So the unofficial Brexit election is officially on, and already there’s talk in the mainstream press about a possible Lib-Dem resurgence. Given that they’re currently languishing at about 11% in the polls along with UKIP and others, that seems like wishful thinking.
There can be little doubt that the newly crowned party of the diehard Remainer will wrestle a few trendy metropolitan seats from the Conservatives. The kind of constituencies that boast expensive coffee served up by migrants who sleep four to a room. However, the Remainers’ resurgence will be much smaller than Mr Farron might hope, and his dream of a sizeable Parliamentary presence is nothing more than a pleasant fantasy. Wishing doesn’t make it so, and the 48% is much softer and more diverse than the hardcore Remainers have talked themselves into believing.
Throughout the ensuing blizzard of post-referendum dialogue in the mainstream press and on the internet, the single biggest complaint among Brexiteers seems to be the fact that their opponents continually characterise them as poorly educated, bigoted and probably racist little Englanders.
Unfortunately for the committed Remain camp, just a few seconds of sustained rational thought will reveal the ridiculous implausibility of 17.4 million people voting to leave the European Union through an irrational xenophobic hatred of those people in this world who are most like themselves. With that especially spiteful and deluded label rightly consigned to the dustbin of discourse, it’s equally important not to blithely write off the 16.1 million who voted to remain as soulless, humourless, identikit authoritarians, hell bent on stealing political power from a European demographic they despise as an intransigent blot on their blueprint for a supreme European superstate.
Such a mischaracterisation of remain voters is insulting to their intelligence, motives and aspirations for the UK, and within that easy demolition of such a crude caricature lies the truth that will soon expose the shallowness of Remain’s support pool.
The one thing that has not yet been spoken about through all of the pre-and post-referendum autopsy are the forces that really drove intelligent, articulate individual voters to align themselves with the increasingly authoritarian, remote and unpopular bureaucratic class embodied by the EU. It’s highly unlikely that the vast majority of those 16.1 million citizens were guided by snobbery or elitism, and it’s much more likely that Project Fear had persuaded them to rationally cast their votes in favour of the lesser evil. After all, why take the risk?
Ten months on from that momentous day, we are a good deal further down the road and we all have a little more perspective on the landscape through which we travel. Many Remain leaning publications are still shivering on their widow’s walks, fervently scanning a distant horizon for even the slightest signs of Bregret, from anyone, anywhere. This has led them into the unfortunate habit of making themselves look foolish when they smugly declare that the malaise has taken hold among the leave supporting troglodyte class. When it clearly hasn’t.
Whilst they are busily searching for signs of weakness in their enemy’s defences, they’ve remained blissfully unaware of the mutinous mutterings much closer to home.
If anyone cares to stop shouting and listen carefully, they may hear the distant approach of a growing insurgent army of Remain deserters who feel they’ve been thoroughly hoodwinked by a dishonest establishment. An increasing number of these reluctant Remainers are actually glad that Britain is leaving an EU that they never really loved, now that the Project Fear hoax has been exposed as a cynical campaign of coercion and misinformation.
Some commentators are already touting Theresa May’s snap election as Brexit referendum 2.0 and are dutifully preparing to reboot Project Fear as the spectre of a “disastrous hard Brexit” is predictably conjured up. They seem to be wilfully ignorant of the unknown but growing number of recanting Remainers who are just waiting to throw their weight behind our now certain exit from the EU. The scales have fallen from their eyes and they now see that the emperor wears no clothes.
Come June 8th they will have their revenge.
Image courtesy of Craig Parylo at Freeimages.com
