We need to talk about Brexit

I mean, really talk.  Let's ditch all of the emotive rhetoric from both sides. Let's stop trying to reframe the whole discussion to fit whatever ideology we each feel is most agreeable to us.  Let's talk about honest to goodness facts.

First of all, lets acknowledge something - the referendum on whether the UK should remain inside or leave the European Union drew a substantial turnout in voters.  More than the last General Election in fact.  That means that regardless of which way you dice it, people cared about their vote in this one.  Dismissing the direction in which somebody voted in this would therefore be a mistake.

Tied up in that first acknowledgement though, is a second, equally important one - the vote was close. Really close. In popular vote terms, near as makes no difference close.  48.1% of the voters wanted to remain. 51.9% wanted to leave.  That means, broadly, that the population was more or less split down the middle on what the answer to this historically important question was.

Let's also acknowledge that BOTH sides of the referendum campaign did their jobs badly.  This can be seen firstly in that split - neither side was able to articulate well enough their reasons for their argument to gain a substantial majority.  It can also be seen in the fact that NEITHER side seems to have had any coherent plan as to what would happen in the event that the Leave vote won.  On the part of the Remain campaign, backed officially by HM Government, this is an oversight which can be blamed on simple hubris.  On the part of the Leave campaign, it seems entirely odd, objectively, that no coherent set of ideas had been established to implement the very change for which they campaigned so stridently.  Neither position is forgiveable, in people of status and office with the power to change the very fabric of our society.  We vote in the assumption (however misplaced) that those we vote for can be trusted to do their jobs. This set of circumstances would appear to suggest otherwise.

In the days following the result, a petition to Parliament requesting that, in the event of less than 75% electoral turnout and a vote either way of less than 60%, a second referendum should be enacted.  The petition eventually attracted over 4 million signatures, but was rejected by Parliament on the basis that the act to implement the referendum contained no such thresholds and had passed with overwhelming support.  This is the right answer based on the facts - the act in question did indeed set no such thresholds.  It also did not explicitly set out that the result of the Referendum would be binding, although government literature surrounding the referendum, issued to the public, did say that the government would 'implement what you decide'.

This last point is interesting, feeding as it does into the frenzied debate around whether or not the result of the referendum is binding on Parliament.  Here the technical answer is no - a referendum, constitutionally and legally, cannot be binding, absent some wording in its enacting legislation specifically setting such out and being ratified by Parliament.  However, as many commentators have pointed out, regardless of the fact that in it leaflets the government would appear to have made an unconstitutional promise which sat outside its powers to grant, it would be a mistake for a government already so weak to ignore a referendum result.  It risks, in this age of populist politics, a government being perceived as 'out of touch' and 'elite' - words which are the kiss of death in an era in which Donald J Trump sits poised to become the next President of the United States.

I think that it's important to recognise here as well, the very polarised and emotional way in which both sides of the campaign presented themselves.  The Remain camp made the mistake of simply assuming that all 'right minded' people would vote to Remain, and that anyone who didn't was simply a racist or bigot.  Whereas I don't disagree that racism informed a lot of the Leave campaign, and undoubtedly fueled much of its support, by simply using such basic 'dog whistles', the Remain campaign left itself too open to easy attack from the Leave side, and that didn't help its chances.  Some nuance might have been useful.

Similarly, the Leave side postured and blustered and told all Remainers that they were simply deceived sheep, following the will of the Lefty Elites and contributing to the downfall of our great society.  They conjured fears of armies of immigrants roaming the country and taking all jobs and benefits, overloading the country, they lied about the amounts of money paid to Brussels for EU membership and they were at best economical with the truths that they chose to print on the sides of buses. 

Understand - I recognise and support the idea of 'false equivalency' which dogs much of political debate - the idea that there can be no 'wrong' answer, just differing views which must all be given equal and fair consideration.  This falls down when one side is simply shouting lies as loudly as possible, so whereas I wish to recognise that both campaigns (not both sides of the debate itself, but the official movements which 'represented' them) had flaws, I tend to think that those flaws are measured on rather different scales, and whereas the Remain camp were guilty of some massaging of truths and some (SOME) exaggeration of consequences and minimilisation of issues within the EU, the Leave campaign was flagrant and unapologetic in its continued abuse of facts in its quest to instil the fear of God (or at least of Juncker) in the minds of the Great British public.

But here's the thing.  What we have now, in practical terms, is a country which is literally divided down the middle.  In a UK wide referendum, no clear winner was produced.  yes, I acknowledge that the vote said that more people voted one way than the other, but in a scenario where the stakes are so enormously high, and where the impact of any decision taken is such that it will affect not only everyone in the country now, but future generations for the forseeable future and beyond, I question whether a margin of less than 4% is enough.

And the point is, as I said at the beginning, we need to really talk about this.  This isn't a case where there is a 'clear majority' who can simply ignore the minority and drag them along with it.  This is a case where the minority is very nearly the same size as the majority.  This is a case where simply dragging the other side along is not only not viable, but impossible. 

And still the polarised, nasty rhetoric continues to fly.  Still those who express doubt in the result are castigated as unpatriotic, undemocratic.  We live in a modern democracy in which one of the essential democratic principles - freedom of speech - is being perverted.  Not even ignored, but literally perverted, such that I must recognise the 'right' of my fellow humans to express their disgust at foreigners or homosexuals but I must not at any point venture the opinion that their views are abhorrent to me.  Worse, we live in some sort of post truth, unironic landscape in which the subject of immigration, which forms the basis of not only every Leave campaign argument, but also most news headlines on TV and in papers, and most 'Brexit' discussions on the internet, is described, straight-faced by Leavers as 'something that they can't even TALK about'. 

So here's my suggestion.  We need to be able to talk about Brexit.  All of it.  Not just which vote won on the day or what sort of Brexit we want.  We need to be able to speak clearly and objectively on every facet, from what such a close divide in the nation means, to how we come together and heal that divide.  On the way, we need to address the understanding of the UK population of terms like 'democracy' and 'sovereignty' and maybe also whether or not these concepts and others like them should form part of basic education.  We need to discuss the idea of civic duty, the importance of voting and participating in democracy and holding those who are granted power over our lives to account for that power.  And we need, most of all, to discuss whether we are happy to continue voting in ignorance.  I voted to Remain, and I am open and honest about the fact that I did so based on a pure gut feeling, which had never wavered at any point during the campaign.  I suspect that a great many people voted, whichever way they did, for similar reasons.  The point is that I don't believe that many of those millions of people who voted did so from a place of proper education as to the facts (and I include myself in that) and that isn't something that we should just willingly accept.  This isn't a decision that we can just undo in five years time if it doesn't suit.  This is a historic measure, and it was not treated as such.

In an ideal world, yes I would ask for a second referendum.  Not because I am a 'sore loser', nor because I 'only believe in democracy when it gives the result I want' but because I believe that people confronted with historic decisions which have the power to impact the world around them for generations to come should do so on the basis of facts, not lies. They should be spoken to by politicians who are held to account for the words they speak, who are not allowed simply to shape whatever lie makes them the most popular in any given moment.  And they should be allowed the opportunity for respectful discourse, absent the polarisation and emotive rhetoric so often employed.  Passion is good. The illusion of passion used to cover up base lies, is not.

And we don't live in an ideal world, so I'll end as I began.  We need to TALK about Brexit, and about what it means to everyone.  And we need to do it soon, before the split that divides the country becomes deeper than it already is.