Division and disharmony? It’s more like Tinder to me
March 29 will come as a disappointment for many Brexiteers. Our planned departure from the European Union has been postponed through a combination of subterfuge, weak leadership and political paralysis. On Friday, the “March to Leave” will meander into London on a date now rendered meaningless. So far, so depressing.
Despite all this, I believe Friday still offers good reasons to crack out the champagne.
Amid the relentless negatives underlining the abuse and relationship breakdown, we hear very little about the positives of Brexit. In the run-up to the referendum, I had hoped to spare my sanity by avoiding this hot potato on Facebook. But it proved impossible to ignore. I encountered a wall of bigotry; often from otherwise reasonable, valued friends. Some rebranded Euroscepticism as a fringe, lunatic view, or spoke, nauseatingly, about being on “the right side of history”.
Eventually I couldn’t take it any longer and decided to “out” myself as a Leaver. I hoped that detailing my own motives (free trade, democracy, aversion to top-down governance) might cause some to rethink their stereotypes.
The results were mixed. I enjoyed lively, respectful debates with some, while friendships were sorely tested elsewhere. Most of all, I was astonished by the “Shy Brexiteers” who flooded out of the woodwork – drawn from Left and Right, encompassing bankers, bartenders, lawyers, musicians and unexpected fellow travellers, like a hipster from Shoreditch start-up land and that most unimaginable of Brexit “unicorns”, a Lib Dem Leaver. And thus it was that one of them ended up becoming my boyfriend (not the Lib Dem).
Though Brexit is unlikely to replace Tinder anytime soon, similar things are happening across the UK. People who rarely discussed politics are now engaged – even immersed – in the major issues of our time. While some long for respite from talk of amendments and statutory instruments, it is wonderful to see such widespread appetite for discussion. Leavers of Britain, the network set up by the activist Lucy Harris, has expanded hugely in a few months. Young Remainers, many of whom didn’t vote in 2016, have also enjoyed a political awakening.
Brexit has undoubtedly exposed a new “liberal bigotry” in some quarters – take the recent poll showing that more than a third of Remainers would object if a close relative married a Leave supporter. But the last few years have also revealed a cohort of heroic, democratic Remainers, determined to uphold the referendum result and defend Brexiteers against snobbery and abuse.
Reversing Brexit would only postpone the inevitable. The impassioned debate has revealed new political faultlines. Public trust may be waning, but politicians’ collusion in undermining the referendum result has utterly vindicated those who wanted to take back control.
Brexit has stress-tested our institutions and found most of them wanting. Would we prefer to retreat into a prelapsarian state, lacking this knowledge?
I wonder whether the same can also be said of relationships. After all, any friendship that cannot survive good-natured political disagreement is probably one not worth having.