Mark Argent – Page 11 – Mark Argent

A Liberal Democrat future (speech given July 2016)

It has been an astonishing few weeks: shock waves from the Brexit vote have been echoing round the world, our two largest political parties in turmoil and a string of resignations. The spotlight has been shone on wealth inequalities, racism and xenophobia in British society. As a party, we’re right to be getting things in order in case there is a snap election.

I campaigned for a Remain vote — both as a Liberal Democrat and in Cambridge for Europe. Remaining in the EU is profoundly important for all of us. I very much agree with Tim Farron’s comment made soon after the referendum, that we should campaign to reverse Brexit in the next election, though quite what that means will depend on whether the formal process of leaving under article 50 of the Lisbon treaty has been triggered by then.

Between the start of the year and the referendum I knocked on just over 2100 doors. Each time I have asked the Europe question. What strikes me is how many of those who said they’d vote Leave who were doing this for reasons which had nothing to do with the EU — reasons that were to do with frustrations with life or politicians. When the EU was mentioned, people knew chillingly little about it.

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Engaging with disgruntled Leave voters

Beside the ongoing drama around Westminster, there’s an urgent task to be done among those who voted to leave the EU and are beginning to regret it. This is crucial for the country, and wise for LibDems as well.

torn_eu_flag

I’m thinking of those taken in by false “promises” — there isn’t an extra £350 million a week for the NHS, or an end to free movement of people, Brexit doesn’t mean an end to fishing quotas, and “taking back control” now sounds like a joke. They were already alienated and this is not helping.

We’re hearing stories of Brexit hitting places that voted for it: Lush moving from Poole, Forterra mothballing plants in Accrington and Claughton. Vacancies and job prospects are down. We need a more constructive response than a brutal “You voted for it”.

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Beware the 1930s

My mind keeps going to parallels between the worlds of Brexit and Trump and what happened in Germany in the 1930s. It’s a worrying parallel.

A demonstrator holds up a flag during a demonstration by far-right protesters in Dover, from *“Go home, we voted Leave”* on CBC Radio

At the time of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, I was in Spain at the annual meeting of the International Society for Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations. A gathering of people from across the world who are used to exploring unconscious processes was a rich context in which to explore what was going on under the surface.

By coincidence, on polling day one conference session was intended to focus on ethical dilemmas. We were shown short films on two famous psychological experiments, the Milgram experiment and the Stanford experiment which are controversial both because people were harmed, and because they shed light on how civilised people can come to behave badly. They have been used to understand what happened in the concentration camps, but are much more widely applicable than that.

The ensuing discussion seemed a little dry, as if there was something important which was being avoided. I took the microphone and made a link with some of the violence of the referendum: the murder of Jo Cox, an incident in a supermarket where someone I had seen earlier in a Vote Leave stall was shouting at a cashier planning to vote Remain, and some very aggressive comments from Leave supporters in door-knocking in the campaign. This is not to accuse Vote Leave of orchestrating violence, but it suggests something was being mobilised (which has become more obvious since then). I commented on the dark streak in Europe: along with our capacity to be civilised, there is a capacity to behave in very destructive ways. I expressed my fear that this was close to the surface in the referendum and struggled with tears as I commented on the way the EU has been set up to contain that destructive streak in the European psyche, and the fears evoked by some in the UK wanting to pull away from that. I was met with a round of applause.

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When people realise they have been lied to…

People who already felt disenfranchised and voted Leave are now discovering they were lied to: it is hard to imagine this not fueling resentment.

Vote Leave seem to have ridden a tide of resentment to a narrow referendum majority, and immediately had to start admitting to lying in their campaign. The lies were impressive and, combined with the idea that experts are not to be trusted, were irrefutable. They played on the fears and anxieties of people who already felt left behind. They spoke to people struggling from years of austerity and feeling ignored by “elites”.

What happens to these people as they realise they were taken for a ride by a faction of that “elite” that played on their vulnerability? What is happening to people who voted Leave because they wanted change, and are increasingly horrified to find out what that change looks like, or voted out of protest and discover that their vote has consequences?

The resentment is real. Continue reading “When people realise they have been lied to…”

Michael Dougan: deeper thoughts on EU

In this video, Michael Dougan offers a brilliant and well-informed exposition of the EU.

Truth has sometimes felt like a scarce commodity in the referendum debate. It’s hard not to read the Leave campaign’s claims about Turkey being on the point of joining the EU with catastrophic effect, or the mythical £350 million a week to Brussels, as lies.

The Remain campaign has not been so extreme, but has tended to quote statistics without proper respect for uncertainty. For example, there are lots of projections of what Brexit would cost the UK economy. The actual numbers depend on the assumptions in the modelling. The broad conclusion is that Brexit would harm the UK economy, but being too exact gets into a discussion of whose model is best, and can undermine the conclusion that Brexit risks serious economic problems.

Do watch this video, in which Prof Michael Dougan offers a very coherent academic assessment of the situation.

Follow-up video

After the referendum, Michael Dougan released a second video on the new situation: click here to watch.

Evidence to Treasury Select Committee

Michael Dougan was one of four witnesses to the Treasury Select Committee on 5 July, along with Robin Niblett, Sir Emyr Jones Parry and Raoul Ruparel. The video feed is remarkable: my reading is that it makes the leaving of the EU seem absurd, and the negotiations to be about damage-limitation.

It seems profoundly in the interest of the UK and of the EU to abandon Brexit (and get on with being constructive members of the EU after this mistake).

Different ways of reading Jo Cox’ murderer

Since the murder of Jo Cox and the arrest of Thomas Mair, there has been lots of speculation on how this is to be understood. It is worth adding a group perspective to this.

Thomas Mair, accused of the murder of Jo Cox — Jo Cox’ killer, Thomas Mair

One of the ideas in group relations is that we are all in various groups, and sometimes what we do makes most sense if it is seen in the context of the group. It’s possible to push that too far, but it can be a helpful way of looking.

What goes with this is an idea that, when there is pressure on a group, someone eventually acts in a way that addresses it. This isn’t necessarily a great leader. In fact is often the weakest member of the group — their weakness meaning they are least able to resist the pressure of the whole group.

As a mundane example, a while back I was on a late-night train, where people were interrupted by a “replacement bus service”. We were all annoyed. One person was obnoxious to the railway staff. Was he the person who was putting into words what we all felt? Was our embarrassment at his bad language also embarrassment at the language we were tempted to use?

This way of thinking flags up a concern about how we respond to terrorists. If they are the unstable extreme of the community from which they come, then acting against the whole community actually increases the strain and makes terrorists more likely.

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Listen to the Bank of England

The Bank of England has recently highlighted “risks of adverse spill-overs to the global economy” from a Brexit vote, and flagged up concerns about pressure on sterling, in addition to worries it had already voiced. It may be no surprise that supporters of Vote Leave are keen for these not to be heard.

There was a quite surreal segement on the Today Programme on 16 June, when Bernard Jenkin, of Vote Leave, was interviewed and attacked Bank of England Govenor Mark Carney for (as he saw it) breaking the purdah rules that prevent civil servants and publicly-funded bodies speaking out on the referendum, and David Cameron was quoted as saying this was an attack on the Bank’s independence.

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Brexit is not the way to give politicians a bloody nose

The frustration is real. The slowdown of 2008 has had serious effects. Austerity has been painful and the government doesn’t seem concerned. Work is more fragile than we’d like, housing is painfully expensive, worries about the NHS are real and there are fears about immigration.

There’s palpable anger at politicians among at least some of those wanting to vote for Brexit. I’ve heard personalised reasons “I’m voting out because David Cameron wants us to vote in” or “because I don’t want George Osborne to be Prime Minister”. I’ve heard general things like “to teach them a lesson” or “to make the EU change”. I’ve heard grander arguments like “stand up to globalisation” or “take our place in the world”.

I can understand each of those reactions. Before the last General Election I went to a party where one person said he was thinking of having a tee-shirt made with the words “I’m not voting for any of them because they are all liars”. I’d gone the other way and tried to make a difference by standing for parliament.

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Understanding the fears of those leaning towards Brexit

In many of my doorstep conversations with people who say they want to vote out of the EU, I have been left with a sense that it is those who stand to lose most from leaving the EU who are actually being tempted to do this. It’s as if their fears are being played on for the benefit of politicians whose careers would gain from Brexit.

There is a significant gap between perceptions of influence between ethnic minorities and white people according to Demos research

The snag is that the fears are real. The photo comes from an article on research by Demos which highlights a perception that ethnic minorities are more able to influence things. That fits with a sense of alienation and fear I have been encountering on the doorsteps among the less wealthy and predominantly white people who have been talking of voting for “Out”.

If people are afraid of losing their job, or struggling to afford somewhere to live, and the blame can be pinned on “immigrants” coming “because of the EU”, then the government is neatly absolved of responsibility. The EU becomes the scapegoat, so voting for Brexit makes sense. Except that scapegoats are always symbols for the problem, not the actual problem of government failures.

Scapegoating the EU Continue reading “Understanding the fears of those leaning towards Brexit”

Why the EU matters to me

The campaign for a vote to remain in the EU has been taking up a lot of my energy for what feels like a long time. Why does it matter?

UK-Politics-And-the-EU

The quick version
The short, doorstep comment is that the EU matters because of the peace and the stability, the opportunities and possibilities it brings.

The longer version…

The European Union matters enormously. It has been the context of British political and economic life for decades. It’s tended to under-state its contribution, so people are often not aware of how many development projects or pieces of investment begin in the EU. The contribution has been so great that we can take it for granted — and sometimes rail against its supposed shortcomings without bothering to look at the whole picture. The referendum changes this. Suddenly it might not be there. This posting is not about whipping up fear, but is about expressing some of the richness in which it is rooted, and the contribution it brings.

Culture and history

Europe has a long and convoluted history. There’s an intertwined heritage of culture and religion. There have been centuries of Europeans trading with each other, fighting with each other, sharing cultural influence and sharing faith. Up close, it looks like a story of rivalry. At a distance it looks more like the squabbling of long-married couples, where the words shouldn’t obscure the depth of the connection.

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Time to come clean about immigration: it is a good thing

Immigration is a good thing. It is a good thing culturally and economically. We would be diminished without it.

My life is vastly enriched by friendships with people who have come to the UK as immigrants and others who are the children of immigrants. They include people who came seeking asylum and people who came seeking a better life. My life is enriched by other friends who have emigrated, through whom I have valued networks of friends in many other parts of the world.

Economically too, migration matters. People sometimes talk as if there are a finite number of jobs and immigrants increase the competition. This is nonsense. Immigrants come, they work, they buy things, their presence boosts the economy. They create more work and more possibility.

A study published in 2014 showed that European migrants pay substantially more in taxes than they take in benefits. They arrive having finished schooling, and all the costs to the state of bringing people to adulthood.

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Beneath the untruths

I’ve heard several people recently talk of the “politics of untruth”, as if things have moved into a particularly surreal space in the age of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. What happens when truth disappears? Are there unconscious things drawing people to vote in a way that makes life worse?

Boris Johnson and David Cameron: conflicted over the referendum — Boris Johnson and David Cameron: in conflict over the referendum

The crude answer is that people believe what they need to believe, which is not primarily about logic. The assertions that EU membership costs £350 Million per week and that Turkey is about to join the EU bringing mass migration have been thoroughly discredited. The fact that people are still believing them says a great deal for people’s needs and fears. Working with unconscious fears is also core territory for psychoanalysis.

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