Quote of the day 30th December 2018
"Brexit is born of a misreading of the nature of the EU, but the Remain side’s misreading of Brexit voters is almost as bad and sometimes worse.
It’s still far, far too common to hear in Remainer circles tropes about Leavers being misled and bamboozled into their vote, or perhaps bewitched by internet-wizards and Russian enchanters.
And click on #FBPE and you’ll quickly find someone impugning the motives of Leave voters. It pains me that even some of the people I admire most on this side of the debate have signed up to the claim that voting Leave was often an act of racism. There is no convincing evidence to support that hunch.
Another Remain narrative is truly awful: ‘relax, we just need to wait because Leavers are all OAPs who are slowly dying off.’ This, I think, is about as nasty and divisive as any of the anti-immigration scare stories of the Leave campaign. It’s also based on a misreading of the evidence (Leave won among all voters over 45, and possibly the 35-45 bracket too).
And more importantly, it exposes the continued failure of Remain campaigners to treat the people who disagree with them with respect, to respect and attempt to understand their motives and answer their concerns.
If your best hope of winning in politics is to pray for the death of those who aren’t persuaded by your arguments, neither you nor your arguments are any good.
Which is why, I suspect, the significant shift in public opinion some Remainers consider inevitable still hasn’t arrived."
Extract from an excellent Spectator article by James Kirkup, who voted Remain, about the failure of too many people on all sides of the Brexit debate to face up to reality.
The article is called "2018: the year that exposed the Brexit fantasies on all sides,"
and you can read it in full here.
It’s still far, far too common to hear in Remainer circles tropes about Leavers being misled and bamboozled into their vote, or perhaps bewitched by internet-wizards and Russian enchanters.
And click on #FBPE and you’ll quickly find someone impugning the motives of Leave voters. It pains me that even some of the people I admire most on this side of the debate have signed up to the claim that voting Leave was often an act of racism. There is no convincing evidence to support that hunch.
Another Remain narrative is truly awful: ‘relax, we just need to wait because Leavers are all OAPs who are slowly dying off.’ This, I think, is about as nasty and divisive as any of the anti-immigration scare stories of the Leave campaign. It’s also based on a misreading of the evidence (Leave won among all voters over 45, and possibly the 35-45 bracket too).
And more importantly, it exposes the continued failure of Remain campaigners to treat the people who disagree with them with respect, to respect and attempt to understand their motives and answer their concerns.
If your best hope of winning in politics is to pray for the death of those who aren’t persuaded by your arguments, neither you nor your arguments are any good.
Which is why, I suspect, the significant shift in public opinion some Remainers consider inevitable still hasn’t arrived."
Extract from an excellent Spectator article by James Kirkup, who voted Remain, about the failure of too many people on all sides of the Brexit debate to face up to reality.
The article is called "2018: the year that exposed the Brexit fantasies on all sides,"
and you can read it in full here.
Comments
The last time anyone attempted to put into practice the idea that an entire nation should bear collective guilt or responsibility or that every man, woman and child in a country deserved something was in the Versailles Treaty negotiations which took place following the end of World War I a hundred years ago last month.
Look how that turned out.