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9:58pm on Thursday, 23rd May, 2019:
Rant
I was at Falmouth University today for my final stint as (chief) external examiner for the games degrees. As Falmouth is in Cornwall, and therefore about as far from Colchester as planet Zog, I won't be back in time to vote in the EU parliamentary elections.
I expect that the Brexit party will do well in these elections. Listen up, those of you who want to remain in the EU, and I'll tell you why.
All that the pro-remainers have done since the referendum is talk to each other. They haven't talked to the disenfranchised poor who make up most of the leave camp, except to patronise them or to insult them. Pro-remainers are great at persuading each other of the righteousness of their own cause, to the extent that a good many want a second referendum because they can't conceive that their arguments might not have reached the leave people. These arguments have not reached this far (or if they have, they've been disbelieved or summarily dismissed). Yes, yes, I know you're keen to jump in here and tell me why I'm wrong, but there's no point trying to persuade me of the justice of your cause, you need to listen to the people who you're ignoring.
In fact, it's more than that: you need to help them. None of the reasons that people voted to leave the EU have been addressed. They are no better off than they were and they still have no voice. That one moment in the referendum when they were accidentally given a voice, they used it to tell the comfortably well-off middle classes to listen to them. They weren't listened to, though. They were treated as misinformed at best and unreconstructed racists at worst. They're neither: they're people who don't have a voice and want to be heard so that those with the wherewithal to improve their lot might actually be minded to do so. If shaking up your I'm-alright-Jack world makes you listen, then that's what they'll do, and is indeed what they did. Only you didn't listen, did you? You talked yourself into believing that you know best and that this is just populism. Well, if voting to ruin you economically is populism, you really need to think about why it might be popular. The answer is that only by hurting you will you perhaps listen. Don't think some half-assed compromise will work: the people who voted to leave knew exactly what they meant by it, and all that stuff about customs unions and single markets is merely what you've projected onto them in an attempt to persuade yourself that they're split. Sure, the ranks of champagne socialists might be wrestling with such questions of which-Brexit-did-you-want, but they're talking to each other. They should instead be listening to those who voted leave.
These people have no voice and no-one to speak for them. Artists are supposed to reflect their communities, but do they? How many of them have you heard of who are on the leave side of Brexit? The ones who are won't get any grants from saying so, nor will they find a sponsor or other kind of patron willing to fund them: the people with money are quite happy with the world how it is, thank you very much. Likewise, comedians are supposed to give voice to those who have no voice, but do they? No, they don't: pretty well every single one of them on TV or radio is a remainer. They're not speaking for the people they have permission to fight for, they're sucking up to commissioning editors. Those who do speak for their communities won't get a forum unless they're part of some group approved of by the middle classes, and on the understanding that they only say uncomfortable things when representing that group's specific problems as perceived of by the middle classes.
When artists and comedians have sold out, who else is left to give voice to the powerless?
Whatever happens in the elections today, the disease of which Brexit is the symptom won't go away unless you address the cause.
Don't talk to yourselves; don't talk to leavers: listen to them.
If you don't listen to them, they'll find some other way to attract your attention that you'll like even less than Brexit.
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Copyright © 2019 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).