The Brexit culture war continues ...
As a reminder of where I am coming from before discussing the ongoing Brexit argument ...
I agonised for a long time during the EU referendum campaign about which way was in Britain's best interests before eventually voting Remain.
If I was sent back in some kind of time warp to the day I filled out my postal ballot I would still vote Remain. The events of the past 20 months have demonstrated that, just as I argued at the time, both campaigns were right on some things but wrong on many others and both were grossly overstating their respective cases. Add up the issues on which the Remain narrative appears to fit what has happened so far and those on which the Leave narrative has, and there is enough on both sides of the ledger that it isn't actually surprising that not too many people have changed their minds.
(Of course, one of the things about which hardliners on both sides are selective in the evidence they notice in opposite directions is that, while opinion polls have actually been all over the place, each side tends to remember those polls which suggest that public opinion has moved in their favour and forget those which don't. Hence both sets of ultras share an equally unfounded conviction that a clear majority of the electorate is now on their side.)
What many Remain voters like myself who are also democrats have done is accept the majority verdict of the electorate, something which some of the ultras seem to find extremely difficult to do.
But I will admit to being more frightened by the absolutism which I see in the hardliners on both sides of the argument than I am by anything which Brexit in itself will do to Britain. I have far more in common with those who voted the opposite way to me but are able to debate how we implement Brexit in a reasonable and constructive way than I have with the ultras on either side.
Indeed, I am quite worried by those to whom anyone who puts the democratic decision of the people above their own views is a knowingly sabotaging Britain, or those to whom anyone who uses their democratic and legal rights to fight for what they think is best for our county is an "enemy of the people," those to whom those on the wrong side are stupid, uneducated, racist and xenophobic bigots or arrogant, out of touch, unpatriotic elitists, and in both cases, to whom anyone who takes a different view is deluded and living in a fantasy world, a traitor, or both
What we are seeing amounts to a culture war.
Ed West argues in a worryingly persuasive Spectator article called "Citizenship is Dead" that making common cause based on similarity of beliefs is replacing other forms of community, and that political differences are becoming almost as entrenched as religious ones can be. He writes
"It’s simply impossible to reason with anyone who has entrenched opinions about Brexit, on either side."
a view which I find a lot more accurate than I like.
We need to recover some of the tolerance and respect for different views on which Britons used to pride ourselves. And we need to do so fast.
I agonised for a long time during the EU referendum campaign about which way was in Britain's best interests before eventually voting Remain.
If I was sent back in some kind of time warp to the day I filled out my postal ballot I would still vote Remain. The events of the past 20 months have demonstrated that, just as I argued at the time, both campaigns were right on some things but wrong on many others and both were grossly overstating their respective cases. Add up the issues on which the Remain narrative appears to fit what has happened so far and those on which the Leave narrative has, and there is enough on both sides of the ledger that it isn't actually surprising that not too many people have changed their minds.
(Of course, one of the things about which hardliners on both sides are selective in the evidence they notice in opposite directions is that, while opinion polls have actually been all over the place, each side tends to remember those polls which suggest that public opinion has moved in their favour and forget those which don't. Hence both sets of ultras share an equally unfounded conviction that a clear majority of the electorate is now on their side.)
What many Remain voters like myself who are also democrats have done is accept the majority verdict of the electorate, something which some of the ultras seem to find extremely difficult to do.
But I will admit to being more frightened by the absolutism which I see in the hardliners on both sides of the argument than I am by anything which Brexit in itself will do to Britain. I have far more in common with those who voted the opposite way to me but are able to debate how we implement Brexit in a reasonable and constructive way than I have with the ultras on either side.
Indeed, I am quite worried by those to whom anyone who puts the democratic decision of the people above their own views is a knowingly sabotaging Britain, or those to whom anyone who uses their democratic and legal rights to fight for what they think is best for our county is an "enemy of the people," those to whom those on the wrong side are stupid, uneducated, racist and xenophobic bigots or arrogant, out of touch, unpatriotic elitists, and in both cases, to whom anyone who takes a different view is deluded and living in a fantasy world, a traitor, or both
What we are seeing amounts to a culture war.
Ed West argues in a worryingly persuasive Spectator article called "Citizenship is Dead" that making common cause based on similarity of beliefs is replacing other forms of community, and that political differences are becoming almost as entrenched as religious ones can be. He writes
"It’s simply impossible to reason with anyone who has entrenched opinions about Brexit, on either side."
a view which I find a lot more accurate than I like.
We need to recover some of the tolerance and respect for different views on which Britons used to pride ourselves. And we need to do so fast.
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