EU referendum – Mark Argent

Demography undermining the legitimacy of the 2016 referendum

Support for Remain was hightest among young voters and lowest amongst elderly in 2016. Young people coming onto the register and older voters dying is gradually changing the balance. Even if nothing else changes, these demographic changes will remove the majority for Leave towards the end of 2019. This erosion of the legitimacy of the 2016 vote is a strong argument for a People’s Vote.

Support for Remain was highest among young voters and lowest amongst the elderly in the 2016 referendum. Young people coming onto the register and older voters dying is gradually changing the balance. It will take only a few years to reverse the result. In among all the reasons for a People’s Vote, this erosion of the legitimacy of the 2016 vote is a powerful reason to ask voters again.

There’s been lots of discussion of whether the 2016 referendum result makes sense as “the will of the people”. Much of that has centred on lies from the Leave campaign, their apparent bending of election law and the possibility of Russian interference. But YouGov found that 71% of those under 24 who voted, voted for Remain, where among the over 65s that figure falls to 36%. The implication is that, even if no-one changes their mind and there’s no change in voter participation, Remain will be ahead of Leave by the end of 2019.

Writing soon after the referendum, David Howarth asked if it is reasonable for the elderly to bind the young like this.

In May 2018 The Express took up the story, and also naming serious concern over the long term legitimacy of the result.

The numbers

The poll in 2016 simply records the numbers voting Remain and Leave. Various organisations undertook polls soon after the referendum in which they asked people whether they voted, and if so, how. For the purposes of this post, I am drawing on a YouGov poll, offering some fine-grained data. I’m making four assumptions:

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Chosen trauma and memories of the war

One of the doorstep comments staying with me from the referendum campaign is: “I’m voting Out: we haven’t beaten the Germans in two world wars to give in now”.

The psychoanalyst Vamik Volkan talks of “chosen traumas” and “chosen glories”, as stories from the past get retold and shape collective identity.

The trouble is that how the events are remembered changes. The stories seem to be about the past, but also have a present-day purpose. At the celebrations of the bicentenary of the French Revolution, Margaret Thatcher pointed out that we had had a revolution a century earlier: she was quoting history, but also making a point about how she understood Anglo-French relations now.

My sense is that the two world wars are acting as chosen traumas — articulating a sense of the struggle — and as chosen glories, speaking of our success.

But the wars are remembered differently on the two sides of the Channel. Though things were tough, we didn’t experience invasion, fighting in our streets, occupation or brutal repression.

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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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Sovereignty, patriotism and “Taking our country back” means remaining in EU

The paths of protecting our sovereignty and being proud to be British point firmly towards remaining in the EU. We don’t need to “take our country back” because we never lost it. It is Brexit, not a vote to remain, that challenges all of these things.

UK_EU_flags If we lived in a world of disconnected nation states, we might not need an EU — except for the small matter of avoiding war. I could argue that this applied for much of European history in that wars were relatively limited affairs (because most of Europe was close to subsistence farming, so there were not the human or financial resources to mobilise for a large war without facing starvation at home). But increased wealth and mechanisation of production and warfare change these things profoundly in the twentieth century.

But even then, royal households inter-married to build alliances and connections. Sovereignty didn’t mean total control of one’s own patch and ignoring the rest of the world: a strategic wedding might cement an alliance, wisely trading a little independence for stability. Continue reading “Sovereignty, patriotism and “Taking our country back” means remaining in EU”

Migration and house prices

This morning (2 June) Liam Fox was quoted as blaming immigrants for high house prices — as news came out of a slowdown in construction ahead of the referendum…

Construction industry slowing own because of Brexit fears

It was a masterful piece of Radio 4 news editing this morning (2 June).

First came the pro-EU story: Jeremy Corbyn had made a statement about the contribution of the EU to guaranteeing workers’ rights, pointing out that, without the EU, we would be reliant on the Tories for this protection.

Then the balancing “Leave” story: Liam Fox appealing to the young by claiming that EU membership means they would have to live with their parents for longer because the presence of EU migrants pushes up the demand for housing, and hence house prices.

Then the brilliant editing: the next piece referred to a slowdown in the construction industry because of concerns ahead of the referendum.

It doesn’t take brilliant powers of deduction to work out that less house-building pushes up prices.

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