Family love

When I was a child occasionally somebody, usually my father, would say Family Love, which was the signal for the four of us to make a circle, facing inwards with arms around one another and say a long drawn out Aaaah for the space, at least, that our breath lasted. Our different voices merging together it was a simple and wonderful thing, full of love, security and affirmation. Where did that come from? I asked. He thought his own parents but we both found it hard to picture my grandfather in that domestic scenario. Perhaps it was you and granny, I said. Perhaps. Or, he said, reconsidering. Perhaps we just started it ourselves. I considered myself fortunate.

The idea of love, extended reminded me that when they were very little I used to ask my sons who for them was in our family. For years after she left they included 'Tiggy' the marvellous (so much more than) au pair who lived with us for about nine months and came back to see us twice afterwards. Tiggy was so loved and appreciated that she was truly part of the family. The youngest, who was a baby and toddler when she was here was at least as insistent in this as his older brother.

The day after I wrote this the children came home with fingerprint family trees. There was no Tiggy in the family any more. That is understandable because since starting a life in her own country with a boyfriend, a dog and working in a children's outdoor nursery have not seen her in several years. 

-  Do you remember when you included Tiggy in our family? I asked the elder. 

-  Yes

-  Is it different now just because we haven’t seen her for a long time? 

-  Yes, he said, factually though maybe not without regret.

On the trees, one child included his aunt and uncle in remote Manchester, one did not. Neither child included the adored baby cousins born in June whom they saw twice in the summer holidays. Are your [much loved] uncle and aunt not in the family? I asked one, curiously rather than accusing. They are, he said, sheepishly.  There just wasn’t room.

I asked the younger why the babies were not in the tree, but their parents were.  He hesitated.  "Is it maybe because they live far away or are so new?', I asked.  "So new" he said.  "When  would they  be big enough to be included?" I asked.  After New Year he said, happily and decisively.   "Is that because it's the right time of year or just because they'll be bigger then?" I said, still curious.   "They'll be bigger then."  He said.  "Ah", I said.  "When they can sit up maybe."  "Yes", he said, clearly.  "When they can sit up.  And..." he said, going down the stairs, "I was running out of room..."  

Memory fades, people change and love shifts emphasis but that is why photographs, if they are 'things' at at all, must be among the most precious.

Love, in words

Continuing a theme: "Perhaps we love more than we believe, admit, or realise", but in ways different to how we conventionally think of it.  

The way we use language is revealing: “I loved seeing them again.”; “It was lovely to dance with him.”, “It was great that we went out for that meal together.” To a friend recently: "I love getting messages from you! They're so funny and interesting." Don’t we say these sorts of things all the time? 

It cannot just be the act of seeing or dancing, walking, or having a drink that we love, though of course we can enjoy these alone.  When we say we loved doing these things, it is the together, the with him, the seeing them that gives it meaning within the context. We love doing these things with these people.  Love is more than the deep and scary love we have for the people closest to us; scary because between new lovers it is tied to loss of control, and for others we love deeply it is tied to loss or the fear of it. I think we love, perhaps more in the Greek ways, many people in our lives.

In the same book I quoted from last time I recognised the truth of:

"To love a thing means wanting it to live" - Confucius

Love circumscribed, love extended

I'm afraid I lost ardour for the Brexit topic.  Maybe I'll come back to it.

The Meaning of Things, A.C Grayling.

I had read this not long before starting to think more about what connection means here. I started to realise  the topics that turned up in tango turned up in life.  In that respect it was true that, as they say, a journey dancing tango was in many ways like a mirror, a way of seeing life.   Where to put then the thoughts on life that came from tango?  There is no shortage of topics on tango in The Outpost so the flotsam and jetsam that constitute these thoughts have washed up here in The Intertidal Zone. 

In our culture it is normal to say we love our partner(s), parents, children, family, but less common to say that we love beyond that. Do we love more than we believe, admit, or realise?  Are we sometimes out of synch with what and who we believe we love and what and who we actually love? Do we love more than we think, just in different ways to how conventionally, analytically, societally, we conceive it?  Is this because of the limits of our words and therefore, our conventions?

The Greeks better understood the forms of love. It makes me wonder if our single world "love" means we enjoy fewer rich and meaningful social connections.  

Searching for the reasons

Hi Felicity,

Thanks for your response -- you make many interesting points.  I will not try to respond point-by-point, but will try to give you an idea of where my thinking is at now...

Well, it's been a few weeks.  I was away for a couple of those -- first on holiday in Norway (not an EU country, but I was in the company of quite a range of EU citizens), then with work in Germany.

Mostly people were bewildered by the result of the referendum.  I guess they, like me, get to see a lot of the advantages of the EU first-hand.  I didn't find anyone who thought the UK had made the right decision.  A few, since then, have come to the conclusion that it might turn out to be the best result for the EU itself, in a 'getting rid of the awkward squad' kind of way.  No doubt I have self-selected plenty of friends who I'm in agreement with.

I have been accused of being in denial about the referendum result.  I believe that there are many who voted Leave who are actually in denial -- about the consequences of leaving the EU.  Rather than disputing that, the general response is 'get over it, we need to work together now'.  Okay, fine, I think we will all want this to turn out the best way possible.  But it is on the Leave side to prove their case, now.  To figure out what that work is, that needs to be done.  Propose ideas.  Make a plan.  I don't think it's on the Remain side to just accept where we are and stop challenging it.

I have not seen any further evidence of a plan in the last few weeks.  I have doubts about the Opposition's ability to hold the government to account.  I have doubts about the government's ability to find a practical, workable way of executing 'Brexit'.  I think it's unfair that a decision of this magnitude was won based on so little (honest) information about what would happen afterwards.  You came to your conclusions independently of the media.  I don't think that's true of the majority.

Before the referendum I made two lists of reasons why I was going to vote Remain.  One entirely selfish, and one based on the more general reasons why I thought Britain was better in the EU.  (I resist the temptation to edit either of them with the benefit of hindsight).

The selfish reasons:

• I work for a company based in Germany. Leaving the EU would not make me feel more secure.
• My hobby/obsession has me travelling (affordably and easily) all over Europe. I can only imagine this would be less affordable and less easy if we left.
• I have a lot of good friends - and many acquaintances I like very much - from EU countries who live in the UK. I don't want to make it harder for those people to be here, or for future good friends I haven't met yet!
• I fundamentally seem to like the EU. When I hear about disputes between our government and Brussels, I'd say I tend to agree with Brussels more than with our lot.
• I consider myself 'European', as well as British.

The more general reasons (okay, I got a bit carried away with this one, and there are plenty of personal reasons in here too):

Maybe some of those reasons were based on untruths, distortions, misunderstandings.  But I spent lots of time thinking about it, and I decided these, to me, were good reasons.  The temptation is to rationalise a decision to match your own selfish reasons.  I tried to challenge myself on that.   I tried to think of a good reason why I would vote Leave.  I couldn't find a single thing that rang true to me.  Plenty of things that are less than ideal about the EU -- but none that suggested we were better off out than we were in with a seat at the table.

I still have heard no reasons for people to vote Leave that weren't based either on the information that Johnson and Farage and co were putting around (the sort of information that has been backtracked on within hours of the result), or else on a rather vague notion of sovereignty (without any specific explanations of what they expected to change).  Our dialogue began when I asked your for your reasons for voting Leave, at which point you sent me to your blog post.  However, I notice that post doesn't actually give your reasons for voting Leave -- instead it gives your reasons for not wanting to give your reasons.  That's fair enough, and your prerogative, but that's the kind of wall I end up hitting when I do ask people 'why...?'  The only people who do seem to be giving their reasons are the ones who want to 'keep immigration down' or 'take back control'.  Generally the former are the ones who have the least contact with 'immigrants', and the latter never actually say what it is they thought they didn't have control of before that they will have control of after we leave the EU.  For me, those are simply not good reasons.  Maybe I should look harder but, like you, it's distressing and frustrating to feel like you're going through the same loop.  I'm hoping this conversation will provide a means to break out of that loop one way or the other.

Your subsequent post suggests your reason is that the UK is giving up too much in return for membership of the EU.  But I'm not clear on entirely what that is (probably because I'm not smart enough without you spelling it out...!)

So, I am still missing the Good Reasons for how we ended up with a Leave vote.

Regarding the increase of racist incidents, which I focused on in my last post.  I take your point that it is harsh to be associated with racism just because you happen to vote the same way as most (I'm sure there were exceptions even in this) racists in a binary referendum.  I have no doubt that you, personally, are as sickened by that as I am.  I will do my best to keep the two things separate...!  We must all do whatever it is we can do to try to stem that particular tidal wave.

-- Matthew.

Getting back in...to what, exactly?

I think how to deal with the personal responses of people we know is really important and in fact the most real, in the sense of immediate, thing any of us will have to deal with.  But there is also the bigger picture and thinking about it and being interested in it is real too.  So I wanted to add this.

Anthony Grayling, philosopher, writer, public figure and founder of the New College of the Humanities in London reckons a referendum is not the way to address our membership of the EU, or any issue by the sounds of things.  

The day after the referendum a “Remain” friend of mine said he trusted the people and political culture of the country and the wisdom of crowds.  I pressed him saying the wisdom of crowds would have us bring back capital punishment (according to the polls) .  He said people were wise when they are not emotional.  I asked him if he thought people voted unemotionally.  He said, yes, he thought so and that they certainly took it seriously which was enough for him.  He thought the 72% who voted were self selecting.  I told him I thought the Yes vote in Scotland had been very emotionally driven whereupon he said he preferred “instinctive” to “emotional” and he trusted the instincts of the country.   I said he sounded like a politician.  For the reasons where,  that day,  I expressed hesitation in contrast to my friend’s conviction I am not generally in favour of referenda, not on relatively simple things like capital punishment because of what the polls tell us about the kinds of things plebiscites inclines towards and not on complex ones either because I think that leads to compounded problems of mob inclination and problems to do with that complexity.

Grayling is urging MPs to take back their power by simply refusing to trigger Article 50. Despite that the letter was delivered to all 650 MPs it is a very quiet but powerful and remarkable stance, so quiet it seems obvious yet I have heard no other Remainer propose it.   He does not propose a rematch because despite all the media attention on Brexit regrets no doubt he has seen only "5% of Leave voters said they would now change their vote compared to just 2% of Remain voters". BBC article. His approach lets people who regret their vote save face, even more so those who regret it but won't admit it. It allows Parliament who let power to be taken from them on this issue, get it back and a plebiscite on such a complex issue to be seen as a mistake. Yet the fact of the result of the vote stands and sends its shock waves we can learn from, through us, our politicians and, one hopes, the EU though there I have less faith.  Besides all of these facts this proposal comes from someone I have heard and read for many years.  His focus is: let’s be friends with, part of the EU because for various reasons that’s what counts.  The reason this is his focus is because his aim is simply for MPs to overturn the vote and “restore normality”.  The appeal is easy to see, especially for fence-sitters, the people protesting at various things and of course MPs, few of whom themselves wanted this result and who may well have objected to the matter being taken out of their hands.

What though of most of those who voted Leave?  This, recall, is a well-to-do man whose world is ideas, debates, writing and interaction with the sorts of well off, well-educated people who backed Remain and not a very great deal of time I suspect spent with the social demographic who voted Leave. An analysis of that demographic also here from Prospect Magazine in April.  There is also an interesting article on that landscape by Mike Carter in the Guardian: I walked from Liverpool to London. Brexit was no surprise.  I am curious though who Grayling thinks voted Leave and is so worth sidelining:  reckless, uneducated, jobless ne’er do wells?  Nationalists? Obviously people very unhappy with the state of things or perhaps people who thought their vote would not matter - 7/10 Leavers I read today (sorry, I cannot now find the source).  If someone wanted an argument for a rematch, that is the best I've seen yet -  far stronger than the 7% who regret their vote.    

Perhaps sidelining is unfair.  What, then I ask myself, would Grayling propose to do about that half of the country who voted Leave?  Nothing, perhaps.  But the obvious alternative to the view that says people would, in response to his proposal, be quietly grateful that the problem has all gone away is that they would not.  He talks about people being "duped" in the campaign.  How would people feel if they were told their vote doesn’t count any more?  Not duped?  Duped, I suspect, on a much grander scale.  He talks about the referendum being “advisory”?  I expect the racist incidents post-referendum, appalling though they were,  might pale into insignificance compared to the possible reaction to that news when the people heard it:  “Your vote was just advisory”.  But would it last?

Whatever the answer, I wonder if he thinks the majority vote can be ignored as just providers of that  “snapshot of sentiment ”.  I wonder if he thinks any more need be said about Leavers if the MPs do as he suggest and if they held sway. Who would win - Parliament or public sentiment?  I suspect it would be Parliament which is why his is such a very serious proposal.

I am not sure people thought or even see now their vote as a mere expression of sentiment and - because implausible to the people the MPs he appeals to represent - I think that a risky play to bolster his (already strong) case. I think this patronises Leavers as (again) just stupids. Actually, it totally ignores Leavers.  As such it implies in a patrician way - which perhaps, i don't know, appeals to MPs  - people who don’t really count.  Yet I know this to be someone who believes in many liberal values I can understand and share and someone who I think believes in a natural human propensity for good and who is very interested in what "the good" is.  I have seen him in public lectures correct interlopers to a case he has made, courteously, and then, when they persist, quite devastatingly, and yet, still almost blamelessly.  He is the sort of man who would be very polite but would be more than able to destroy someone he found irrelevant or perhaps he might rather say "not entirely helpful". So I wonder if he sees all those Brexiteers that way:  rather irrelevant, as in: one wouldn't want to anger them unnecessarily but one certainly ought not to be put off doing the right thing because of them.  I find it all rather hard to square.

I try to imagine then the reasons why Professor Grayling might be right about Remain - because he is right about a lot of things. He was dead set against giving up civil liberties when the government said it was necessary for protection against terrorism.  Yet he must see no analogy with the things we give up when we hand over power to the EU - or more likely he thinks things are worth giving up to the “EU project”.  

I wish I had a clearer idea what that project is and believed that the people aboard it weren’t on some slow, corrupt racket - a gravy train with a destination little better advertised than the “ever closer union” of people.  But the EU doesn’t deal in the union of people, it deals in laws. That train is going one way and nobody seems to really know where that is.  Not towards a constitution because the French and Dutch did for that in 2005.  Not an army because, well,  I suppose they can't agree on who our enemies are.  But if a country doesn't have a constitution or an army, or a very clear aim and nobody it represents seems very clear about what it does, such that when the people of Europe themselves vote they often say "No" then what is that entity, that project supposed to be?  Perhaps the professor could market the EU for them.  We might all understand the plan a little better.  

At the moment our countries often seem like engines pulling the other way from the EU engine at the other end of the train.  National legislation is overturned and countries with vastly different internal conditions and economies are yoked together resulting in obvious social issues.  I find an analogy with when we entered the exchange rate mechanism, wanting to emulate the stability of the Deutsche mark.  We spent £6 billion trying to keep the pound within the permitted threshold before crashing out of the system on Black Wednesday in 1992. We had been in less than two years of joining.  Being part of the ERM was said to have prolonged the recession at the time.  The other week, here in the UK, again that tension based on different internal conditions pulling against one another within a bigger system snapped again, only this time the tensions were social, not monetary.

I think the EU project might all come out alright in the wash but things do shrink and get permanently dyed in the wash too.  I suppose if I could understand the directions a bit better I might go ahead but there isn’t really a manual with this model.  It is more a question of push the buttons and see what happens.  The washing machine has proven itself to be basically a good idea and has worked in many washes. But until I get that instruction manual I suppose I’d rather put up more cautiously with handwashing.  I know it works and I’m more sure of what I’m doing.

Europe has so much going for it.  Many people understand the advantages of a fairer, more equal Europe with many opportunities in many areas for all.  Why is it proving so hard to get people behind it?   It is no good the EU blaming people for a backwoods outlook.  The EU is in charge.  It needs to sell itself better or more discontent may follow. But some, worried about their own countries are taking a very hard line:   "Mark Rutte told MEPs that the Brexit vote was "extremely unfortunate", especially for the UK. "That country now has collapsed - politically, economically, monetarily and constitutionally, and you will have years ahead of you to get out of this mess." (BBC).

Our country seems to me very unequal, the two speed economy (mentioned in the BBC article about Leeds - see below) but writ large. and hence divided.  In a shop today where I am a regular an assistant assuming my ambiguous stance meant I was "Remain" talked about "those people" in a half whisper.  I hope the direction of the world is towards greater equality but when our own country is so far from that it would seem we have a problem.  What is the Remain approach to that problem? I see only “leave it, forget about it, pretend it doesn’t exist, restore normality, think about the economy”.   But when you are carless, jobless, with little education, have no shares, no foreign family holidays what do you care about petrol prices, fear of job losses, no more EU funding in education, pension plans dropping and currency exchange rates falling through the floor?

I had thought that regardless of whether we press ahead to leave or whether Parliament asserts itself as Professor Grayling urges, or whether a new general election sees a second referendum, that the EU will reform because of what has happened.  I see many options.  But When I see the EU Council lambasted by the Belgian prime minister (Oh, thank-you Mr Verhofstadt) I think the EU political and administrative machine is more worrying than I had figured .

"He said the Council's reaction to Brexit was "we shouldn't change anything, just implement existing European policies". "I find this shocking and irresponsible," he said angrily.

There had been warning signs for the EU from previous referendums in Denmark and the Netherlands, he said.

"What are you waiting for? When will the Council recognise that this type of EU - you cannot defend it any more. Europe needs to be reformed... European citizens are not against Europe, they're against this Europe." "

That is what it is about for me.  I am pro-European, not even anti-EU, not even averse to the idea of a single country called Europe, given a good enough case.  I’m just not convinced what we give up is worth it for this EU.

Outrage

For the record, about the way this came about: Matthew asked me about this topic on Facebook here and also his points you see copied from Facebook above (with minor changes). I said to him privately I didn’t want to have that conversation there having seen and heard from friends some startlingly unpleasant remarks on this subject by some of our Facebook acquaintance who voted differently. I suggested Mathew and I could either have the conversation privately on email or here, in a closed (to comments) but public environment and I left it up to Matthew which to choose.

Hi Matthew. I’ve quoted you in italics below and given my response afterwards.

Matthew: I don't have many 'leave' voters in my friends list, but the ones I do have are (mostly?) thoughtful people who have good reasons for voting the way they did.  If their arguments were the ones that won the referendum, I think I could go along with it a lot more happily than I'm able to at the moment.  

People had many reasons for voting the way they did, which are opaque to the people they know in a way that the result was not. Some find it easier to make assumptions about what the reasons are.  Some ask.

Matthew: I feel it was won on false pretences.

Something like this?

I don’t feel lied to because as I said my reasons were ones I came to independent of campaign propaganda.  No doubt there were people who feel duped.  Apparently 7% of Leavers now regret their vote, compared to 3% of Remainers. I think this Leaver percentage small considering the step away from the known that has been taken, the effect of post-referendum reality, the fact that Cameron, Boris and Farage have all stepped down in the last ten day or so and the general post-referendum hysteria.

Matthew: [...] disagreement/disappointment with the result (which I hope you and others can understand is more than just 'sour grapes' -- it's beyond my ability to just 'suck it up'.  I haven't seen you suggest that's the case either, by the way, but it's a running theme amongst some others and it's hard to bear.

I would doubt the opinion of those with that reaction is worth much consideration or that it would lead to much interesting or constructive discussion.

Matthew: I think the winning side just has to be 'bigger' sometimes and let the losing side rail for a while.

"The reaction". This topic is what got us here in the first place.

Journalists, scorn and condescension

The main reaction I saw from Remainers I know - besides understandable disappointment - was outrage.  If I were to patronise Remain voters in a tit for tat, per Remainer to Leaver:  Oh, I realise now it isn’t you, it’s your leaders (you’re just stupid)  then I might say something like:  With easy, self-aggrandizing, irresponsible, hornet-like journalism stinging people into a frenzy I understand the outburst of left leaning liberal outrage;  aka It isn’t you [plural], it’s the absurd stuff you read.   Take for instance the cruel, presumptive vitriol of Laurie Penny in the New Statesman or Fintan O’Toole sneering and blaming in the Irish Times and his failure to see the irony when, having done nothing but himself he says now the English won’t be able to blame the EU any more.   And he is a fairly moderate example. I think at such times no wonder Remainers have been expressing themselves on social media the way I have seen.   Privately I think articles like Laurie Penny look more like toddler meltdown.  When people write like that I wonder what and who it is for.   Is it about making or maintaining a name? Backslapping, from people who think like them?  It isn’t intended obviously for people who don’t think like them because it’s so unbalanced.  A friend said “Facebook has been unbelievable”.  When the journalists and radio hosts and interviewees talk about the divided country, this is what they’re talking about, the personal interactions (of their lack) between individuals - and journalists are to some extent responsible because they feed people the news, very often not in a balanced way. This division isn’t something abstract and out there.  It is something of which millions of people, most of us, now have some kind of personal experience.

That outrage seems to have cooled somewhat into a belief that what has happened is so inconceivable that we are going to call for secession of London /another vote etc.    Such conviction seems to ride roughshod over any acknowledgement that the issue is complex, difficult and multi-faceted though more of that is coming out now.  I by nature shy away from and tend to distrust attitudes that take an “It’s obvious” approach to complex issues.

I seem to be or to have become over time a sceptic.  I live in doubt about many things most of the time.  It isn’t a comfortable way to live and I can’t recommend it.  But I tend to notice when people claim they are right and particularly insist they are right, rather than Perhaps.. or It seems to me….or Maybe...  I saw a lot of that insistence after the referendum and on an issue as complex as this the insistence that one just must be right and that anyone else is varying degrees of stupid is...revealing.

"Hey, stupid!"

People I think are lots of things before they are stupid.  Afraid, often.  Fearful, threatened, lacking, for any number of reasons, perspective.  And surely - unless one was oneself perhaps intelligent yet remarkably misguided - the very last thing one would want to do if identifying that fear in another, would be twist that into something else (like “stupid”) and ram it down the sorry subject’s throat. Stupid (because stupid) or stupid (because lied to) or stupid (because old).   The next less subtle move is the “Don’t worry, it isn’t your fault”. Or “Thanks for thinking it through/admitting you’re wrong”.  I can’t say I’ve seen much in the line of “I understand you had your reasons - what were they incidentally?”.

Learning from children

I understand people were upset.  We in Scotland who voted "No" in 2014 saw how gutted people were for days, weeks, months, are still.   When you say that losers should be allowed to rail, yes I understand expressions of disappointment and frustration. But I often think lessons from nursery are the best and the ones we ought most often recall in much later life. Thus I asked my children, their responses to many things being so instructive.  I said “how do you think the people who lost the vote were feeling?”  They thought for a while.  It’s so revealing when children pause.  They’re actually thinking.  I’ve noticed grown ups don’t pause for thought anything like as long as children.  Then

- “Sad...” said one.

- “Disappointed” said the other.  

- Yes, I think that’s right.  Anything else?  They looked a bit puzzled as in what else could they be feeling?

- Agreeable? said the elder, hesitantly.   I almost choked.  

- Hmmm. Why agreeable?

- As in “It’s over and done with”?

It's easy to see from their responses that - though they hoped for a Remain vote because most recently "the EU will like us more if we're In" - they were not outraged at the time of this conversation.

When people one knows calls or implies that you and anyone who voted like you stupid or (much) worse that is a fairly blunt, decisive, not retractable and unforgivable thing.  It is not something anyone is likely to forget - ever.  One can just decide to not know them but human relationships for most people are complex.  We tend to want to keep knowing our families for instance  never mind how unpalatable some of the things we say to one another can be because there is so much we appreciate in others too. We may in, say, the milonga, keep seeing people who have said things we find distasteful and will perhaps have to find ways in which to acknowledge, perhaps even continue to interact with these people. Fortunately my family and several friends have been interested in and non judgemental about my reasons for voting differently.  

If my seven year old were to be frustrated and cross and punch his brother, call me stupid, slam the door and storm out do I say, Oh well, never mind, leave him be he’s just angry, let him rail. He'll calm down soon enough.  That is indeed one way and perhaps an easier route but my feeling is that teaches a child that that behaviour is the right way to behave when frustrated, that you might well manipulate people into getting what you want and that people who don’t say anything don’t seem to mind too much.  I think parenting is a role of guiding and influencing and I guess I might be sad and disappointed if he grew up that way because I might feel I had failed him.

What I tend to do - depending on how cross I have become myself - is hug him because he is not able to manage his emotions and he knows it. Then I might likely say something like: “I understand you are angry but disappointment and being thwarted is a considerable part of life.  Do you think they are happy grown-ups - the ones who think the way to get what they want or who react to other people getting what they want when it doesn’t suit them is to shout “Stupid” and kick and slam doors?  Would they be happier, calmer and more satisfied it they could say how they are feeling, talk things through and reach agreements?  Do you admire grown-ups or children who are hurtful and call people names or do you think it tends to make the hurtful ones deep down, feel sad and ashamed?”  My elder son at seven left me speechless one day when I discovered him practising a method he had discovered himself that reduced feelings of sadness and anger in such instances as not getting one own way.  His younger brother and I have much to learn from such wisdom and self reliance. I often find there is so much to learn from children.

Consequences of outrage

When people get away with saying things they ought not, with expressing such rancour very unreasonable  things happen.  One is the call to sign a petition because the first vote was “undemocratic”- someone I know made this claim.  I understand the signing of a petition - but not on the retrospective claim that the referendum was undemocratic.  My first thought is to wonder how people believing such claims understand that to be true, and  wonder why they didn’t say so before the vote.  A rerun for a second referendum on Scottish independence starts to look more viable - but circumstances have changed in that the Scottish majority voted to remain in the EU.   Circumstances to require a second referendum have not changed with regard to Britain and the EU.  Not yet at any rate, despite the exit of the its main backers and the prime minister. I don’t see a second referendum with a Remain outcome restoring normality and if it does, I think it will be a normality that only suits some people - back to the status quo so many were unhappy with.  Whether one thinks the status quo right or wrong, it seems to me it isn’t really workable.  

Perhaps people who think the first vote "undemocratic" are retrospectively taking the “old people have fewer rights than young people” approach of someone like Shiv Malik - or something similarly radical such that in a better democracy young people's votes should count for more because...young people are more useful, apparently and useful people are...the employed.  I could ask the woman I saw whipping up support against the “undemocratic referendum” petition among friends on Facebook but I doubt that’s what she was thinking and anyway she seems pretty upset just now so it’s maybe not the time.  Perhaps they are saying referenda shouldn’t be allowed because plebiscites are not today really what we understand by democracy, which for us is representative rather than direct.  I think that is rather more the issue.

Matthew: I am not seeing anyone saying that all Leave-voters are racist, but I so far haven't seen anyone who voted Leave actually state that this is not in their name. It seems the gut reaction is to defend against the implicit accusation that they themselves are racist. 

I think that is natural. Take out the EU context and imagine a scenario where the way you voted is said by some to imply you are a racist because some racists voted that way too.  Try it:  Matthew,  I say because you didn’t vote like me you must be a racist or at least anti-immigrant  [that’s pretty much the implication of the Bristol flowers].  Perhaps a closet racist or if not that you’re anyway standing shoulder to shoulder with racists. I suspect your first reaction is not:  I see that there are racists doing awful things and although I may have voted as they did, my reasons are not theirs and what they are doing is not in my name.  I suspect your more instinctive reaction is the shorter, simpler "I’m not a racist.  I had different reasons”.  

It is for I think the vast majority so obvious it is not in our name, that we have nothing to do with such people that it is not the first thing we would say.  In fact to say "not in my name” actually seems to allow ourselves to be pushed closer to that vile band.  Do most of us think:  Oh, good, some extremists are saying and doing what we secretly wish.  No. Not even those who might previously have been anti-immigrant per: "If you'd asked me last year I'd have said, 'Send them all back' but now I have Romanian neighbours I feel nasty saying that." (From a BBC article about Leeds, divided on Brexit). We all have Romanian neighbours now.  Mine are at the end of our alley.  Their large car parked on the corner there makes it hard to get in now and for a while I wished they’d get a street permit but well, they have lots of kids and the right to live here so we adjust.  Besides, some of their boys invited mine to play football on the field once and apart from the fact we’re neighbours that’s more than anyone else’s kids round by us have done, so while they dress differently and keep to themselves, it isn’t that I don’t mind they have a different approach, what I’ve seen of it, I welcome.

To return then, if Leavers do not say your explicit wording “Not in our name”  it is probably because we are reeling from the shock of the implication that you think it might somehow be in our name, that we have to distance ourselves from racists in case people think we might be if not them then not that unlike them. I think there is something very wrong with the implication Leavers have to prove they are not racist sympathiser.   

Matthew: This leaves me with the uncomfortable result that, in my Facebook bubble, the only people visibly upset about the well-documented increase in racist incidents the last few days are also the people that voted Remain. I would love to see the condemnation be universal, for those few (but not few enough, unfortunately) to see.

I see your point.  But I suppose you see now the problem.  If we feel you think we are racist sympathisers then we are not going to be inclined to join you, even when it accords with our own beliefs.  And it seems to me you do still think that (see my response to your next point).

Matthew: I don't believe that you and other Leave-voters aren't upset about the fact that these hate crimes have increased, but so far I haven't seen a single one actually SAY it. You mention in your previous blog post about them being jailed and punished -- I guess that's close, and it's more than I've seen from any other Leave voter so far. Most have instead accused me (usually indirectly by way of a 'be like BIll' post) of 'stirring up hate and bile' - not my raison d'etre, I hope you agree.

The trouble here is that I don’t see how I could have been clearer about what I feel about racists.

I said your "Not in my name" when the whole reason for my getting involved in any Brexit discussion was because I felt the “Bristol Flowers” people were trying to make people who voted like me stand in a  corner with racists. It was a distancing action, which is what "Not in my name" is.

I can’t see in what way I haven’t been clear.  There were many other things besides the “jail” remark in my earlier  response that condemned racists but you do not seem to have seen them.

Do I care that racists might think they have a silent backing?  No.  I don’t care what racists think.  I care only what they say and do, that they are caught,. tried and jailed.   Anything more simply gives them airtime, discussion time.

I’m sorry if that isn’t clear enough for you, but I feel you want me to use your words not mine.  I am sorry if you don’t understand my words but I think others will.  I’m not the type to go sloganeering and chanting and I couldn’t imagine trying to convert someone to it.  I don’t like the sort of imposed control that implies.  And I won’t be anybody’s parrot.   Influence is one thing; influence can be chosen, but coercion never can. People choose themselves to say what they feel and  thank goodness, I think, for that.

Matthew: I'll try to summarise in one sentence what I guess I'm asking you to do: I would be more comfortable if you, as a Leave voter, would clearly say that the people using the referendum results as an excuse to attack and intimidate don't do so in your name. You might say it's obvious, but it would help me rest easier.

Perhaps you have a reason not to be comfortable with doing that, but at the moment that's the part I don't understand and am finding so frustrating.

I hope my last response clarifies this.   Besides, I don’t have as far as I know, racists friends.  There is no one I know who I could imagine suspecting of that.  I don’t see what benefit there is in my chanting “Not in my name” on Facebook or even here. If one wanted to take a real stand against racism perhaps the thing to do would be to take a train ride up to those protestors with the Go Home banners and face up to them.  I hope if it happened in my community I wouldn’t walk on by.  I hope I would do more than say from behind a screen “Not in my name”.  I hope we all would.

The concerns of a Remain voter

Felicity kindly invited me to try to express my concerns about the state of things.  I don't pretend to speak for all Remain voters.

Thanks Felicity. I don't have many 'leave' voters in my friends list, but the ones I do have are (mostly?) thoughtful people who have good reasons for voting the way they did. If their arguments were the ones that won the referendum, I think I could go along with it a lot more happily than I'm able to at the moment. I feel it was won on false pretences.

At the moment I'm trying to separate two things:

1) disagreement/disappointment with the result.  I hope you and others can understand is more than just 'sour grapes' -- it's beyond my ability to just 'suck it up'. I haven't seen you suggest that's the case either, by the way, but it's a running theme amongst some others and it's hard to bear. I think the winning side just has to be 'bigger' sometimes and let the losing side rail for a while.

I also think it is a responsibility of the winning side to address the concerns of the losing side, because after all, we're now going with the Leave verdict.  It's down to the leaders of the Leave campaign to confirm that it's all going to plan or admit gracefully that it's not.  Nothing goes completely to plan, so an acknowledgement of that would be helpful -- otherwise it feels more like everyone is defending their position at the cost of looking at the latest facts.  This goes for both sides of the argument.

2) distress about the fact that this vote has given those few (but not few enough, unfortunately) who want to use it as an excuse for blatant racism the chance to do so. I am not seeing anyone saying that all Leave-voters are racist, but I so far haven't seen anyone who voted Leave actually state that this is not in their name. It seems the gut reaction is to defend against the implicit accusation that they themselves are racist. This leaves me with the uncomfortable result that, in my Facebook bubble, the only people visibly upset about the well-documented increase in racist incidents the last few days are also the people that voted Remain. I would love to see the condemnation be universal, for those few (but not few enough, unfortunately) to see

I don't believe that you and other Leave-voters aren't upset about the fact that these hate crimes have increased, but so far I haven't seen a single one actually SAY it. You mention in your previous blog post about them being jailed and punished -- I guess that's close, and it's more than I've seen from any other Leave voter so far. Most have instead accused me (usually indirectly by way of a 'be like BIll' post) of 'stirring up hate and bile' - not my raison d'etre, I hope you agree.

I may still be failing to express myself clearly, although I'm trying hard, and using too many words. I ask you to try to see through my confusion and accept that I and others are genuinely trying to separate these two issues, which keep being pushed back together by both sides of the argument.

I'll try to summarise in one sentence what I guess I'm asking you to do: I would be more comfortable if you, as a Leave voter, would clearly say that the people using the referendum results as an excuse to attack and intimidate don't do so in your name. You might say it's obvious, but it would help me rest easier.

Perhaps you have a reason not to be comfortable with doing that, but at the moment that's the part I don't understand and am finding so frustrating.

- Matthew.