There will be political upheaval after June 23, whatever the result of the referendum. If Britain votes to leave the EU, which I profoundly hope, the map will be torn up. Reputations will be broken and careers derailed.
Do not underestimate how this would please millions of Britons, who find politicians largely despicable and whose opinion has not been improved by the arrogant and insulting conduct of the Remain campaign.
If the people vote to stay, it is hard to believe it would be decisively. The Conservative Party would be fractious, since few Leavers will forget Cameron’s hysterical, scaremongering behaviour. And he committed a further offence last week in extending by two days the voter registration period, after a computer system broke down for 105 minutes. That decision could be judicially reviewed, because it was seen blatantly to favour Remain voters.
If a court sanctioned changing the law in mid-game, who knows what that would say about Britain’s rule of law, or democracy. But if the Tory party will be hard to reassemble after this fight — one struggles to imagine Amber Rudd and Boris Johnson being on each other’s Christmas card lists after their exchanges last Thursday — things will be sticky for Labour, too.
Millions of Labour supporters hate the EU, seeing it as an employers’ ramp designed to grind down the workers. Not only can they not understand why their hard-line leftist leader has deserted this position, but they don’t see why their unions, normally the first to press their boots on the throat of capitalist exploitation, are so compliant either.
Should leave win, Labour Remainers will scapegoat Jeremy Corbyn, given his dismal failure convincingly to urge Labour’s people to vote for the anti-democratic, elitist EU. I would never claim Corbyn is a great, or even adequate, leader: but to be fair to him, it was his predecessors with their bland, establishment views of the EU, who caused what could be a massive vote to leave within Labour’s natural constituency. And, indeed, if such a vote happens — and many Labour MPs think it will — it could combine with huge number of natural Tories and millions of UK Independence Party (Ukip) supporters to ensure we leave.
The British public is in a mood to give the political class a kicking, and yet few in the political class understand why. The Remain campaign thought it wise to roll out Tony Blair, who rightly or wrongly is the most hated political figure in Britain today, and John Major, whose craven obeisance to Europe wrecked his party and put it in opposition for 13 years, to claim peace would end in Northern Ireland if we left. There is no shred of evidence for that claim. Kneecappings and punishment beatings continue in Northern Ireland, as does other criminal activity by Republicans and Loyalists, even though the UK is in the EU. Whether we leave or stay will make no difference to this: only two self-regarding, irrelevant and largely discounted yesterday’s men, and their deluded comrades, could think otherwise.
If the UK remains in the EU, some realignment of British politics must be likely. Activists have noted the cases of Tory MPs who claimed to be Euro-sceptic but have campaigned for Remain, and some will face ugly re-selection battles whatever happens: ministers among them. Some militant Leavers are planning a website that will list turncoats and their offences and outline the means of getting rid of them.
Contempt for democracy
Baroness Altmann, a pensions minister who has never been elected to anything, tweeted last Friday that voters should obey the views of Remain MPs, showing her breathtaking constitutional ignorance and the utter contempt for democracy that permeates the pro-European camp. Among leftists, those perceived as “Blairite” MPs were already being lined up for punishment when selection time came. Supporting the EU — regarded as a destroyer of jobs and lackey of the boss class — will now be added to numerous charge sheets, especially in areas where it is felt that immigrant labour has forced the old white working class out of the labour market.
Neither Labour’s nor the Conservatives’ leadership is speaking for its core vote in supporting Remain, and the polls suggest the core vote has had enough. And Labour, having already had a peasants’ revolt last year in electing Corbyn, could well take it even further. Because the Tories are in government, they are far more combustible. A vote to leave may finish off Cameron, though most MPs talk of an “orderly departure” for him, perhaps over several months — not least to try to stop Johnson becoming leader.. If he digs in, he may find it hard to get legislation through, such is the determination of many Leavers to have their revenge on him: his majority is a mere 12. What would happen to Ukip after a Brexit is harder to judge: as it has shown in the last couple of years, much of its support is now drawn from ex-Labour voters, and it may be that the nature of both Labour and Tory parties change as voters return to them, if they feel Ukip has served its purpose.
If Britain remains by a small margin, Ukip could cannibalise the main parties even more. Bill Cash, the veteran Euro-sceptic, has jointly written a book, From Brussels with Love, published last week, about the whole history of the determination to build a superstate that eliminates British sovereignty. Anyone interested in the facts, or seeking a reason to vote Leave, should read it. But one senses that facts are of diminishing interest to most voters now: the referendum will be, for many, an opportunity to sack the prime minister, teach other political leaders a lesson, and to make them realise how little they have taken account of the lives of what they patronisingly call “ordinary people”, especially in regard to immigration. This uprising is at its beginning, not its end, which is why our politics could be revolutionised in the months ahead.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2016
Simon Heffer writes a weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph.
