These are my thoughts about what is happening and has been
happening since Friday, following the vote to leave the EU.
I hope and pray there will not be a general election soon
as I believe that the only winners if this happened would be UKIP. They would
not be likely to win but they would be very likely to increase seats. I
suspect, they would use the argument that they wanted to act as a power to
ensure that those in power were accountable. If this happened the right wing
voices we’ve been hearing during the referendum campaign which have made those
who are on the extreme right feel legitimised in their blatant racism would
increase and I fear the increase in hate crime we’ve been witnessing over the
last few days would also increase.
The last thing we need at the moment is a political vacuum but
this is what we appear to have, with the exception of the voice of the Scottish
Nationalists and the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon. Unfortunately for the UK
the leadership they are giving is to one part of our domestic economic union,
(which is what I believe the UK is).
As a Labour member, (and somebody who joined in the last
leadership campaign), I joined because I supported the ideals of Corbyn and
felt his campaign was giving the Labour party a truly left wing identity again but
I did not vote him as my first choice. Rather I put him as second choice because
I believed Yvette Cooper stood more chance being seen as electable in the
country as a whole and she seemed the moderate left candidate with the other
two challengers being, in my view Blairites.
With regard to what is happening now I am saddened but not surprised.
Corbyn who has never been a great EU enthusiast was honest during this campaign
about his feelings and that honesty seems to have meant he has become the
scapegoat for many. I think this is disgraceful, but as I say I think it was
somewhat inevitable because many of the PLP are more right wing than a great
deal of the members now. They were, I am sure, looking for an excuse to get rid
of Corbyn at the first opportunity. I think that is what has happened.
What we need now is a leader who can act as a unifier but not
a leader who will take us to what is now the right, in order to win votes at the
expense of Labour values. We need to create an atmosphere where we can deal
with the real concerns of those voters who did not vote Labour last time and
those who voted for Brexit in imaginative and concrete ways.
We need to find ways to talk about immigration in a way
which shows many of the real concerns they have are due to structural failures
in the social policy of successive governments due to the failure of the neo-liberal
consensus. Within this the New Labour project needs to be ready to shoulder
blame too. At the same time, as we are in a situation where those structural failures
are causing real concerns for people who are finding it hard to get their kids
into schools and to get GP appointments.We need to have vision as to how to
deal with these problems. It won’t just involve throwing money at them but it
may well involve investment which will involve increased taxation.
We need to find ways to help people feel and get involved
in civil society again. A lot of people who voted leave did so because they
felt that accountability was being taken away from their elected
representatives.
We need to deal with the social divisions in this country
linked to class, ethnicity and age. This referendum showed the fault lines we have
in this country around all three and I fear as the impact of both the Tory
austerity programme and the leave vote both hit over the next five years this
is only going to get worse.
Finally, we need to find ways for institutions and the
academy to regain trust amongst ordinary people. The way in which the referendum
campaign treated the concept of “expert knowledge” was in some ways
understandable. It reflects the way in which society and post-structuralism in
an information age has been developing. However, we need to work together to
reinforce how in some areas people do have expert knowledge. Many of the people
who were encouraged to distrust experts were those with trades. We need to show
that we go to the hairdressing salon because we know that the person there will
do a good job, similarly we go to the academy because the people there have
something to offer us. When I go to the hairdresser I expect to have my say and
to be listened to seriously and I think on the other side of the coin the
academy needs to be ready to listen more to the public and not just as research subjects.
In practice where do we go from here and how do we get some
of this stuff happening? Well, I don’t know to be honest - it's one of the reason why I think that people need to be talking not blaming now. However there are
some things I think we can all do:
1) Be
ready to listen to those who voted differently to ourselves and to why they
made that choice and what their concerns are.
2) Stand
up against racism and other forms of hate crime. We need to make sure any
incidents we witness are reported.
3) To recognise
that the common enemy we have is inequality in our society and to seek to
identify and challenge the real causes of this (which tend not to be
immigration). To support those academics who are engaging with this through
whatever discipline.
4) To
vote, even if we find it difficult to try and find the least bad option.
5) To try
and find at least one way to positively engage in our society. If we give up on trying to hope we really are stuffed.
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