Monday 27 June 2016

Where do we go from here? Thoughts on post-EU Britain


These are my thoughts about what is happening and has been happening since Friday, following the vote to leave the EU.

I hope and pray there will not be a general election soon as I believe that the only winners if this happened would be UKIP. They would not be likely to win but they would be very likely to increase seats. I suspect, they would use the argument that they wanted to act as a power to ensure that those in power were accountable. If this happened the right wing voices we’ve been hearing during the referendum campaign which have made those who are on the extreme right feel legitimised in their blatant racism would increase and I fear the increase in hate crime we’ve been witnessing over the last few days would also increase.

The last thing we need at the moment is a political vacuum but this is what we appear to have, with the exception of the voice of the Scottish Nationalists and the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon. Unfortunately for the UK the leadership they are giving is to one part of our domestic economic union, (which is what I believe the UK is).

As a Labour member, (and somebody who joined in the last leadership campaign), I joined because I supported the ideals of Corbyn and felt his campaign was giving the Labour party a truly left wing identity again but I did not vote him as my first choice. Rather I put him as second choice because I believed Yvette Cooper stood more chance being seen as electable in the country as a whole and she seemed the moderate left candidate with the other two challengers being, in my view Blairites.

With regard to what is happening now I am saddened but not surprised. Corbyn who has never been a great EU enthusiast was honest during this campaign about his feelings and that honesty seems to have meant he has become the scapegoat for many. I think this is disgraceful, but as I say I think it was somewhat inevitable because many of the PLP are more right wing than a great deal of the members now. They were, I am sure, looking for an excuse to get rid of Corbyn at the first opportunity. I think that is what has happened.

What we need now is a leader who can act as a unifier but not a leader who will take us to what is now the right, in order to win votes at the expense of Labour values. We need to create an atmosphere where we can deal with the real concerns of those voters who did not vote Labour last time and those who voted for Brexit in imaginative and concrete ways.

We need to find ways to talk about immigration in a way which shows many of the real concerns they have are due to structural failures in the social policy of successive governments due to the failure of the neo-liberal consensus. Within this the New Labour project needs to be ready to shoulder blame too. At the same time, as we are in a situation where those structural failures are causing real concerns for people who are finding it hard to get their kids into schools and to get GP appointments.We need to have vision as to how to deal with these problems. It won’t just involve throwing money at them but it may well involve investment which will involve increased taxation.

We need to find ways to help people feel and get involved in civil society again. A lot of people who voted leave did so because they felt that accountability was being taken away from their elected representatives.

We need to deal with the social divisions in this country linked to class, ethnicity and age. This referendum showed the fault lines we have in this country around all three and I fear as the impact of both the Tory austerity programme and the leave vote both hit over the next five years this is only going to get worse.

Finally, we need to find ways for institutions and the academy to regain trust amongst ordinary people. The way in which the referendum campaign treated the concept of “expert knowledge” was in some ways understandable. It reflects the way in which society and post-structuralism in an information age has been developing. However, we need to work together to reinforce how in some areas people do have expert knowledge. Many of the people who were encouraged to distrust experts were those with trades. We need to show that we go to the hairdressing salon because we know that the person there will do a good job, similarly we go to the academy because the people there have something to offer us. When I go to the hairdresser I expect to have my say and to be listened to seriously and I think on the other side of the coin the academy needs to be ready to listen more to the public and not just as research subjects.

In practice where do we go from here and how do we get some of this stuff happening? Well, I don’t know to be honest - it's one of the reason why I think that people need to be talking not blaming now. However there are some things I think we can all do:

1)    Be ready to listen to those who voted differently to ourselves and to why they made that choice and what their concerns are.

2)    Stand up against racism and other forms of hate crime. We need to make sure any incidents we witness are reported.

3)    To recognise that the common enemy we have is inequality in our society and to seek to identify and challenge the real causes of this (which tend not to be immigration). To support those academics who are engaging with this through whatever discipline.

4)    To vote, even if we find it difficult to try and find the least bad option.

5)    To try and find at least one way to positively engage in our society. If we give up on trying to hope we really are stuffed.

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