Well, here we are, a year after we found, to practically everybody's surprise, that we had voted to leave the European Union. What a year it has been in the world of politics! But I wish I had been able to enjoy it more.
I like to think that there is at least one justification for this blog's existence, namely that, providing posterity is favourable to the Internet, it records, here, here, here and here, that in all the land there was at least one person who actually dithered over their vote in the referendum. Equally repelled by both official campaigns, which were both dreadful, and initially equally sympathetic with the feelings of my fellow lay voters in both camps, I resorted to taking an online survey to assist me in making a decision. The verdict was 50% Leave and 50% Remain.
The announcement of the national result on the 24th June ought to have been an exciting moment, and initially I did find it exciting, as well as unsettling. But generally, before and since the referendum, I have not enjoyed the national mood. On its eve I wrote that I wanted a close result. That was to shake us out of the apathy, or the single narrative, that lay thickly over the land. And so we were shaken out of it, and I was glad to see how many people had not bought it. But to have replaced it with nothing more than anger — often a blind, unthinking, vindictive anger — is a disappointment. It ruins the fun of politics, and risks worse than that.
And I have to admit that it has often been the Remain side, particularly as represented by my own generation, that has tested my sympathy most. Most Remainers that I sounded for their thoughts have certainly been reasonable, especially considering their disappointment — and perhaps I have not been exposed to the unpleasantness of some Brexiteers, which I don't doubt. But others have lumped Leavers, whose view I myself agreed with exactly 50% at the critical moment, into a kind of rudimentary moral dustbin where they can be accused of prejudice, selfishness, backwardness, short-sightedness and so on. That's unreasonable criticism, I think, since it is made not merely of their political judgement but of their collective character.
Although on paper I have more in common with the typical Remainer, I am in many ways a spiritual Leaver. I thought, right from the start, that it would actually do us good to become more inward-looking — in the right way, in the sense of 'introspective' — in order to see the plank in the national eye, and more backward-looking, in order to understand our history better. I am struck, for instance, by David Goodhart's idea of distinguishing between those who think of their identity in a broad, global, way, the 'Anywheres' and those who are more particular and more rooted, the 'Somewheres'. I would place myself in the latter category, which turned out on the whole to vote to Leave. Having lived and studied in France for a short time, I hope I need no persuading of the virtues of international friendship. But France, and Germany, and Poland are a different places from the United Kingdom, and have different ways of doing things, and this is good. The EU was only ever one way of co-operating with our European neighbours, and I was suspicious of the growth of a political project from an economic one, and a political project not particularly friendly towards the Church either.
Meanwhile I found the question of sovereignty compelling, and would find it perfectly understandable to vote to Leave on the grounds of instinct or principle, providing that this instinct was sincere and just and righteous. It is on such grounds that I know I would, for instance, without quite being able to explain why, have fiercely opposed surrendering the £ sterling and introducing the euro, if that had ever been on the cards. So if others felt likewise in this case, I am inclined to defend them. In fact, since the vote I have veered pro-Leave-wards far more frequently, and further at a time, than I have towards Remain, not least because of the grief the first side have got over their surprising victory.
And if sovereignty and independence were instinctive, rather than rational reasons to wish to leave, the justifications I heard from my own generation to stay in were not necessarily any more rational or less emotional. More than once, for instance, I have heard the view expressed that the European Union was a bulwark against groups of our own people, whose chief characteristic and fault was that they were 'conservative', in all the various meanings of that term. But that was never the purpose of the European Union. Surely the way to influence national opinion one way or the other is to argue a case, which will stand or fall on its own merits, rather than to co-opt for one's own purposes, as if they were military apparatus, any political structure that comes to hand? I would make the same criticism of the tendency to argumentative emotion rather than argument among many people, particularly of my generation, and not least the tendency to identical argumentative emotions. Witness the habit in some quarters of thinking and speaking of the Conservative party, say, as some kind of occupying force to be rooted out as soon as possible, rather than as a legitimate opponent — and I say this without any reason at all to defend the Conservatives. It represents a lack of faith and goodwill, I think. Worse than the anger is a kind of dogmatic homogenous mono-mindedness that is growing among young people, setting their faces against the older generation who might well know something that they don't, and setting their hearts on political solutions with a fervour not due to earthly things.
The referendum and this month's bewildering, unedifying general election have in common, I think, that many people, rightly or wrongly, have voted on principle, throwing economics and prudence to the wind. I think, economically, that the reasons to stay in the EU are probably sound, and my suspicion is that few Leavers expected us to become wealthier by leaving. Yet they voted for a principle all the same. Voting on principle and instinct, then, may be an improvement on voting cynically or selfishly, but only if the principles and instincts are well-founded and firmly grounded. Why, for instance, have so many decided so abruptly that Jeremy Corbyn is a good thing? I've an uneasy feeling that rather a lot of people think he is actually the Messiah, in which case they have got the wrong J.C.
Still, I always tend to sympathise with ordinary voters, since I'm only one of them. The real villainy, I regret to say, may well lurk in the media. Their influence on the national conversation has not been helpful. Reasoned, sober reporting is becoming rarer and the ever more tabloidesque BBC News website ever less willing to resist the temptation of the sensationalist. (After all, it was the media's caustic invective against Benedict XVI before his visit that alerted me to his courage and goodness). I think the media could do much more to make the conversation more grown-up: for instance, there was no obligation at all on Theresa May to take part in a televised squabble, and I think she made entirely the right decision to disregard the idea and to weather the media's fabricated, childish outcry.
And I have to admit that all this has, in turn, angered me at times. Are we now incapable of civilised national conversation? So when Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth — a bishop under no illusions either about the strength of the tide against churchgoers or the unassailable fastness of the hope we have — writes in a message on Twitter on the feast of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, 'There's something fragile about Britain at the moment,' I agree with him. All is not well in politics, so it is just as well that politics is not all. Let's rediscover our national sense of humour and goodwill.
I like to think that there is at least one justification for this blog's existence, namely that, providing posterity is favourable to the Internet, it records, here, here, here and here, that in all the land there was at least one person who actually dithered over their vote in the referendum. Equally repelled by both official campaigns, which were both dreadful, and initially equally sympathetic with the feelings of my fellow lay voters in both camps, I resorted to taking an online survey to assist me in making a decision. The verdict was 50% Leave and 50% Remain.
The announcement of the national result on the 24th June ought to have been an exciting moment, and initially I did find it exciting, as well as unsettling. But generally, before and since the referendum, I have not enjoyed the national mood. On its eve I wrote that I wanted a close result. That was to shake us out of the apathy, or the single narrative, that lay thickly over the land. And so we were shaken out of it, and I was glad to see how many people had not bought it. But to have replaced it with nothing more than anger — often a blind, unthinking, vindictive anger — is a disappointment. It ruins the fun of politics, and risks worse than that.
And I have to admit that it has often been the Remain side, particularly as represented by my own generation, that has tested my sympathy most. Most Remainers that I sounded for their thoughts have certainly been reasonable, especially considering their disappointment — and perhaps I have not been exposed to the unpleasantness of some Brexiteers, which I don't doubt. But others have lumped Leavers, whose view I myself agreed with exactly 50% at the critical moment, into a kind of rudimentary moral dustbin where they can be accused of prejudice, selfishness, backwardness, short-sightedness and so on. That's unreasonable criticism, I think, since it is made not merely of their political judgement but of their collective character.
Although on paper I have more in common with the typical Remainer, I am in many ways a spiritual Leaver. I thought, right from the start, that it would actually do us good to become more inward-looking — in the right way, in the sense of 'introspective' — in order to see the plank in the national eye, and more backward-looking, in order to understand our history better. I am struck, for instance, by David Goodhart's idea of distinguishing between those who think of their identity in a broad, global, way, the 'Anywheres' and those who are more particular and more rooted, the 'Somewheres'. I would place myself in the latter category, which turned out on the whole to vote to Leave. Having lived and studied in France for a short time, I hope I need no persuading of the virtues of international friendship. But France, and Germany, and Poland are a different places from the United Kingdom, and have different ways of doing things, and this is good. The EU was only ever one way of co-operating with our European neighbours, and I was suspicious of the growth of a political project from an economic one, and a political project not particularly friendly towards the Church either.
Meanwhile I found the question of sovereignty compelling, and would find it perfectly understandable to vote to Leave on the grounds of instinct or principle, providing that this instinct was sincere and just and righteous. It is on such grounds that I know I would, for instance, without quite being able to explain why, have fiercely opposed surrendering the £ sterling and introducing the euro, if that had ever been on the cards. So if others felt likewise in this case, I am inclined to defend them. In fact, since the vote I have veered pro-Leave-wards far more frequently, and further at a time, than I have towards Remain, not least because of the grief the first side have got over their surprising victory.
And if sovereignty and independence were instinctive, rather than rational reasons to wish to leave, the justifications I heard from my own generation to stay in were not necessarily any more rational or less emotional. More than once, for instance, I have heard the view expressed that the European Union was a bulwark against groups of our own people, whose chief characteristic and fault was that they were 'conservative', in all the various meanings of that term. But that was never the purpose of the European Union. Surely the way to influence national opinion one way or the other is to argue a case, which will stand or fall on its own merits, rather than to co-opt for one's own purposes, as if they were military apparatus, any political structure that comes to hand? I would make the same criticism of the tendency to argumentative emotion rather than argument among many people, particularly of my generation, and not least the tendency to identical argumentative emotions. Witness the habit in some quarters of thinking and speaking of the Conservative party, say, as some kind of occupying force to be rooted out as soon as possible, rather than as a legitimate opponent — and I say this without any reason at all to defend the Conservatives. It represents a lack of faith and goodwill, I think. Worse than the anger is a kind of dogmatic homogenous mono-mindedness that is growing among young people, setting their faces against the older generation who might well know something that they don't, and setting their hearts on political solutions with a fervour not due to earthly things.
The referendum and this month's bewildering, unedifying general election have in common, I think, that many people, rightly or wrongly, have voted on principle, throwing economics and prudence to the wind. I think, economically, that the reasons to stay in the EU are probably sound, and my suspicion is that few Leavers expected us to become wealthier by leaving. Yet they voted for a principle all the same. Voting on principle and instinct, then, may be an improvement on voting cynically or selfishly, but only if the principles and instincts are well-founded and firmly grounded. Why, for instance, have so many decided so abruptly that Jeremy Corbyn is a good thing? I've an uneasy feeling that rather a lot of people think he is actually the Messiah, in which case they have got the wrong J.C.
Still, I always tend to sympathise with ordinary voters, since I'm only one of them. The real villainy, I regret to say, may well lurk in the media. Their influence on the national conversation has not been helpful. Reasoned, sober reporting is becoming rarer and the ever more tabloidesque BBC News website ever less willing to resist the temptation of the sensationalist. (After all, it was the media's caustic invective against Benedict XVI before his visit that alerted me to his courage and goodness). I think the media could do much more to make the conversation more grown-up: for instance, there was no obligation at all on Theresa May to take part in a televised squabble, and I think she made entirely the right decision to disregard the idea and to weather the media's fabricated, childish outcry.
And I have to admit that all this has, in turn, angered me at times. Are we now incapable of civilised national conversation? So when Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth — a bishop under no illusions either about the strength of the tide against churchgoers or the unassailable fastness of the hope we have — writes in a message on Twitter on the feast of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, 'There's something fragile about Britain at the moment,' I agree with him. All is not well in politics, so it is just as well that politics is not all. Let's rediscover our national sense of humour and goodwill.
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