logical, honest analytical brain, but without the political undertones which are predominant in the LSE.
We all know that Germany has profited most from the EU. They dominate the technical committees and their Government has a way of supporting technical advances to their advantage – ably supported by the Euro which is depressed due to debt levels in the southern member countries. I admit they think further ahead and do have risk-takers and engineers high in industry.
Of course the people who now work in the EU are worried about their financial future. The Scots and that small part of England north of Watford have the same worries, but cannot understand why democracy in the EU (and the UK) is not working. We do not understand why the Bureaucrats working for the EU cannot balance their budgets, in spite of the very high salaries.
For this referendum HM Government started their “Project Fear”, using our money. This was before ‘Leave’ uttered a word. As with Edward Heath and Harold Wilson, we may discover the real truth in 20 years time.
Firstly, therefore, the economic statements emanating from Government should therefore be analysed. Our Parliamentarians, who had no intention of leaving the decision to the people, made many statements about supposed and bogus risks, but few could have been described as informative to help the voter. Economic forecasts for 2028, when normal forecasts from the BoE and Treasury are inaccurate year on year, were incredible in their self-conviction, assurance and dis-honesty.
We are now seeing the same Parliamentarians trying to ignore a democratic vote. If they succeed, another Farage, who will not have been wearied by the efforts of 17 years pushing uphill against the EU steamroller and the British Government, is certain to emerge. Unfortunately, our centralised machine is likely to see the danger and remove it quietly. Nevertheless it may not be at all “gentlemanly” this time, especially if a lady take up the reins.
The ‘Leave’ Groupings did not have access to all the research and PR facilities of Government and their predictions were based partly on hope that the UK could and would rise to the occasion as we always have in the past. The £350 billion talked about actually ignores the fact that much of the money returning to us goes to the farmers in return for adhering to quotas and EU policies. Where does our milk come from? Is the butter coming from New Zealand, bought and packed in Denmark by Arla Foods still part of our milk quota or Denmark’s?
Many of the other grants (from Brussels) are for EU promotion and solidarity.
As far as losing our identity, any hope that the identity of an EU citizen amongst 500 million can replace our own British identity is foolish – we must admit that every country in the EU, some more than others, has and pushes their own interests. Only with reluctance, do we admit that we are all British. Why do the numbers of employed EU Bureaucrats does not reflect the EU countries populations. How can our temporate, sea surrounded climate produce the same personalities as hot countries.
As per an earlier correspondent, I found years ago that I was free to travel round Europe. This was fantastic – BUT that was before the EU. All I needed was the (black) passport. In the former USSR states I still needed a visa, but it was not the EU that removed those barriers.
We now see that free movement is again being restricted due to other forces: individual countries are having to impose their own security controls. Would the younger generation please note.
I am still one of this minor group which believes that the UK is better than the EU: maybe mistakenly, but every nation has its own specialities. Even our politicians were better than the pseudo democratic system of the EU.
Unfortunately, these days both are dictating to us how we should live,
May I request that all that majority of our presumed intelligentsia who voted ‘Remain’, especially including our university academics, stop looking first at their own personal circumstances.
Please consider whether we have a greater opportunity to preserve our freedoms inside or outside the EU. Forget the economics – if we work at it, we shall be less controlled, not required to fit into ticked boxes, more efficient and therefore more competitive as a result. If one cannot admit to that possibility, it must be because one thinks one already works as efficiently and as hard as one can: fortunately, I was taught in industry, “There is always a better way”.
With current trends, we shall not even need or have a Government of our own within the near future.
The Balance of Payments crisis, which has been ignored for years using borrowed money, is now the biggest problem we have. Inside the EU we would have to balance the books as per the Greek example. We might be better at it, but who would be deciding and with what objective?
As a final note, does anybody honestly think that the EU policy on expansion eastwards, especially including the Ukraine, is likely to guarantee the security and freedom in Europe in the same way that NATO – not the EU – has provided us? Has the UK had any say in that policy?
Democracy, freedom and truth are what are at stake.
People accorded power get drawn to abusing it, that is human nature. Therefore any political dispensation which does not have an inbuilt mechanism for the electorate to immediately recall elected representatives who renege on the mandate that they were elected on is bound to fail in the long term.
You raise a lot of interesting points that bear further study but I’d just like to respond to the one about identity.
The point that the original writer alludes to and which I’ve not yet seen any Leave voter acknowledge or accept, is that to many Remainers, the sense of identity as a European was *in addition* to that of being British not instead of it.
Being part of the EU meant an extension and enhancement to one’s sense of identity that in no way compromised or diminished the national identity. I was a British European. Now I’m just British, as long as that still means something.
Yes, we will still be able to visit other countries, but as foreigners, guests (even when welcomed) is not the same as feeling that we have many of the same rights as the others who live there by choice or accident of birth and that we were part of the same collective enterprise. And we were happy to accord the same rights to other EU nationals within the UK.
For those who feel that way, Brexit is a diminution of identity, a shrinking of our collective space, a loss of rights and ironically enough, a reduction in freedom.
Absolutely, a retreat into a ‘little England’ mentality masquerading as returning to the glory days of Empire, a wilful delusion.
Today in London & the South East there are positions on building sites paying £7.50-£8.50 ph, two years ago it was around £10-£13 ph, and even that level was lower than previously, due to the mass influx of EU Migrants.
Today they are earning 1980’s wage levels again.
Outside of Construction, in factory production lines and food processing plants etc.. around Greater London the wage offered is way below the £9.40 ph “London Living Wage”, often it is around the minimum of £7.20-£7.40 ph using Non-EU Migrants.
This has had the obvious effect of putting our home grown population either out of work, or into “in work poverty”.
As following Brexit it looks like these existing migrants are going to stay, and continue the above status quo.
It begs the question “are British people right to begin an uprising against the migrant lead poverty situation, or should they stay quiet and let it continue as now, and be forever in poverty”? Should they just sit still and take it? Remember the home grown are now almost permanently out of work, and are being badgered and sanctioned by the state for not finding enough work to apply for.
And you remainers wonder why we bring up Immigration all the time.
To the home grown person on the London street, those migrants will keep them out of work forever.
That is where the anger is that is over-spilling onto the streets.
This thinking is too restricted. Perhaps the way the economy functions is the problem and the fact that the employment of immigrants is depressing wages is an indicator of that rather than the immigrants being the problem
Also worth pointing out, that because the wages now are so low, those who before only did construction, warehouse, driving etc.. are now also taking on Cleaning etc,, as the main wage, as it is less dangerous ore stressful but now pays the same.
Let us face it, if the migration never happened, we would not be suffering now.
Damned by our own for relying on the taxpayer, and damned and sanctioned by the state for not finding enough jobs to do or apply for. Also for blaming those who are keeping the wages down: the migrants who promise to do the work for such low wage levels.
You don’t think that the employers who will offer such low wage levels to boost their profitability are in any way to blame?
At last some sanity.
“First, a loss of identity: many Remain voters in our great cities, universities and beyond genuinely identified with being European, with being outward looking and tolerant. They deeply value two-way migration for cultural as well as economic reasons. And many of them – me included – are in profound shock at waking up to find it is suddenly acceptable in broad swathes of the country (and among leading Leave campaigners) to blame the other, the foreigner, those of other religions for social ills that are almost entirely home grown.”
Yet your letter offers no recognition that the very same animus drove the Leave vote
At last a voice of reason on what must surely have been the biggest confidence trick since the sale of London Bridge.
Imagine you are buying a car and you are told yes, the fuel consumption is A the engine performance is B and it seats comfortably six persons. When you test drive the vehicle you find that none of the above items promised are accurate what do you do? If you have any sense you return the vehicle and say ” None of the items promised are attainable and you should be prosecuted for misrepresentation” In the case of the referendum likewise, it is now evident that none of the things promised were attainable either. The difference being that it is highly unlikely that anyone will be prosecuted for misrepresentation.in this case.
Having read an article by Graham Wood who I believe was one of the Leave planners he openly admits that there never was a post Brexit plan their intention was simply to get the vote to leave the EU. Whatever happened afterwards was not their problem. It was up to the government of the day to negotiate the best deal.
Now forgive me if I am wrong but is that not the same as asking someone directions for the quickest way to reach you required destination without informing you that you need to be a skilled mountaineer as the route includes scaling a cliff and the taking a boat across an ocean containing dangerous sharks and jelly fish. The clear message being it is not what information you are given as the information you are not given.
You may now be surprised to learn that the writer of this missive is a 77 year old fogey who is a confirmed “Remoaner” as some people like to call us. This one however likes to deal in facts such as, besides devaluing the currency, downgrading the credit rating, increasing the price of goods bought from the EU at the same time giving the Europeans a discount currently averaging 10% just what have our ” Leave” friends achieved?
The answer is quite simply this: They have caused the biggest racial problem since the “Fifties” , setting friend against friend, Family against Family and in addition to this one can include causing a split right down the centre of the United Kingdom. Taken as a whole Not a bad day’s work!!!!