{"id":13796,"date":"2019-03-23T23:26:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-23T23:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/?p=13796"},"modified":"2019-05-06T10:21:29","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T09:21:29","slug":"why-i-wasnt-marching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidvigar.co.uk\/why-i-wasnt-marching\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I wasn’t marching"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wish I supported a \u2018people\u2019s vote\u2019. I really do. Life would be so much easier. I\u2019d be on the same side as many of my friends. I\u2019d have been marching through London for a \u2018People\u2019s Vote\u2019. But I\u2019m not. And I didn\u2019t. I have respect for my marcher friends. In time I may even agree with them. But right now I don\u2019t. And here\u2019s why \u2013 three reasons.<\/p>\n

\"\"Promises <\/strong><\/p>\n

The first reason is that promises are promises. In 2016 the Government sent a leaflet to every household in the country saying: \u201cThis is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.\u201d For me, the imperative to keep that promise outweighs all the objections.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid Cameron\u2019s Tory government shouldn\u2019t have made the promise.\u201d<\/em> Well they did. Her Majesty\u2019s Government said the vote would count.<\/p>\n

\u201c52% is only 37% of all voters.\u201d<\/em> You can\u2019t change the rules after the event. If we wanted a two-thirds majority we should have agreed that before the vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was advisory.\u201d <\/em>Technically \u2013 but people were told it would be implemented. No politician said it would be advisory before the referendum.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeavers have died and Remainers have reached voting age.\u201d<\/em> What does that mean? A new general election every time a certain number of people die?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Leavers lied and broke the law.\u201d<\/em> This is the strongest argument for me. But sadly it has been to the Court of Appeal and judicial review was refused<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a referendum because most people don\u2019t like the deal and Parliament can\u2019t agree; the chaos means you have to go back to the people.\u201d<\/em> I agree that most MPs don\u2019t like the deal. The public appear split \u2013 roughly a third for, a third against and a third \u2018don\u2019t knows\u2019.[1]<\/a> But it doesn\u2019t inexorably follow that you then have to go back to a fresh vote, especially when Labour and Conservatives went into the 2017 election committed to respecting the result. . The public simply voted out, not any particular brand of out. \u00a0\u00a0There may be a Parliamentary majority for a soft Brexit. Politicians just haven\u2019t figured out how to demonstrate it. Next week, if Corbyn compromises with the likes of Letwin and Boles, they may.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrexit will be a disaster.\u201d <\/em>This is the weakest argument of all. It\u2019s what we argued in 2016 and we lost.<\/p>\n

All of these arguments are just that – arguments. And an argument can\u2019t overturn a ballot. It needs to be legitimised by a judicial or Parliamentary decision. It may just be that Parliament supports a new referendum \u2013 if Labour whip MPs that way \u2013 a big \u2018if\u2019. That would provide legitimacy, but it would still amount to a small number of people over-ruling millions.<\/p>\n

I agree with the person who said: \u201cI do think it\u2019s seriously disrespectful and politically utterly counterproductive to say: \u2018sorry guys, you got it wrong, let\u2019s try again\u2019.\u201d That was Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat leader, speaking in 2016.\u00a0 He\u2019ll say that was then and this is a different vote, but it\u2019s still an \u2018in-or-out\u2019 referendum for the second time in three years. I think it fails the duck test \u2013 ie walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, therefore is a duck.<\/p>\n

Divided Britain <\/strong><\/p>\n

And in fact, I think Cable\u2019s line about a second vote being \u2018politically counter-productive\u2019 is more important long-term than the disrespect point.<\/p>\n

The main reason I am heartbroken about the 2016 referendum is not that we are leaving the EU but that I live in a horribly divided country where 17 million people could vote for what I believe to be a toxic, nationalistic lie.\u00a0 In essence, the lie is that the EU is the Fourth Reich when in fact it is the opposite, not one fascist nation but 28 democratic ones, not a super-state but a group of states, not an oppressor but a force for peace. It is a project that has stopped Europeans killing each other and brought them together in a single market of 500 million people with high standards of living.<\/p>\n

I have thought a lot about how a majority of Britons could have ignored voices of experience from politics, business and academia who were explaining these points and chose instead to believe the alternative reality offered by the Mail, Sun, Express and social media.<\/p>\n

And what I think is this. Brexit isn’t the root problem. And stopping Brexit won’t fix it. The big problem is that Britain is a bitterly divided country; divided between a contended group of \u2018haves\u2019 – typically graduates with good jobs and nice homes – and an angry, bitter, alienated class of \u2018have-nots\u2019 whose views have been shaped by decades of government neglect and media deceit. The UK has the fourth highest level of inequality in Europe. The top fifth earn 12 times what the bottom fifth earn.[2]<\/a> Millions come from families where no-one goes to university or gets a well-paid job.\u00a0 Working-class Britain sees middle-class Britain prospering, going on nice holidays, driving around in new cars \u2013 and it gets bloody angry.<\/p>\n

Not only are the people at the bottom poor. They are also largely poorly educated \u2013 through no fault of their own. The establishment has failed to provide them with decent education or opportunities for generations. After the second world war, the Labour government ensured that the poorest in society had physical assets – homes and healthcare. But we never provided equality of opportunity. State schools have not been well resourced enough to overcome the lack of motivation or aspiration at home. Social background has remained the biggest factor in determining educational attainment.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

And we have not told people the truth. While Germany and other European countries taught their kids the horrific facts about the rise of Hitler and Holocaust, we taught our kids the myth that the British Empire was a good thing and that the Second World War was won by Britain without help from the US or the USSR \u2013 which lost 20 times as many fighters. And if you don\u2019t tell people the truth, lies will fill the void. Along come the Sun, Mail and Cambridge Analytica to tell people that their problems are down to migrants and Brussels.<\/p>\n

Leave campaign leader Dominic Cummings has said his team used a \u2018baseball bat marked Turkey \/ NHS \/ \u00a3350m\u2019.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 That meant suggesting 76 million Turks \u2013 Turkey\u2019s entire population – were about to invade Britain. It meant claiming Britain gave \u00a3350m a week to the EU – when the actual figure is about \u00a3180m. And it meant saying Brexit was good for the NHS – when it means losing staff. In other words it was all tonk. But instead of focusing on nailing those lies, \u00a0what did the Remain campaign do to attract all those people who feel they can\u2019t get any worse off? It told them they\u2019d be worse off.<\/p>\n

No wonder 70% of those with no qualifications voted leave while 70% of those with a degree voted remain.[5]<\/a> But the result is a massive test of judgement for those well-educated Remainers. We can easily argue that we are seeking a second vote to save everyone, of all classes, from the damage Brexit will do to jobs and living standards. But there is something horribly patrician about telling less fortunate people you want to save them from their own decision. And there is something even more unsettling about middle-class self-interest \u2013 graduates, many of whom didn\u2019t get involved in the original campaign in 2016, now trying to reverse the result because they want the EHIC card, an EU passport and the Erasmus programme.<\/p>\n

What if? <\/strong><\/p>\n

The third reason I\u2019m against another referendum is the result \u2013 either way. Remain is not a certainty and losing twice would be a catastrophe. Remainers currently lead in the polls but they did before 2016 and we should not underestimate the power of the forces that won then. But I worry more about winning. A big chunk of the electorate would be furious, with some justification, and the stage would be set for a right-wing demagogue to rouse the poorest against the rich. It\u2019s been the strategy of every dictator from Mao to Milosevic to turn the working class against the middle class. Nigel Farage may look like a clown at this moment with his rag-tag bunch of marchers. But what if, say, 13 million people remain hard leavers who feel the old parties have betrayed them. That\u2019s the number that voted for Labour in 1997 and the Tories in 2017. It only took two years for the old French parties to melt down and gift the top two places in the 2017 election to Macron and the National Front. And what happens here if there is no Macron equivalent? The new Independent Group of MPs has been getting airtime but Farage\u2019s Brexit party is getting members \u2013 100,000 he claims.<\/p>\n

As Anand Menon, Director of The UK in a Changing Europe, puts it: \u201cThe divide in values in British society that burst into the open following the 2016 vote would remain entrenched, reinforcing the problems already faced by our party system in attempting to contain it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is not the short-term one of the referendum result – and the solution is not to overturn it. The problem is the long-term one of failure to build a cohesive society and the solution involves a lot more than a referendum. It means redistribution of opportunity and a more educated society \u2013 investing to turn round sink estates and struggling schools, with better education and training to give people new life chances \u2013 including learning about government, politics and the EU.<\/p>\n

In short, we should start doing the things we have failed to do over decades to put our society right, answering anger with opportunity and combating ignorance with truth.<\/p>\n

Leaving the EU, if it happens, will hopefully show people the truth. Provided pro-Europeans aren\u2019t as amateur in our communications as we were in 2016, people will see how deeply they were deceived. The power of the right-wing media deceit machine and demagogues like Farage will be broken and the road clear to become a mature democracy like Germany or the Nordic countries.<\/p>\n

In time that will mean re-joining the EU \u2013 but as a natural consequence of having a more settled and informed democracy, rather than as the bitterly contested outcome of a vote in a society that remains dysfunctional.<\/p>\n

As I write, Paddy Power\u2019s odds on a second referendum are 5\/2 against; but the odds of applying to re-join the EU by 2027 are 6\/5 on.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 I\u2019m working on the second.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/yougov.co.uk\/topics\/politics\/articles-reports\/2019\/03\/12\/41-26-britons-want-mps-reject-theresa-mays-brexit-<\/a><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/the-8-major-economies-with-most-inequality-2017-8?r=US&IR=T#-6-united-kingdom-036-2<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/lums\/news\/social-inequality-affects-education-more-than-any-government-policy-new-study-finds<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> https:\/\/blogs.spectator.co.uk\/2017\/01\/dominic-cummings-brexit-referendum-won\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> https:\/\/www.ipsos.com\/ipsos-mori\/en-uk\/how-britain-voted-2016-eu-referendum<\/a><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/news\/8018307\/brexit-no-deal-odds-second-referendum-bookmakers\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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