I’m not going to resist the temptation to comment on the Brexit vote. The campaign was fascinating, and I imagine that most observers of politics followed it closely. From the beginning, I leaned towards Leave on sovereignty grounds; by the end of the campaign, I was sure that, had I been an elector, I would have voted for Britain to go.
Some observations about the result.
The intensity was clearly on the Leave side. That matters, and not just because intense voters are more likely to vote. They are also more likely to inform themselves about the issues, to work in the campaign itself, and to lobby their undecided family and friends to vote their way.
We can all think of elections where we didn’t feel strongly about the outcome but were swayed by those close to us who did. I’m guessing that there were many deep conversations about Brexit at British dinner tables in the days before the election, and that those conversations were decisive in pushing soft voters to a decision — and that most of them ended up voting Leave.
The working class Labour voters made the difference. They have been worried for years, and understandably so, about the immigration policies forced on them by the EU. The whole Rotterham child grooming conspiracy (to take one example) appalled them, as it appalled all decent people.
Those concerns weren’t enough to swing many of those voters to UKIP in the general election last year. Voters will swallow a lot before they switch from their traditional Party allegiances. But this wasn’t a partisan election, and there were enough Labour leaders visibly and ably supporting Brexit to give working class voters permission to vote Leave. They did so in large numbers in northern England; without their support, the pro-EU majorities in Scotland and London would have defeated the referendum.
Labour has always been conflicted by the European Union. One of the strongest cases for British sovereignty, and against political union with Europe, was made by Tony Benn in a letter to his constituents 40 years ago, when Britons first voted on the European project.
That ambiguity was reflected in the tepid effort that Jeremy Corbyn — the current Labour leader — made on behalf of Remain, and because of which his leadership is now being challenged.
Finally, I thought that the Leave side made, by far, the stronger arguments. In normal political campaigns, voters rarely hear any single issue exhaustively discussed; there are too many issues, not enough time, and not enough intense voter interest, for arguments to be debated to several levels of complexity. But this was not a normal campaign. There was only one issue – though there were a number of aspects to it – and from the beginning both sides understood and stated publicly that the decision required of the British people was the most important one they were likely ever to make.
Voters took that to heart, and paid attention. The Leave side had been preparing their arguments for years, and because their position was outside the European mainstream – because they were bucking the zeitgeist, so to speak – they had been forced over time to refine and defend their views against a hostile establishment. That showed throughout the campaign. I saw many debates where the remarks of the Leave speakers clearly reflected the thought and work of many speeches over many years. See, for example, these powerful closing remarks by Daniel Hannan at one of the many Brexit forums.
Certainly the Remain side also had many able advocates. I thought the Prime Minister did better than his political opponents have been prepared to admit, and the two most prominent Scottish leaders — Nicola Sturgeon and Ruth Davidson — were very strong. But EU membership has been an article of faith for so many in the British establishment for so long that its advocates had, or so it seemed to me, never been forced to confront the weaknesses in their position. They had been operating in rarified, uncontested air, and it showed; they seemed initially unprepared to confront even the most obvious concerns about the EU that were troubling so many of their people.
To be fair, I thought Remain began to make a stronger case by the end of the campaign, but at that point it was too late.
For almost five hundred years, Great Britain has exercised an influence on global events disproportionate to its size. It did so again last Thursday. The decision to Leave was what Churchill might have called a “decisive intervention” in the course of events, and not just in the United Kingdom. Once again, the British lion has in defiance roared. The path ahead contains many uncertainties, to be sure, but it’s not like the European Union, even before the referendum, was an ocean of stability either; and the British now can at least be confident that they have regained control over the path their country will take.
Brexit's Labour Party Voters