Those of us who voted Leave are democrats – not racists
On Saturday, as the referendum result sank in, ITV evening news ran a feature on the Pride parade in London. The presenter’s concluding words were extraordinary. Despite the Orlando murders, she said, and despite the Leave vote, the marchers’ message was one of tolerance and unity.
Never mind the implication that gay people couldn’t have voted against Brussels. (In fact, there was a brilliantly effective LGBT Brexit group called “Out and Proud”.) Never mind the unthinking elision of “tolerance” with the EU racket. The truly shocking thing was to link the vote to the Orlando atrocity. The implication was that if you were one of the 52 per cent who voted to take power back, you were different only in degree from a mass murderer. Sure, you might not be a crazed gunman; but he represented the extreme form of your position.
At the time, I dismissed it as a clumsy slip by one reporter. How wrong I was. Since the vote, Remainers have been lashing out like frustrated toddlers. If you voted Leave, you’re a bigot, a hooligan, a thug.
I’m not just talking about social media. I’m talking about much of the broadcasting establishment. Interviewers start from the proposition that Leavers are either racists or cynical manipulators of racism.
For what it’s worth, polls consistently showed that Leave’s top issue, by a long way, was democracy. Immigration was a distant second and, even among those citing immigration, few wanted or expected that there would be zero settlement from Europe. What they wanted – and what we will be in a position to deliver when we leave – was control. Parliament will decide who comes here and on what terms. How much free movement of labour we retain will be up to us.
In the past 24 hours, I have twice had it put to me
on air that I am responsible for hate crimes. The first time was by Christiane Amanpour on CNN, who wanted me to condemn some horrible graffiti that she called “fallout” from the vote. When I replied that there were a few racist idiots in every society, she thought that I was refusing to condemn them. So a few hours later, interviewed by Piers Morgan on Good
Morning Britain, I decided to leave no doubt. Yes, of course I condemned intolerance, though I still thought it absurd to suggest that there was some kind of continuum linking racists to the 52 per cent of Britons who had opted for democratic selfgovernment. Ending the interview, Piers remarked to his co-presenter that condemning the attacks was “the least they could do”.
Seriously? Those of us who argued for a global Britain, looking further than one declining trade bloc, are responsible for hatred? I have spent months campaigning, not only alongside Britons of Commonwealth backgrounds, but alongside many people of European origin who have clocked Brussels for the remote oligarchy it is. Are we all racists?
Since the vote, I’ve been doing my best to acknowledge the narrowness of the outcome, to take on board the concerns of the 48 per cent. Just as Leavers need to acknowledge that we have only a limited mandate, so Remainers must acknowledge which way the vote went. Only then will it be possible to work together on a new deal with Brussels, keeping parts of our current arrangements while repatriating powers. This isn’t a good time to sulk.