On the prospect of a Trump Presidency…

I think I started to drift off to sleep around half-past-four this morning – just as it was starting to become clear that it was looking like Donald Trump's night, in the US Presidential Elections.  I woke again a few hours later, still half expecting to see that results had swung back to Hillary Clinton, who had just edged it after a very narrowly-fought race.  And then I checked my phone…  Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States.

I'm not sure the initial shock of the result has worn off, yet (as I write, this news is barely twelve hours old, after all).  When Britain voted in a referendum to leave the European Union, just a few months ago, the result took a while to sink in; the prospect of a Trump Presidency is orders of magnitude more frightening than 'Brexit' could ever be.  People today are feeling nervous, anxious, worried and scared.  They have every right to.

There are also people trying to calm everybody down, of course.  They say that Trump won't enact the more extreme things he has said he'll do; that he will 'soften' as a character, now that he doesn't have to chase votes any more; that the enormity of the responsibility he now has will change him…  I'm afraid these soothing words do little to quiet my concerns.

Even if all the calming words are true – even if Trump himself is nowhere near as bad a President as we had feared – he has unleashed something in this campaign, something which cannot just be put back in its box.  The people who cheered Trump's incendiary speeches and divisive rhetoric at his rallies and campaign events haven't formed those views overnight – such prejudice and unpleasantness has been around for years – but in the President-elect, they realised they had found a mainstream focal point for their anger, hate and bitterness.  He was a figure around which to unite.

Trump's candidacy emboldened all manner of racists, misogynists, anti-semites, homophobes and the pedlars of paranoid conspiracism and small-minded victimhood.  They felt their opinions – once widely recognised as being unacceptable – becoming legitimised. They were on the up, and they grew in confidence, making more and more outrageous demands and sounding more and more bloodthirsty with each passing day.  They are still in the ascendancy now, and growing bolder than ever.

Even if Trump 'mellows' once he gets the keys to the White House, these people won't just go away.  They won't just stop shouting.  And having been promised policies which ban Muslims, remove gun-free zones in schools, and build border walls with Mexico, their anger won't simply dissipate if Trump fails to follow through on these promises; it will intensify.

I worry that a President Trump who doesn't do all the extreme things he has said he'll do will be as dangerous as a President Trump who does do those things.  He has legitimised bigotry by stoking these flames, and he has sent a message to his supporters that it is OK to think that way.

Even if he backtracks on the wilder points of his policy proposals now, those ideas don't just disappear.  The rage, and the hatred, won't just disappear – it will grow.  That genie doesn't go back in its bottle in a hurry.

#EUref – time to choose

There are now only five days to go until we in the UK vote on our continued membership of the European Union.  Frankly, it can't be over soon enough.

Whilst the campaign seems to have gone on forever, and the quality and tone of the debate has often been nothing short of cringeworthy, this is a big and important decision to make.  I can honestly say I've not been so conflicted about a political issue for a long, long time – I have been genuinely undecided for the majority of the campaign, and it is only really in the last week that I have begun to marshall my thoughts, and make up my mind.

I am planning to vote to 'Remain in the European Union'.  This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, because I feel any ideological attraction to the EU.  I am no fan of the European project, and there is much of it that I view with considerable suspicion – I am voting out of pragmatism, rather than any principled commitment to the EU – so I think it is worth explaining how and why I finally decided that I am leaning toward 'Remain'.

There are cogent, sensible, respectable reasons for wanting to leave the EU.  There is a very attractive vision of Britain outside the EU.  But sadly, I think the chances of a 'Leave' vote resulting in a Britain like that is practically nil.  The majority of 'Leave' supporters do not share my vision of post-EU Britain; the majority 'Leave' view is of an insular, curmudgeonly Britain which, liberated from the shackles of EU regulation, is free to be as bitter, intolerant and cantankerous as it pleases.

For me, if voting in the referendum included an opportunity to register my opinion on what direction the country should take post-Brexit, choosing 'Leave' would be much easier.  Without that option, I fear that any 'Leave' vote will automatically be taken as an endorsement of what we might term the 'Farageist' vision for the country after leaving.  That, I am afraid, is not something I am willing to put my name to.

Writing in the Guardian yesterday, Marina Hyde sums up one of the biggest issues I would have with voting to Leave:

There are many people I respect and admire voting leave – there are people in my family voting leave. I understand their reasons. But they must stomach the reality that a vote for leave will be taken by Farage and countless others as a vote for him, a vote for his posters, a vote for his ideas, a vote for his quiet malice, a vote for his smallness in the face of vast horrors. Is it worth it?

I'm really not sure that it is.

The EU has more than its fair share of faults and foibles.  It is certainly not an institution to which I feel any kind of emotional attachment; if I felt there was a good chance things would turn out OK afterwards, leaving it would cause me no pain.

'Remain' is the safer option.  'Remain' is a vote for continuation, not upheaval.  Despite what prominent Brexit activists might say, it is not 'scaremongering' to say that voting to 'Leave' is taking a leap into the unknown.  None of this means that Britain 'could not survive' outside the European Union, of course; 'Leave' campaigners who take a leaf out of the Scottish Nationalists' playbook by accusing those who point out these risks of 'talking Britain down' as being 'too small, and too poor' to prosper on our own, are tilting at straw men.  (And they probably know it, too.)

But just as I wrote last month that Jeremy Corbyn does not get to distance himself from the rest of the 'Remain' campaign and still be 'Remain', neither would I get to specify that my 'Leave' vote were somehow different from most of the people voting the same way.  No, my vote to 'Leave' would be lumped in with the votes of people from UKIP and Britain First – and it would be assumed that I had voted for the same thing they did, and that I want Great Britain to be the same the country they want it to be.

I don't.  And I don't hold out much hope for the voices of people like me being heard, in the event of a vote to leave the EU.  And that is why I think it will be best if I vote 'Remain'.

Of course Britain would prosper outside of the EU. Of course the EU isn't perfect. Of course it isn't racist to acknowledge that. But if you are voting 'Leave' for a more open, inclusive, positive, globalist Britain – as I would be, if I were to vote 'Leave' – you won't get it. We won't get it.

What we will get will be Nigel Farage and his ilk smugly parading around, pointing to the referendum result and declaring "See? We said most people in this country agreed with us! And look…!"

How ever little love I may have for the European Union, I really don't think I am prepared to vote for an option which will empower Farage and those like him to posture and preen and proudly hold my vote aloft as proof that the public shares their vision for Britain.

I don't share it. I don't endorse it. And I don't want – even accidentally – to get mixed up with those who do. I may not like the EU much, but I would rather vote to 'Remain' than see this brilliant nation turn into the type of country UKIP would like it to be, and know that I had had a hand in that.

Both sides of the #Brexit debate are thoroughly winding me up

Yesterday’s fresh new crime fiction, The Incident Of The Churchill Bust, proved to be an illustrative, if irritating, episode in showing just how crass and puerile both side of the EU Referendum debate in this country are becoming.

Keen to discredit Barack Obama’s recent intervention in the referendum campaign – which saw Obama firmly endorse a vote to ‘Remain’ in the EU – and paint the President as embittered and anti-British, the ‘Leave’ side pushed a narrative in which he had ordered a bust of Winston Churchill to be removed from the Oval Office to to cop a snook at the United Kingdom.  In response, the ‘Remain’ side put about that this never actually happened, referring to it as a ‘myth’.

The truth of the matter, of course, was neither one thing nor the other.  Obama himself seems to have confirmed that he did in fact have one of the two Churchill busts in question removed – but that this was not out of any disrespect for Churchill, or for Britain generally.  And yet, both the Leavers and the Remainers have seized upon this completely innocuous, barely relevant story and wrung its neck until it appears to support their case.

With a full two months yet to go in this campaign, it is depressing to see both sides fixating on such a triviality.  If every tiny murmur of a story is going to make both camps work themselves into a lather simplifying and twisting each detail to make it appear favourable to their cause, I don't know how much more of this I'll be able to take; far from ‘engaging’ me in a question of national importance, such petty bickering over nothing makes me want to knock all their heads together and call the whole thing off.  Oh god, can’t it just end?

What do we gain from #Brexit?

We know, now, the date of Britain's referendum on membership of the European Union – 23rd June.  Soon, the campaigning will begin in ernest, as politicians attempt to convince us either to 'Remain' a member, or 'Leave' the EU.

Personally, I am undecided on how I will vote.  I can see good arguments on both sides – and I can see wild hysteria and condescension on both sides too.  However, it's my view that the burden of proof is on those who wish to 'Leave'.

The lawyer and legal commentator David Allen Green writes on his blog Jack Of Kent that he is 'neutral' about 'Brexit', observing that the referendum's outcome will make little difference to law and policy, on a practical level.  Neutral, perhaps – but in reality this is a de facto argument to 'Remain'.  If things will be basically the same either way, why would we go through all the hassle of leaving, and all the tremendous upheaval that will entail?  Unless we can be fairly sure that getting out of the EU will tangibly improve life for most people in Britain, aren't we better off just staying as we are?

To my mind, 'Brexit' is not a matter of life-and-death.  The UK will basically be fine, whatever happens.  For all that the zealots on both sides of the argument would have us believe otherwise, neither result will truly be a catastrophe.  Maybe I will lose some friends by saying that – but friendship shouldn't be contingent on sharing a particular viewpoint on the European Union, should it?

But as I say, the onus is on the 'Leave' camp to make their case – and unless they can convince me of some very real benefits of leaving the EU (and I am still open to being persuaded), I shall end up as 'Remain' by default.

Maybe this seems uncaring, or half-hearted; a rather uninspiring way to make a decision about the future of the country.  But if it would be a touch unfair to say this is a vote about minutiae, it is at least a vote about something which few people really see as the crucial matter of our time.

For those of us who follow politics closely, it's a chance to spend a second year in a row geekishly obsessing over exit polls and sitting up all night eating takeaway food and watching David Dimbleby looking for something to say to fill in time – however, I think the wonks who inhabit the fringes of political society for whom Europe has always been a burning issue seriously overestimate the number of people who hold strong, passionate opinions about the EU.

To large amounts of people, the European Union matters vastly less than those who shout the loudest on either side of the debate could possibly comprehend.  Plenty of people are, like me, quite happy muddling along as we are – unless the case emerges that 'Brexit' would leave us decidedly better off.  Perhaps the initiative in this referendum campaign will ultimately be seized by whoever is the first to grasp this.

No one can have principles except me

A curious trait of many who are politically active is the strange way they seem to think that they (and those who agree with them) alone have a monopoly on 'principles'.  This is, of course, an extension of their political outlook generally – these are people, after all, for whom politics is about 'belief' and fervour, not objectivism and reasoned discussion.  But it leads to a logical fallacy, which these people can only fail to see due to their commitment to 'the cause' consuming the rational part of their brain.

If it is possible to take a strong, principled stance in favour of something, then it stands to reason that it is possible to be equally strong and principled in opposing that same thing.  This is common sense.

It is, however, difficult – almost impossible, in fact – to get anyone (regardless of where on the political spectrum they might sit) who truly believes in their political cause to concede this self-evident fact.

Whether we're talking about hardline UKIP 'Brexit-eers', or committed Corbynites, the attitudes are always the same.

I'm sure. They see their careers terminated or on hold. Instead of turning on Cameron, it's JC who is their enemy. https://t.co/4z93azO3nW

— John McPartland (@McPartlandJohn) January 23, 2016

Yes.  The reason 'moderate' Labour MPs are criticising their party leader is because they are venal careerists and they are scared; in the mind of a Corbyn loyalist like McPartland, this is the only explanation there can possibly be – he simply cannot comprehend the idea that MPs might hold different ideas from Jeremy Corbyn for genuine reasons, and that they might believe them and fight for them just as passionately as Corbyn himself fights for his own ideals.

Tory cabinet Ministers 2 worried about climbing greasy pole & Ministerial salary, rather than the interests of Brits https://t.co/g5h3SoD3hO

— uKipaLotmoreIan (@UkipaLotMoreIan) February 2, 2016

It's never occurred to Ian that these cabinet ministers might have weighed up the arguments on both sides very carefully and genuinely concluded that remaining in the European Union might actually be in 'the interests of Brits'.  I'm not saying they have, necessarily – maybe Ian is right that some ministers' reasons for not endorsing 'Brexit' owe more to expediency than conviction – but he can't be sure of that, and neither can I.  The possibility does exist that some ministers might have chosen not to campaign to leave the EU because they genuinely feel that staying in is the right choice, rather than because they are afraid to lose their salaries.

But fanatics like these cannot allow such impure thoughts to pollute their minds.  To admit that the enemy might actually be a relatively decent, normal guy who just happens to have a different outlook on certain issues – rather than an agent of evil itself whose dastardly propaganda racket must be smashed – is to admit defeat.

It is this demagoguery which allows activists to fight for their causes so passionately.  The single-minded belief that we are right because we have principles – whilst anyone who disagrees with us is necessarily a scurrilous, treacherous, two-faced, good-for-nothing hypocrite who's only looking out for himself – allows the movement (whatever it may be) to affect an air of moral superiority and rise above the petty objections of 'facts' and 'data'.

Most people, however, are (rightly) sceptical of zealots.  For the average person in the street – the very person, often, who needs to be convinced of one point-of-view or another – the ardour of anyone banging the drum too loudly, or too often, will actually be quite off-putting.  Such dogma – and such refusal to countenance the idea that the other side might, just occasionally, not be total schmucks – ends up being damaging to the cause.

But for an activist truly to dedicate him- or herself to a cause, he or she must completely believe that those who disagree are not just wrong, but malign.  These are people who have convinced themselves that they are fighting the good fight; that they, and they alone, are on the side of righteousness, justice, freedom and truth; and that it therefore follows that anyone opposed to their agenda has a sinister ulterior motive.

In short, they are deluded.  And they wonder why the rest of the population views them with such deep suspicion…?!