Although we know that every racist voted to leave the EU, not everyone who voted to leave the EU was a racist. Whilst I disagree profoundly with everyone who voted leave, it is plain that in the leave camp, when you set to one side the far right and the likes of Gisela Stuart and Kate Hoey on the so called left, there are plenty of people who can put forward a coherent argument as to how leaving the EU might benefit the UK, some of whom even use facts. So why on earth did the BBC ask the ludicrous Iain Duncan Smith to put forward the views of leavers on its programmes today?
Duncan Smith was asked what he felt were the objectives of leaving the EU. His reply, quite simply, was this: to leave the EU. And that was it. No references whatsoever to the single market, free movement, the customs union or anything else. Duncan Smith, as a hard Brexiter, just wants us out. Everything will then fall into place.
I suspect that even the most die-hard leavers cringed when they heard his simplistic comments. This is a hardline right wing politician whose raison d’être is to take us out of Europe, regardless of any consequences. I am not sure that anyone voted for this.
That Duncan Smith is even asked for his views says a lot about Theresa May’s embarrassing silence on the subject of the EU, beyond a few meaningless soundbites about “Brexit means Brexit”. She is silent, quite simply, because she does not have a clue how to progress from here. Duncan Smith’s standpoint is at least consistent. He and his like want Britain out of Europe at literally any cost. If the economy crashes, if thousands of jobs are lost, if people lose their right to travel, study or live in other parts of Europe, that is acceptable, collateral damage. It will not be his job that disappears and as a man who married into wealth, a fall in living standards will not affect him one jot.
Those of us who reluctantly accept that we are leaving the EU do nothing more than request that our leaders involve parliament in the way we leave the EU (taking control was how it was described to us by Farage and his pals) and that the government achieves the least worst Brexit arrangements possible. We all know that there will be a considerable financial hit in leaving the EU so we rely on our so called leaders to minimise the hit, not maximise it.
Even if a large number of Brexiters voted knowing they would make themselves and fellow citizens poorer, I cannot see any mandate for that in the referendum result. That is the mess David Cameron created by holding a binary referendum on immensely complex issues.
If Mrs May is serious about uniting the country and taking into account of the views of nearly half the country that voted to remain in the EU, she will need to come up with a plan that makes everyone happy. She won’t be able to do that. Remaining in the EU was a simple argument. Reform it too, sure, but remain was easy to understand. Leave is complex and potentially insoluble. Some leavers want to pull up the drawbridge and stop all migration, others favour a visa system to allow people to travel abroad and visit the UK. No wonder May refuses to give what she calls a “running commentary” because she is making things up as she goes along.
May is in a hole and she is going to keep digging until she gets buried by the EU, just like every other Tory leader in recent history.
