It is past time Leave and Remain supporters moved on from insulting each other.
The decision whether to vote leave or remain was for me an "on balance" decision with strong reasons arguing in each direction. I agonised for a long time about which way to vote before eventually deciding to back Remain.
Although, to be honest, both the Leave campaign and the Remain campaign were shockingly dire, and with honourable exceptions on both sides there was more inexcusable nonsense written and spoken on both sides than in any other campaign I can remember, most of the people I know on both sides had completely legitimate reasons for casting their votes the way they did.
The overwhelming majority of people I know who voted Remain were not elitist, arrogant or unpatriotic, and do not hate Britain.
The overwhelming majority of people I know who voted Leave were not racist, xenophobic or stupid and do not hate Europe.
Sadly there are exceptions to these statements and in general the people most likely to be exceptions are the people hurling such insults at the other side.
Again, this applied to both sides.
One embarrassed leave supporter who saw two fellow-leavers burning the EU flag apologised on behalf of most Leave voters for that kind of behaviour, calling the people concerned "cretins" and said that this was not what the vote to leave the EU was about.
Similarly I get the urge to apologise, certainly on my own behalf and I would like to think on behalf of many remain voters, when I see childish insults thrown at everyone on the Leave side.
When the Independent published an article yesterday slagging off the people at a Brexit celebration which was described as
"a static, knuckle dragging carnival of the irredeemably stupid,"
it is not the people so described who went down in my estimation but the author of the article and the paper which published it.
And similarly those Remain supporters who used the hashtag #thick for leave voters might appropriately ask themselves this question:
The people you've just called "thick" won, and you lost - so if they are stupid, what does that make you?
There was a good piece on the "Unherd" site this week by Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics at the University of Kent, which you can read here and which makes a convincing argument that all the insults thrown at Leave voters have been debunked, or at last, there is no credible evidence that they apply to the vast majority of the 17.4 million leave voters.
The same applies, in my humble opinion, to all the insults which have been thrown an Remain voters - or at least, there is no credible evidence that they apply to the vast majority of the 16.1 million Remain voters.
There are some on both sides who are still too angry to leave the insults behind. But I am convinced that that is what most of the country wants to do.
To those who are still wallowing in bitterness and hurling harsh words at anyone who takes a different view, including people who voted the same way as they did but take a more conciliatory approach, I say this.
"I am sorry you feel that way. I am moving on. I hope it will not be too long before you are able to leave the anger behind and do the same."
Although, to be honest, both the Leave campaign and the Remain campaign were shockingly dire, and with honourable exceptions on both sides there was more inexcusable nonsense written and spoken on both sides than in any other campaign I can remember, most of the people I know on both sides had completely legitimate reasons for casting their votes the way they did.
The overwhelming majority of people I know who voted Remain were not elitist, arrogant or unpatriotic, and do not hate Britain.
The overwhelming majority of people I know who voted Leave were not racist, xenophobic or stupid and do not hate Europe.
Sadly there are exceptions to these statements and in general the people most likely to be exceptions are the people hurling such insults at the other side.
Again, this applied to both sides.
One embarrassed leave supporter who saw two fellow-leavers burning the EU flag apologised on behalf of most Leave voters for that kind of behaviour, calling the people concerned "cretins" and said that this was not what the vote to leave the EU was about.
Similarly I get the urge to apologise, certainly on my own behalf and I would like to think on behalf of many remain voters, when I see childish insults thrown at everyone on the Leave side.
When the Independent published an article yesterday slagging off the people at a Brexit celebration which was described as
"a static, knuckle dragging carnival of the irredeemably stupid,"
it is not the people so described who went down in my estimation but the author of the article and the paper which published it.
And similarly those Remain supporters who used the hashtag #thick for leave voters might appropriately ask themselves this question:
The people you've just called "thick" won, and you lost - so if they are stupid, what does that make you?
There was a good piece on the "Unherd" site this week by Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics at the University of Kent, which you can read here and which makes a convincing argument that all the insults thrown at Leave voters have been debunked, or at last, there is no credible evidence that they apply to the vast majority of the 17.4 million leave voters.
The same applies, in my humble opinion, to all the insults which have been thrown an Remain voters - or at least, there is no credible evidence that they apply to the vast majority of the 16.1 million Remain voters.
There are some on both sides who are still too angry to leave the insults behind. But I am convinced that that is what most of the country wants to do.
To those who are still wallowing in bitterness and hurling harsh words at anyone who takes a different view, including people who voted the same way as they did but take a more conciliatory approach, I say this.
"I am sorry you feel that way. I am moving on. I hope it will not be too long before you are able to leave the anger behind and do the same."
Comments