Without raking over the ashes of last June’s EU referendum, I really could do without the latest intervention of Tim Who (Farron), leader of the Lib Dems. I cannot bring myself to watch BBC’s Question Time for fear of serious blood pressure issues so it was through social networks I read about Farron’s comments, which were loudly applauded by the studio audience. This is what he said:
“British values should be projected across the world for good: Being outward looking, decent and tolerant. However you voted on 23 June, Nigel Farage does not speak for that kind of Britain, he doesn’t speak for the Britain I know.”
Much as I would like to agree with Farron, the facts suggest he might not be correct. It is safe to say that not everyone who voted to leave the EU was a card-carrying racist, bigot and xenophobe. But it is safe to say that every card-carrying racist, bigot and xenophobe voted to leave the EU.
I say that Farron could be wrong because we don’t know how our departure from the EU will pan out. As things stand – and this is the most likely scenario, given the outlook of the Tory government – we are headed for a hard Brexit. No one voted for a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, but the likes of Nigel Farage and many leading Tories actually favour a hard, fast Brexit, regardless of the potential disaster that would be for the “ordinary working people” Theresa May constantly tells us she cares so much about. This is the problem with a binary decision on an immensely complex issue which appears to be way over the heads of the main Brexit ministers. All we voted for was to leave the EU, nothing more. How we leave will determine the wisdom or otherwise of Farron’s words.
Voting to leave the EU surely cannot mean that we are an “outward looking, decent and tolerant” nation, at least not in terms of outward looking and tolerant (I think we are by and large decent people). Large numbers of Brexiters chose to look inwards, a kind of Donald Trump echo chamber of making Britain great again and in terms of priority huge numbers put stopping EU migration ahead of economic prosperity. Plenty of people I have spoken to understood fully the financial hit this country will take in the next few years and will accept it if it means less European workers coming here.
The victory of Nigel Farage last June followed by the victory of Donald Trump this month both point to a worrying future for our country. I just can’t see it any other way. Farage and Trump are different personality wise, but represent a similar strand of right wing populism, something that was warmly embraced by voters in Britain and America, with strains of nationalism, isolationism and intolerance at the fore.
Maybe Farron was trying, somewhat belatedly, to change the level of debate that has surrounded Brexit and perhaps he is trying to raise it. But last June’s vote was not some sort of aberration and we cannot say, as he appears to be saying, that the British public somehow got it wrong.
I believed, and continue to believe, that by voting to leave the EU we are condemning the younger generation to a life with fewer opportunities than we ourselves enjoyed. The young certainly believe that and it’s why I have sympathy with Farron’s words, even though the statistics suggest he might just be wrong.
