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.
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