Two Tribes - What sort of country do we want to be?

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I could kick myself.  I fell for it.




I thought I knew my country.  I thought I understood who we were and what we stood for.  Sure, there were always going to be a few people at the edges who wanted to pull up the shutters and stand alone; who saw immigration as a mortal threat to our way of life; who dreamt of a return to a mythical ‘better time’ when we were in control of our own destiny.

But as the EU Referendum debate has taken hold I’ve realised that I was wrong.  I seriously misjudged Britain (or more accurately, England).  This is possibly the most depressing conclusion of my lifetime.  It means that the values I hold dear, values that I thought I shared with the vast majority of people in this country are not in fact the default values of a sizeable share of the people in Britain.  I thought that tolerance, compassion and inclusiveness were part of our DNA and I was proud to be called British.

Whatever the outcome of the EU Referendum tomorrow the reputation of Britain is already diminished.  We are two tribes and one of those tribes is more foreign to me than any other European country.  It’s a tribe fuelled by hatred and intolerance and the most depressing thing of all is that it was there all the time – and I missed it.

Almost half of the people of this country, maybe more, are happy to attach themselves to these views.  Of course most of them would not see themselves as extreme (and they're not) but they have shown themselves to be sympathetic to those that hold those views; to lean in that direction.  On Facebook, on Twitter, in pubs and restaurants, outside the school gates and on buses and trains the conversations have turned ugly.  People have been freed to say things they would not have dreamed of saying just a few years ago.

The choice we have to make to make tomorrow is different from the one we thought it was going to be.  Yes, we need to decide if we want to remain in or leave the EU but more importantly we need to decide what sort of country we want to be.  In or out, Britain will be a different country after the referendum; it already is.  The battle to win it back will need to start on Friday.

That battle will not be an easy one and if we vote leave it might prove to be an impossible one. We’ve lifted the lid on a nasty set of opinions which it now seems were worryingly close to the surface in the first place.  If you’re still undecided, ask yourself if you want those opinions to become mainstream – to become part of who we are and what defines us as a nation. 

If the answer is no, then vote remain.

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