The politics of grievance requires a 'bogeyman'. An all-purpose evil on which can be blamed everything that is wrong with life – and the only thing that stands between us and a vague promised utopia.
Bogeyman Politics asks you to believe that there is one simple cure for all of the interconnected problems of messy, complicated, fragile day-to-day life. Can't get a hospital appointment? Blame the Bogeyman. Wages don't stretch far enough? Blame the Bogeyman. Can't get on the housing ladder? Blame the Bogeyman. Marriage breaking up? Blame the Bogeyman. It is a crass oversimplification, peddled by charlatans who want you to think that they alone, in this big scary world, are on your side. It is a con.
For some, the Bogeyman is 'bankers', or 'neoliberalism'. For others, 'Westminster'. For many, it is 'immigration'. For the majority of people who will vote to leave the European Union tomorrow, it is the EU that fills that role; the EU is the Bogeyman, responsible for everything bad about Britain, and the one and only thing that's holding us back from being truly great (or, if you are of a nostalgic bent, 'great again').
Real life is more complex than that. More difficult than that. Anyone selling you the idea you can fix all your problems with one fell swoop is not telling you the truth.
Which is why it is sad to see campaigners for the 'Remain' camp in the EU referendum rebutting the 'Leave' campaign's Bogeyman Politics with a few choice Bogeymen of their own. All day today I have watched a steady stream of smug, supercilious Tweets and Facebook posts along the lines of "Oh, you think single issue x is to blame for everything bad? Ha! You fools! Can't you see that single issue y is to blame for everything bad…?"
No doubt the people posting this stuff think themselves very clever. They aren't fooled by the narrative that the EU is the root cause of all our nation's problems! They can see right through that! They know what the true cause is. But they have allowed themselves to be duped by a different narrative – one which is just as seductively simplistic, and just as destructively wrong.
As with most things, there is no one simple answer. The 'Bogeyman' concept is attractive because it is comforting. It is less frightening to be told you are a basically 'good' person who has been a victim of some malign conspiracy – and that you have it within your power to rise up and take back what is rightfully yours from those who have done you wrong – than that you are adrift on a rolling sea of entropy in the ever-changing, unforgiving, big wide world. Having someone, or something, to blame – giving it a form, a name, a face – makes life easier to cope with. At last, the question "Why do these things always happen to me?!" seems to have an answer.
It is an understandable, human reaction. But political movements based on grievance, where politicians knowingly perpetuate the 'Bogeyman' narrative to mobilise great swathes of the general public, have a long and ugly track record of turning very nasty indeed. And when campaigners for 'Remain' offer up an alternative Bogeyman as a focal point for the mystified anger of 'Leave' voters, they are guilty of it just the same.
The trouble (for both sides) comes afterwards – once the Bogeyman is slain. The Bogeyman may have been defeated, but the problems of ordinary life have not gone away. The hospital waiting times, the tax bills, the energy prices… These things have not disappeared overnight. The sunlit uplands of utopia glibly promised by the politicians who cynically played on people's fear of the Bogeyman to win votes seem as far away as ever.
And so, the search for a new Bogeyman must begin. Something has to fill that void. Something, or someone, has to be to blame. Who do we think that might turn out to be? When Britain votes to leave the European Union, and people's lives are not magically improved overnight, the public anger which did so much to drive the anti-EU movement won't just vanish – we should all be very concerned about what (or who) that ire might end up focused on next.
Showing posts with label remain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label remain. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Saturday, 18 June 2016
#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:
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.
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.
Monday, 16 May 2016
#EUref: pick a side
A headline in yesterday's Telegraph that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will refuse to 'share a platform' with David Cameron when campaigning for Britain to remain in the European Union will have come as no surprise for anyone who has followed the rise of Corbyn, and seen him to be the lightweight, petulant egotist that he undoubtedly is. However, it was – in my view – indicative of how widespread certain misconceptions about referendum campaigning have become.
In writing before about how the conflation of a national plebiscite with traditional party politics has seeped into the mainstream, I have laid much of the blame for this at the door of the SNP – but this way of thinking is becoming more and more prevalent across the political spectrum, and I think it bears another look.
For the benefit of those who haven't quite grasped this yet, it is worth making very clear that in a referendum, there are only two sides. You do not get your own side, all to yourself. This means that if you are a Labour MP or activist who is campaigning for 'Remain', you are on the same side as David Cameron; you are on the same side as George Osborne; you are on the same side as Theresa May; you are on the same side as Ryanair. You may not like it, but you are – because, on this one issue (even if on nothing else), you want the same outcome as them.
You could avoid that by being a Labour MP or activist who is campaigning to 'Leave' the EU, of course. But then you would be on the same side as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, George Galloway and Katie Hopkins. Whether you like it or not.
It is a common obfuscation to claim that even if you agree with the Prime Minister that Britain should stay in the EU, you fundamentally disagree with him about what the EU should look like, and what Britain's role in the union should be – and that this makes your position distinct from his.
The referendum is not about that. This is a single-issue vote; Remain, or Leave. Pick a side. There is no third option where you get to say "I'm basically Remain… But not like he is!" Remain is Remain; it's as simple as that.
This, after all, is surely the point of holding a referendum on the topic at all? It (in theory, at least) allows the campaign to strip away all the other gumf and focus purely on the issue, getting away from the "we are the good people, and that makes us different from those bad people" bloviating that we see so often in day-to-day party politics.
In refusing to put aside his differences with the Prime Minister in order to campaign on their one point of common ground in the run-up to this vote, Corbyn shows us that keeping his image intact is more important to him than the cause he professes to support – and once again makes the conversation about him, rather than about the topic at hand.
In writing before about how the conflation of a national plebiscite with traditional party politics has seeped into the mainstream, I have laid much of the blame for this at the door of the SNP – but this way of thinking is becoming more and more prevalent across the political spectrum, and I think it bears another look.
Spoke with Osborne and Balls supporting Remain. Economic case becoming overwhelming. Happy to put old quarrels aside to support Remain.— Vince Cable (@vincecable) May 16, 2016
He gets it…
For the benefit of those who haven't quite grasped this yet, it is worth making very clear that in a referendum, there are only two sides. You do not get your own side, all to yourself. This means that if you are a Labour MP or activist who is campaigning for 'Remain', you are on the same side as David Cameron; you are on the same side as George Osborne; you are on the same side as Theresa May; you are on the same side as Ryanair. You may not like it, but you are – because, on this one issue (even if on nothing else), you want the same outcome as them.
You could avoid that by being a Labour MP or activist who is campaigning to 'Leave' the EU, of course. But then you would be on the same side as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, George Galloway and Katie Hopkins. Whether you like it or not.
It is a common obfuscation to claim that even if you agree with the Prime Minister that Britain should stay in the EU, you fundamentally disagree with him about what the EU should look like, and what Britain's role in the union should be – and that this makes your position distinct from his.
The referendum is not about that. This is a single-issue vote; Remain, or Leave. Pick a side. There is no third option where you get to say "I'm basically Remain… But not like he is!" Remain is Remain; it's as simple as that.
This, after all, is surely the point of holding a referendum on the topic at all? It (in theory, at least) allows the campaign to strip away all the other gumf and focus purely on the issue, getting away from the "we are the good people, and that makes us different from those bad people" bloviating that we see so often in day-to-day party politics.
In refusing to put aside his differences with the Prime Minister in order to campaign on their one point of common ground in the run-up to this vote, Corbyn shows us that keeping his image intact is more important to him than the cause he professes to support – and once again makes the conversation about him, rather than about the topic at hand.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)