Bad Winners
Having frequently been on the receiving end I can testify that the Remain campaign has manifested itself in spite, aggression, bullying, insinuations, generalisations, ad hominems and shameless insults. The Remain troops have buzzed like wasps, actively searching for misthinkers and deviants to sting on social media and mindlessly picking arguments in public, convinced of a moral and intellectual superiority yet possessing neither. We Leavers are becoming viewed with suspicion or contempt in certain walks of life – offices, concert venues, the haunts of the chattering classes. We are pariahs when we stray from the council estates. Millions of us, neanderthal and extreme. Apparently. Alas we know they are doing us a callous disservice, don’t we?
For years I have noted with dismay the tendency of my fellow lefties (or in some cases, I suspect, pseudo lefties) to lust for a more substantial enemy than the ones they have in the here and now. You’d think railing against austerity and inequality would be enough for us. We’ve got plenty to complain about. But for some that’s too mundane a kind of rebellion. They are addicted to the camaraderie and righteousness of opposing the establishment. However as we don’t live in 1930s Germany or 1950s America, or better still a dystopian novel, they must make do with less exciting down-to-Earth rivals.
They miss the days when the NF was a substantial threat to be faced arm in arm, and so UKIP must be built up in their eyes as something on a par with the SS. And the Leave movement must be hallucinated as, not a valid and justifiable concern, but a contagious fever to rival the rise of Adolf Hitler’s violent nationalism. Never mind that being anti-EU is the original and true position of all genuine socialists.
Personally I think they’ve missed a trick. For me freeing Britain from the grip of a burgeoning, expansionist federal superstate with military ambitions is exactly the kind of cause any self-respecting rebel would jump aboard. I do love taking the role of the underdog, and we were up against the full mechanism of state. It’s disappointing how easily many left-leaning friends were duped and recruited by The Man. They took their eyes off the ball.
As it is the Remainers managed to assure themselves that only racists and axe murderers support exit from the European Union, and Bennites be damned. That is bigotry. Intolerance towards those who hold different opinions. If you can’t beat them on the topic available accuse them of standing for something else entirely.
Yes, a lot of Brexit promoters focused too much on the subject of immigration. Nonetheless I can honestly say that only a very small minority of those I witnessed speaking or writing about immigration crossed the line into blatant racism. Virtually all spoke of simply controlling the numbers, and yet the vitriolic responses they experienced were not to the points they made but to unspoken sentiments imagined by the slanderous Remainers.
Once again far too many people resort to equating any talk of lowering immigration levels with the absurd notion of banning immigration altogether. That is knee-jerk reactionism. It’s a willful deafness, filtering out important words and thereby leaving them with the fight they seek instead of the reality of the debate.
Immigration-obsessed campaigning was a huge mistake, and naturally attracted the likes of the BNP, but remind me how many votes the BNP get in elections? They and their ilk are minor players. Aside from those rabid dogs of the far right Leave only ever called for an immigration cap – indeed that is all they can offer, because immigration will always exist, as it should. It has not been a series of diatribes on the character of foreigners, nor odious delusions of mass deportation. An upper limit, nothing more.
The politics of hate came largely in the form of Stay fanatics abusing anybody who dared to declare for independence. No wonder so few pro-Brexit celebrities lifted their heads above the parapet. It has been truly horrible – the peer pressure, the nastiness, the trolling, the tarring and the intimidation, which more than once spilled over into violence. That is what happens when you set out to demonise half the population and succeed.
I long predicted that a serious attack on a politician would occur as a result of the hyperbole and hysteria growing exponentially in the echo chambers of the internet and news coverage. I had thought the victim would be a UKIP MP; probably Nigel Farage, the most maligned man in politics, who has already been the target of countless threats and militant acts.
Sadly when my fears materialised the victim was in fact a young mother who seems to have been the closest thing to an honourable MP parliament had. Her death came at a stage where Leave appeared to have broken clear on the home straight. For 24 hours there I had really started to believe in miracles, only to read in horror of events in Birstall. Unfortunately because the madman who killed Jo Cox was a BNP supporter the aspersions cast on we Leavers reached fever pitch. I’ve seen the undecided turned, the weak-principled defect, and what little good manners had survived all but evaporate. Thomas Mair has surely won this referendum for Brussels. Conspiracy theories will persist for years, due to the timing and effect of the tragic crime.
We anti-federalists will be remembered as the bad guys, because the winners write history, but the truth is we were by and large the civilised ones. We’ve been hunted and vilified beyond belief, friendships thrown away in a whirlwind of unjust anti-Leave ire, and these wounds will take a long time to heal. There is the gloating to come yet. I think we can safely assume the Remainers who behaved so disgustingly are not going to be gracious in victory.
