The Daily Telegraph

Britain is having a nervous breakdown

- Allison Pearson

You know that moment when the teacher takes a boy to the sick bay and the class becomes raucous with the possibilit­y of rebellion? Voices grow shrill, someone throws opens a window, rubbers fly. The absence of authority is liberating at first, but soon all but the wildest kids are nervous, wishing Miss would hurry back so order can be restored.

That’s how Britain felt in the days following the vote for Brexit. After 10 weeks of telling us what to do, our leaders quit the stage, leaving a vacuum that soon filled with all kinds of ugliness and dread. They were whipped up by social media, politician­s and broadcaste­rs who should have known better. Distraught Remainers who had been urging tolerance and respect were now insulting the old (for blighting the future of the young) and calling Leave voters “sewage” and “scum”.

Powerful people, who held almost all the cards in the campaign, simply could not accept that they had lost. One lachrymose Remainer declared that it was “the worst day in Britain since 1939”. What, worse than Aberfan, when 116 children had their lives snuffed out? Worse than the Seventies, when the dead went unburied because of chronic strikes? The want of perspectiv­e was staggering. Welcome to the national nervous breakdown.

Given a chance to steady the ship through what were bound to be a turbulent few months, political parties decided, instead, to see who could do the best impersonat­ion of a five-yearold overdosing on Percy Pigs. Nicola Sturgeon seized the opportunit­y to hold the country to ransom, threatenin­g another shot at Scottish independen­ce, even though she won’t dare try until she’s sure she’ll win. And Labour, instead of addressing the fact that it was the Labour heartlands what won it for Brexit, set about ejecting Jeremy Corbyn, the one party leader who privately shared the majority view. A politician who was in touch with the voters could not go unpunished.

The BBC, meanwhile, was scouring the country for Leave voters suffering from “buyer’s remorse”. Radio 4’s Today programme produced a dazed woman who confessed to the nation: “Forgive me, for I have sinned against the liberal order and disobeyed Michael Heseltine, Peter Mandelson, the IMF and Sir Bob Geldof, and I knew not what I did, for which I am truly sorry.”

The Beeb, which was reasonably neutral during the campaign, had moved on from Project Fear to Project Hysterical Over-Reaction. It revelled in every piece of bad news and sought out racist incidents to prove that Britons had secretly been waiting for the day when they could get that Ku Klux Klan cossie out of the cupboard.

And yet, for every disgusting note to an immigrant family in Huntingdon, there was the Welsh Polish Associatio­n, in my home town of Llanelli, which found a gorgeous picture of Polish airmen during the war stuck on its door with the message: “Thanks for being here then… Still glad you’re here now.”

Such gestures, far truer to the character of this fundamenta­lly decent and strikingly unracist nation, got little airtime because they failed to fit the narrative of division and hate. The BBC seems determined to thwart Leave’s victory. Turn on News at Ten and you are sure to find Huw Edwards, Laura Kuenssberg and Kamal Ahmed, as cheery and upbeat as the three witches in Macbeth, poring over yet more good (sorry, bad) news of economic turmoil. “Double, double, toil and trouble; Sterling burn and FTSE crumble!”

Is British self-loathing now so acceptable that it’s OK for the national broadcaste­r to talk down our country? I much preferred that lovely, smiley northern lady who told a fretful BBC reporter: “Oh, it’ll settle down.”

Did we really detect a deliberate dragging of feet by the Prime Minister and other humiliated Remainers? Is there a desperatio­n for Leave to fail so that they will be vindicated? If so, shame on them for playing student politics at a time when steady, responsibl­e grown-ups are sorely needed.

And how dismal it is to see human rights lawyers, of all people, joining the call for a second referendum which would, presumably, correct the dumb choice made by the British on June 23. On Twitter, Dan Snow, the expert in military history, said: “Britain didn’t achieve greatness by accepting defeat. In that spirit, I absolutely refuse to accept this. #NeverBrexi­t”

Eh? How was the democratic referendum a defeat for Britain exactly? For the hereditary Snows and their gilded ilk, maybe, but what about the footsoldie­rs, Dan? The working class are considered good enough to fight and die for this country in the trenches, but when the battle is to get us out of the clutches of Brussels, well, I’m awfully sorry, but they’re simply not up to it, are they? Let’s get some brainy, enlightene­d fellows in here to put the chavs right.

The stench of snobbery is as overwhelmi­ng as it is misplaced. It turns out that 42 per cent of ABs (that’s the wealthy and profession­als) voted Out, so we Leavers are not the educationa­lly subnormal scum others paint us as.

I’ll be honest with you. There’ve been times when I’ve thought, why did we have the wretched referendum? I’ve been copied in on round-robin emails from friends which assume that I’d like to attend a pro-EU rally. Their assumption that I must share their opinion because what other view would it be acceptable for a nice person to hold? When the Remainer Daughter finally starting talking to me again and said, “Well, you won, Mum,” I felt sad. Sad that so many like her feel upset, sad that what I truly believe is best for Britain in the long term is a source of so much anger and misery here and now.

Over the weekend, at a party full of volubly pissed-off Remainers, a doctor whispered that she’d been bullied into signing a letter to a national newspaper saying that her hospital would be in huge trouble if we left the EU. It wasn’t true, she said, so she’d voted Leave, but “please don’t tell anyone”.

A reader asked if I had any advice as to how she could deal with threats and nastiness from her “liberal” friends. “It’s gone from ‘knowingly colluding with a racist agenda’,” she said, “to ‘if you’re a bright Leave voter you’re even worse’. How can these Remainers who are so against bigotry think it’s justified to be so hateful and ‘bigoted’ themselves?”

A very good question, but I have no easy answer. I’m avoiding Brexit conversati­ons wherever possible. Clearly, we need a lot less childish behaviour and a lot more responsibl­e grown-ups.

After the Scottish referendum in 2014, the Queen issued a statement calling for national unity. Had we voted Remain last Thursday, Her Majesty would have done so again, but the Prime Minister apparently called the Palace and it was agreed that she would say nothing. I think that was a mistake. Our country is fractious and divided. Who better than our Queen to remind us that to be British is to keep calm and carry on?

Please say something, Ma’am.

We Leavers are not the educationa­lly subnormal scum that others paint us as

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