Here's an email I wrote to my brother on learning the news about Brexit -
Hi Roz,
You must be pleased this morning. I
guess I am too, although my delight at the total shock at the result amongst the
great and the good (distinctly audible on the BBC – someone tweeted “They don’t
know anyone who voted leave!”) is tempered by Sal’s dismay. She
understands that people in England’s old industrial areas feel disillusioned
with their lot (and let down by Labour, which is essentially run by people like
us), but she puts their problems down to failures of capitalism. Moreover
she attributes decades of peace in Europe to the EU. She’s gutted.
I think she’s wrong on both counts. I think we have
peace because we remember what two world wars were like; and as for capitalism,
it is lifting people out of poverty all over the world – it’s just that better
standards of living for people in the Far East means poorer job prospects for
the post-industrial West; and those same forces of globalisation are driving
people (courtesy of free movement) to Britain, depressing wages at the bottom
end and keeping Brits on the dole.
Because of this we’ve become a much more unequal country in
the last twenty years. Those with skills are not competing with migrants,
on the whole, so their wages have risen more quickly. The idea that this
could carry on indefinitely without the derided underclass rising up and taking
an opportunity to lash out was always complacent and, it turns out, mistaken.
I think Cameron and the EU bigwigs have handled this
incredibly badly. Cameron should have asked for much more than he
did. He should have understood that given some genuine restrictions on
migration much of the anger of Labour’s core vote would have dissipated.
Merkel, Juncker et al are equally to blame. They could have kept the
principle of free movement whilst allowing for its suspension in cases where
net migration exceeded a certain percentage of the population. Cameron
was incompetent for not insisting on it. They were arrogant and
inflexible. That their cosy arrangement now looks under threat is
entirely their own fault.
Nothing is as good or bad as it first seems. I think
the predictions of financial meltdown are premature. I also think we’ll
negotiate new arrangements with the EU which will fairly closely resemble the
old ones. On the other hand I think the fact that Scotland voted by a big
margin to Remain is genuinely disquieting. I think the financial
arguments which dished the Independence campaign last time will have if
anything greater force in the event of another referendum, and I don’t believe
that Scots would prefer a Union with Europe (and possibly the Euro) to Union
with the rest of the UK. But a lot of Scots were daft enough to believe
the SNP last time, and I’ve got absolutely no doubt that La Sturgeon would go
at it with renewed vigour.
I was struck by one thing when I
went to vote yesterday morning. Polls
consistently show that membership of the EU is one of the least pressing issues
concerning voters. Yet here we were
voting on it. On the other hand
excessive migration consistently comes out as one of the top two most pressing
issues for the British, but we can’t vote for (or against) any politician who promises to do
something about it. The walk I was
making to the local library to vote would not have been possible regarding
migration.
A political arrangement like
that cannot stand, and I’m not remotely surprised that Labour’s underclass has
registered its anger in the only manner available to it.
