The sound of mutual ignorance on Brexit

POLITICAL strategist Ron Christie is rare in being a black supporter of the Republican Party in the US. On last Sunday’s The Trumped Republicans on BBC Radio Four, he explored his own discomfort with Trump’s populist rhetoric, whilst admitting tribal satisfaction at seeing him turn the cultural tide by winning.

Christie got to the heart of the extreme divisions which characterise contemporary political discussion. First he spoke to his own students in New York, who deplored what they regard as Donald Trump’s inflammatory, dehumanising language against Mexicans, Muslims, and so forth. Then he spoke to young women on the other side who pointed out that this is “exactly what the Democrats do to every Republican.. because I’m a Trump supporter, I’m somehow (deemed to be) sexist, racist, misogynist, you name it”.

There was plenty of this absence of mutual respect on talk radio last week, as the UK Parliament finally voted to reject the prime minister’s withdrawal agreement with the EU. LNaigsetllT a uLeaswdasyo, n JHonicaiethnda a n eHrceialmy, sitting in as hodse t stornumNerew m stia n lke’stP ,i a l tmKoedniany Show, even airqiu ly atdui r smauis t sfeu d giftoartmuern r nUkKklIP leader Nigel Farage as “the architect of this nonsense”. There was no attempt to allow that wanting to leave the EU might be rational rather than just ludicrous.

This wouldn’t matter so much if there was a greater diversity in Irish politics on the issue, but everyone from right to left pretty much agrees that Brexit is awful. For example, on RTE Radio One’s Late Debate on both last Tuesday and Wednesday, not a single guest in studio had a good word to say for it. Again, not a problem; but it does make the role of the political interviewer all the more crucial in challenging consensus, otherwise politicians and the media end up in the same bubble.

That’s certainly happened in the UK, where politicians tended to react last week as if what’s needed now is for them to simply decide what they want, with no regard for whether that would be acceptable to the EU or Ireland.

Last Tuesday’s Late Debate, which began with a timely burst of Anarchy In The UK by punk band The Sex Pistols, was forensic in exposing that “gross ignorance” in Westminster. Unfortunately, when it then came to talking about DUP leader Arlene Foster’s attitude to the Border, guests demonstrated much the same myopia by seeming to suggest they understood Northern Ireland’s problems better than heW r, awth ch osI e T faNmOWily was a victim of terrorist vioHlaerndc y eB . uOcn ks e ig s uoe n sthevReT n EsPulgaygerstuendti , l without chDalelceenmgb e, er th3a0t; Mrter.sieF/polsatyer “probably still woSu ix ld Nlaitkioen ” stR o usgeb e y “is a oT n ru3Pmlapyiea r n unwtial ll along theDeBcoemrdbeer r ”.16T;htiv s 3i.i s e/wplhaay t erdemonisation of opSpiomnpe ly nN ts igleolo la ki sl oi n ke BB in C aiPcltaiyoen r .- currently not

aOva n ilaRbaledt io vUielwsteerr s ’s in SItreeplahnedn. Nolan Show last Tuesday, unionist commentator Nelson McCausland made that very point when talking about political abuse, namely that it’s a “two-way street”, in which those who voted for Brexit have been routinely derided as “old, uneducated and xenophobic”. There’ll be plenty more of that to come until we emerge on the other side into a better place.