A vote to Leave was not a green light to racism

It was the biggest decision in recent history for the way our country was to stand on the world stage. The decision was simple: remain in the EU or Leave the EU. And the decision was made, albeit by a narrow margin.

Of course there will be those who are unhappy and suddenly start scraping around for rules to try and debunk the vote – an act that is only ever performed retrospectively, of course. But I don’t wish to get involved in any debate or argue over the ludicrous petitions being put forward. Nor do I feel it necessary to go into all the reasons why I feel (as a remain voter) it was all a mistake. Horse; stable doors; bolted – words that spring to mind. Nor will I waste my time with my head in my palm just hoping people didn’t seriously pin their hopes on the £350m a week lie!

What I do find worrying is this argument that Leave voters were/are racists. Some of them are, of course, but we have always had them and always will do. And besides, it would be more accurate to use the term xenophobe than racist anyway.

But what I do find even more worrying is the concept that maybe, just maybe, a lot of people pinned their hopes on a sudden and dramatic reduction of immigration, and that such a change would happen quickly and solve lots of other problems. What the abhorrently toned campaign seem to keep focusing on was shortages in housing and jobs and wrongly emphasised this in a way that not only blamed immigration as the cause, but proposed “Brexit” as a solution. Sadly, as a country, we allowed divisive and negative people like Farage to have an audience, and he managed to stir up enough mess that his influence would have one some votes (but not many: after all, he didn’t even win an MP seat last year, so let’s not overstate his following!).

Regardless of how we voted, we are all losers if we let Farage think he won.

My concern is different, and it is more about how the country reacts to the vote, and not the vote itself. I greatly fear that far right groups will wrongly interpret this result as a vindication of their socially depraved minds. The EDL and BNP, and less so but to an extent, the UKIP followers might well use this as an opportunity to claim this as a success for their views and, spurned on by some kind of new energy, seek to profit from it. Nigel Farage’s “independence day” speech was one of the worst examples of political grandstanding this country has seen in a long time. It was a kind of twisted rally-cry of the lowest common denominator.

But these last few days have seen an even worse backlash: the surfacing of some serious racial outbursts. Now, let’s be clear on something. Not every “Leave” voter is a racist, and no intelligent or informed person would think that. But we do now have to face the real problem that a “Leave” result was always going to create – a massive social upheaval. Racist bigots will come crawling out from under their rocks claiming this as their victory. To deny this would be foolish. To have not expected this to happen would have been an act of ignorance.

I am hearing of too many accounts of serious racial outbursts that are frankly embarrassing. Facebook might not be a window on the world, but when two people I know and respect have posted first hand experiences of personal racial attack and other incidents they have witnessed I have to seriously question the recklessness of the "Leave" campaign and how it's "project hate" has sadly worked. It's been a long time since I have heard that someone I know should be told to "go back to their own country" I am not so naive as to assume it is only a coincidence.

As a country we need to collective stand against this racist behaviour, collectively, regardless of which side we voted. This was an issue of political and trade position in the world and no decent person saw it as an excuse to behave deplorably in our richly multicultural society. A vote to Leave was not a green light to racism. In fact...deporting all the racists might well be a good way to solve our population issues. Just a thought.

And maybe that is one of the biggest mistakes that we will see as a result of this result. I’m not saying that everyone who voted “Leave” is stupid or ignorant – or both – and I am not at all claiming that they are racist. But I just hope that when all those people put the X in that leave box they did so in full knowledge of the potential backlash against what has been a much celebrated element of our peace time society: that we were a member of a greater union of countries who supported each other and as part of that we used an benefited from free movement. And now we symbolically turned our back on it.

Those who wanted to remain in the EU were often accused of being too “stuck in their ways” or “refusing to face change” or “take a risk”. I truly hope those who used that as a reason to vote for “leave” took into account that no-one is certain of the future, but when make a choice to begin a destabilisation of any sort you really should do so with at least some kind of plan in mind.

Criticise those of us who wanted to stay on the same side of the road, by all means – you might well have been right in the long run. I just hope that not everyone who voted to drag the UK across the road to the unknown side did it with their eyes closed.

#Farage #EUReferendum #Racism #EDL #BNP