You Got This
One Wrong, Boris
Last night two leaflets came through my door
from the Vote Leave campaign. One is headed “Thursday is Polling Day. Your
street is one of the most likely to Vote Leave in the country”. Well, sorry to
break the bad news, Boris, but no it isn’t. You see, when I go to the polling
station on Thursday and the poll clerk looks up my address, he will find just
one name in my street, mine. I remember that the Conservatives at the last
General Election tried some targeted leaflets with a similar idea, so
presumably some research has told them that people are more likely to vote if
they believe that their vote will make a material difference, and that their
neighbours are thinking the same. Well, you don’t need research to tell you
that people vote more enthusiastically if they think it matters, but doing the
same as your neighbours? I’m not sure about that. And frankly, I’m not sure
they’re right anyway. I seriously doubt whether anyone has actually surveyed
the Warwick Estate to see whether the residents favour Brexit, and so this must
be based on some sort of extrapolation. I suspect that the logic is that some
research has suggested that the poorer you are the more likely you are to vote
Leave, and since we are one of the most deprived wards in London someone at Vote Leave has assumed that
means we will support them. The flaw in the logic is that there are multiple
factors, and their research represents findings about white British people, who
are quite thin on the ground here. We have a lot of residents who weren’t born
in the UK,
and most of them will not vote enthusiastically for Brexit, especially when it
is represented by posters of queues of migrants represented as a threat, whom
they regard with empathy.
…And
Statistics
The research
does seem to show that the less well-educated you are, the more likely you are
to vote Leave. It’s worth pointing out that lots of our local residents have
degrees and professional qualifications that are simply not recognised here,
which may deceive the statisticians. No statisticians are deceived by the
notorious “£350 million a week” claim, though, and I am staggered that Vote
Leave continue to use it. It is simply a lie. The leaflet states “We send the
EU £350 million a week” which Vote Leave know is not true, and which has been
exposed as an untruth. Sure, we send a lot of money to the EU, but that figure
is simply a lie. And as for the next line, “Let’s fund our NHS instead”, that’s
simply shameless, as Farage would happily dismantle the NHS altogether, while
Gove and Johnson have been part of a government that has persistently
undermined the NHS, and has had the chance to fund it better but has chosen not
to do so. The leaflet also bears the inflammatory map showing the “accession”
countries that are applying to join the EU at some indeterminate point with the
untrue claim that they are “joining soon”. No they aren’t. I’ve been to Albania, and to
suppose that they will be ready to join the EU in thirty years would be
optimistic. And it is perfectly clear that Turkey
has no chance of joining until the division of Cyprus is resolved, which seems
unlikely in our lifetimes. If you think the bureaucrats will fudge that one,
think again; it cannot happen. It will be vetoed. But not only is this untruth
promulgated, but alongside it is the map, with the accession countries coloured
red, and Syria and Iraq coloured orange, with no explanation whatever, just
prompting the thought in your mind that
they are somehow connected. This is shameful, using the plight of those
countries to provoke xenophobia and fear.
Ourselves
Alone, or not
Brexit
thrives (like ISIS and Donald Trump) on crude identity politics, promoting the
idea that we each have just one essential identity that overrides all others.
You don’t have to have studied Social Identity Theory to see that this is
nonsense; in real life we all have multiple identities which we use or
privilege at particular moments. Well, on the Warwick Estate you can see this
demonstrated. If you take a walk along Senior Street just now, during Euro 2016,
you’ll find plenty of flats with flags draped from their windows, but several
flats have both an England
flag and an Ireland
one. I know some of the families concerned and I can quite understand; both
identities are meaningful for them. It would have horrified Michael Collins and
the other leaders of the Easter Rising, but it shows how far we have come in a
century.
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