The middle ground is our only route out of this Brexit abyss
Brexit is a conundrum in search of a compromise. The referendum, after all, delivered a narrow majority for leave; the political convulsions ever since have torn at Britain’s democratic and social fabric; and no one credible believes a hard break from the EU can be achieved without significant economic pain. A rational approach, therefore, would focus on a compromise seeking to unite the country as much as possible, minimise economic damage and allow the conversation to shift on to what Theresa May diagnosed – and proceeded to fuel – as the “burning injustices” disfiguring British society. But the middle ground underpinning such a compromise has been deliberately shredded, torched, carpetbombed from both directions.
The British right and their media allies have played the decisive role. Tory media outlets and the Tory hierarchy – David Cameron included – spent years demonising migrants, scapegoating them for social problems – like stagnating wages or the housing crisis – that are actually caused by those with power. George Osborne’s ideologically driven austerity project failed.
The Tory Brexiteers waged a campaign that synthesised impossible promises with unapologetic migrant-bashing. When their unachievable pledges were exposed as just that, they fell back on a double narrative: of betrayal, that the glorious Brexit revolution has been stopped short by a conniving political elite; and of weakness and lack of fight in confronting the EU. May’s own robotically repeated mantra of “No deal is better than a bad deal”, her demagogic, ultimately empty tirades against the EU, were all amplified by the Tory press. The consequence? A large swathe of leave voters angrier and more disillusioned than ever, and more than a third of the population supporting the self-inflicted nightmare
of no deal.
But consider the other side of the equation, too. The continuity remain campaigns have failed to win over leave voters. With honourable exceptions, they haven’t seriously tried, sometimes transmitting a message – consciously or otherwise – that Brexit voters are an ignorant, ill-educated, bigoted mass of dupes.
Where they have succeeded is making a chunk of remain voters even angrier, by focusing on challenging the legitimacy of the referendum result rather than the social crises that led to it. Russia – apparently the puppetmaster behind all undesirable political phenomena – is persistently blamed; and while the dealings of Arron Banks highlight the desperately overdue need for reform of electoral campaign law, this has been used to suggest the referendum result is simply null and void. All forms of Brexit, however soft, are portrayed as economically ruinous and the inevitable harbinger of mass austerity. This concedes the argument that austerity is an economic necessity rather than a political choice; and will displace blame for cuts away from the Tories in post-Brexit Britain. While for a remainer like myself no Brexit is desirable, a chasm separates an economically manageable soft Brexit and the economic shock of no-deal Brexit.
The hard remainers have their own betrayal narrative: that a Labour party that fills only 38% of parliament’s green benches shares responsibility for the national tailspin. Labour should be critiqued, of course: not least for the dismal betrayal of the pro-migrant argument. Senior Labour politicians don’t really believe that ending freedom of movement is a good thing; they are simply resigned to it. But the claim that Labour has provided no opposition is a pernicious myth. Even though the opposition keeps voting the Tories’ Brexit plans down, including offering an amendment with the option of a referendum, when they have failed to inflict defeats, it’s because so-called Tory rebels – yes, including the likes of Anna Soubry – refused to vote with them.
Ah, but Labour voted to trigger article 50, goes the claim. But the vast majority of MPs felt they had to do so to accept the referendum result. “To stand against the decision of the country would be to deepen Labour and the country’s divisions,” wrote one Labour MP at the time. His name? Chuka Umunna. While many remain Labour MPs are truly dedicated to their cause, for some it doubles as a weapon to beat a leadership they despise, an end that can only be achieved by stoking remain fury.
And so a considerable faction of remainers and leavers are angrier and more determined than ever before: it must be stop Brexit or nothing; no deal or nothing. These are the loudest voices on both sides: the respective dissenters seen as traitors or useful idiots of the other camp. Labour has not always communicated its proposals well as MPs balance on an increasingly strained tightrope. But the party’s attempt at establishing a unifying compromise has been desperately undermined by the polarisation of remain and leave.
When Labour is accused of failing to present an opposition, what is really meant is Labour won’t reverse the referendum result. Ignore the fact that most MPs will oppose a referendum whether the Labour leadership backs it or not; ignore the fact that most voters disapproved of Labour backing another vote; ignore the fact that Labour’s polls have dipped in favour of Ukip and the Tories since it made such a commitment; hell, just ignore political reality altogether.
For a leftist to preach the virtues of the middle ground may seem bemusing. But we all have our red lines in politics, beyond which we are willing to compromise. Sure, we can continue to fuel the anger of remainers and leavers alike; we can stoke the flames of culture war further; we can keep deflecting focus from the “burning injustices” – of stagnating living standards, a lack of affordable housing, of struggling public services. Or we can end a false, increasingly embittered division in the electorate over our relationship with a trading bloc, and ask both the 52% and the 48% to make sacrifices. May could accept a compromise with Labour but it would risk breaking her party – and that, for her, trumps the nation’s future.
For cynical and self-defeating reasons on both sides, the prospects of compromise have been devastatingly undermined. But it surely remains the best hope of bringing Britain back from the abyss.
• Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
For a leftist to preach the virtues of the middle ground may seem bemusing. But we all have our red lines in politics