Until of course you reach the point, as you often do with the far right, when they turn violent. Then you can only deal with them by physical resistance. They don’t tend to respect pacifism. Too many of them are so bitter about the smallness of their lives that they enjoy kicking the shit out of people to make themselves feel a little more powerful and self-important. A small minority take it even further and cheer on murder of innocent people as they watch it lived streamed on their internet connection.
The vast majority of people who voted to Leave in the referendum wanted nothing to do with far right racism. Lots of people were angry that their communities had been hollowed out and neglected. They were right to let the politicians know they were angry about that. Lots of people were angry about seeing people who did nothing to cause austerity having it inflicted upon them whilst the gambling bankers who did cause it were generously funded by the taxpayer and the Bank of England to get back to making very large bonuses. I shared the popular anger over watching £400 billion being frittered away whilst the rest of us were told we had to tighten our belts. It wasn’t surprising that anger came out in the referendum vote. Finally, it also has to be admitted that a lot of people voted to leave because they were scared of what they were told was going to be a wave of immigration from Syria – and did so without being in any way racists towards friends, neighbours and colleagues from our gloriously multicultural society. Lots of people are both opposed to immigration and genuinely opposed to racism. I personally think the UK has benefitted greatly from immigration but there are many decent people who disagree.
The far right proved very talented at manipulating emotions and offering people a simple hopeful vision that it call all be different if they just voted to get use free of those dreadful EU bureaucrats who were clearly behind all our problems. They took dark money from tax dodgers and Russian agents and channelled it into one of the most successful social media campaigns of all time. The result is that despite all the evidence of the damage and the chaos they have already done to this country a little over 40% of the British population still believe in the promises they made. A large chunk of voters still sincerely think that everything is going to be fine if we just get out of the EU and things go back to the way they used to be. There is a narrative that says that the only reason the wonderful sunny uplands that were supposed to come with Brexit haven’t arrived is because of the incompetence of liberal politicians. Shouting at people who disagree with us isn’t going to shift that attitude. It needs a coherent alternative and hard work of day to day articulation and more importantly delivery of that alternative. You don’t persuade people that their communities are no longer being neglected by neglecting them for two years and then trying to bung a few quid towards the regions to buy votes in Parliament.
Not everyone is going to be persuaded that the fantasy of the perfect post Brexit world when nations rushed to embrace wonderful new trade deals with a newly independent Britain and the factories came back has never existed and could never be delivered. That narrative is never going away. It doesn’t matter how much you pander to it, or how badly the Brexit project goes, we now have to live with the reality of a far right that believes its lovely vision has been betrayed. We also have to live with the reality that some people who think that will become bitter and cynical about politicians and that a small minority of those are going to resort to violence to express their anger.
We do not defeat those kinds of emotions by pandering to them. Nor do we defeat them by ignoring the causes and trying to treat the symptoms. And we certainly don’t minimise their support by shouting insults at everyone who voted leave. The only way of dealing with the far right is to state clearly and honestly the set of realities that they want us to ignore. Most people aren’t racist and don’t want to live in an isolated pure white Christian nation. The world is now multicultural and international and that is a good thing. We do live in communities that have many different attitudes but that often enriches our lives it very rarely threatens us. There is no going back to some imaginary past – there is only going forward and trying to adapt successfully to change. We do have to think and act and plan internationally because we all live on the same planet and that thinking and action requires structures and bureaucracy and political choices. Above all we do have to work collectively to improve the way we run our economy, our society and our environment we are not going to have a very happy future.
As I write the UK is in the biggest chaotic mess since the start of the Second World War. A vote for a cure all Brexit has finally run into the buffers of reality. The easy good deal we were promised from the EU isn’t on offer. May has negotiated a deal that sees us follow all the rules without making them for two years and then … well actually we don’t have the faintest idea of what happens then. The nation is facing the prospect of another two years of endless arguments about why we can’t have cake whilst eating it. Most people are already heartily sick of hearing about Brexit to the point where one of the main reasons May has some support for her deal is that most of the nation just wants something to happen to make them stop talking about it night after night on the news. Unfortunately, that is not what will happen if her deal goes through. As soon as it is passed a new set of horrible arguments will break out. No one can fix the fundamental problem with any form of Brexit. We can’t have access to the EU markets without following the rules and our economy can’t cope with not having tariff free access to those markets.
Labour keeps telling us that they can solve this problem and magic up a jobs first Brexit. Since this means following all the rules of the single market without making any of them they are offering a deeply unsustainable solution. Their proposals are rather better than May’s wooliness but they are massively worse that the Germany plus deal we started with. Labour’s semi-Brexit puts the country into a supplicant role that is virtually guaranteed to cause constant national frustration about taking rules from Johnny Foreigner. Implementing it would be the biggest free gift to the far right anyone could offer. Resoundingly rejecting Brexit altogether in a national referendum would, by contrast, be a massive defeat for the far right. It would demonstrate that their bitter vision of the future doesn’t have the support of the majority and most of us have seen through their lies and false promises and want nothing to do with them.
The only fair and reasonable way out of the mess is to ask the people whether they really want any more of this incompetence or whether they’d like the country to get back to dealing with real problems instead of staring at its own Brexit navel. Give people a fair chance to vote 1st and 2nd preference on No Deal, May’s Deal and No Brexit.
If, after transferring second preferences, there is still a majority of British people who want to leave then we’ll have to get on with trying to fix the core problems that generate narrow nationalist sentiments outside the EU. If, after transferring second preferences, there is a majority in favour of Remaining then we still have to get on with the job of trying to fix the core problems that generated the anger.
There is no getting away from the need to empower neglected regional communities. There is no getting away from the need to take power away from the bankers and give it to communities. There is no getting away from the need to run our economy and our society and our environment in the interests of the ordinary people who live within it.
But ask yourself this simple question. Did their victory in the last referendum help or hinder the far right? If, like me, you think the answer is yes then why wouldn’t a resounding defeat for them in a second referendum be the best way of fighting them off. Or are we going to pander to their delusions for ever and give them a little bit more of their fantasy in the hope that they will go away and not ask for any more?