Why and how the 'nation of shopkeepers' just closed its doors

I wrote this immediately after the #brexit referendum in 2016. 7 years on, I've reread it and it seems the disconnect between our political class and the general populace has gotten worse.

6 am the alarm rang, I rolled over and jokingly said to my wife

“Happy Brexit Day”

Currently living in Malaysia my timezone is seven hours ahead of the UK, so the night's drama was only just about to kick off. After packing the kids off to school at 6:40 am I settled down in front of the BBC's referendum results programme. It was just before midnight in the UK and at that point only Gibraltar had declared with a not surprising figure of 96% for remain.

Time to make a cup of tea.

When the Sunderland and Newcastle results came in, my brow furrowed, Sunderland was in line with expectations for Leave but Newcastle went for Remain by a whisker. Far closer than predictions based on Newcastle's student concentrations and the general election voting pattern. The BBC's political sage, John Curtice wasn't saying anything but you got the feeling he had an inkling of what was to unfold.

“Too close to call” everybody said.

The pattern continued as the trickle of results turned into a flood. Whenever Leave won an area it was usually by a solid 10 or more percent. The few Remain wins outside of London and Scotland were wafer thin.

These weren't statistical errors this was the country saying au revoir, to the EU cabaret.

At 5.20 am UK time, David Dimbleby, elegantly poised and with perfect diction, announced that the BBC were calling the result for Leave with a 4% margin.

Could this announcement turn out to be as momentous a historical event for the UK, as Neville Chamberlain's proclamation of war in 1939.

As the adrenaline of watching the drama of the previous 5 hours ebbed, I became aware of a gut wrenching nausea in the pit of my stomach.

Like a starving vulture I scavenged and gorged on vast quantities of news and analysis to try to fill the empty void my anxiety was creating. Anxiety turned to fury, fury to fear and finally to an empty sadness before the whole lot cycled again.

Within a couple of hours of the announcement, Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, whose only mission was to 'get the UK out of Europe', gave up all pretense of being a moderate, fair English gentlemen, and showed his true nationalist self.

Outside the parliament to which he failed to get elected seven times, and surrounded by a cheering mob, Nigel Farage made a victory speech laced with rhetoric more suited to a political rally in 1933 Berlin.

'a victory for normal people, for decent people'. Chills shot down my spine as I heard this. He was not only implying that Europeans working in the UK were not normal or decent, but that the 48% who voted to remain were somehow deficient in their humanity as well. These are words of hate and division, of prejudice and intolerance. History has many lessons of people who legitimise and gentrify hate speech. These are the most dangerous.

But to dismiss him and others as mere racists or nationalists, is to make the same mistake that the middle class technocrats in the Tory and Labour parties have been making for over 25 years. Their constant spinning and media soundbites have become a game that only Westminster insiders and political correspondents play. The messages that reach the public are confused, riddled with half-truths, contradictions and rhetoric.

The UK electorate is not stupid, neither are they simple, most of them have never, and will never trust those who project patronising platitudes or elitist condescension.

Significant chunks of the UK populace are stuck together in post-industrial towns in the north or vast council estates in the south. Like every society they are likely to be the lowest paid, least educated and least informed. Dangerously for politicians they are also the least trusting, having been let down, dismissed and ignored for decades.

In these areas we see hundreds and thousands of people who live with the indignity of relying on the benefits system, which, depending on the newspaper headlines of the day and the fickleness of politics, changes from, 'please take it, you're entitled' one day to 'sod off you scrounging layabout' the next. 'Successful' people in these environments may have a zero hour contract at some sports packaging warehouse or possibly some casual gardening or cleaning work. It's an existence, but not one that Westminster spin doctors can penetrate.

When they hear politicians with gilded accents using vacuous words about subjects so far removed from their everyday mission to exist, suspicion and feelings of betrayal are increased.. Forget about building trust or respect.

The lowest paid and benefit supported people in society have no interest in GDP figures, credit ratings, bond yields or the like. The stock market going up is probably good and down is bad but they don't have time for debates on the finer issues of the wealth of nations. They want answers to their most pressing needs in a concise language that resonates without a hidden agenda.

So when someone like George Osborne, the Chancellor gets up to deliver a speech, dark suit, serious manner, Etonian accent, he may sound bright, articulate, in control, but he is not talking to the electorate that really need to hear him, he is talking to bankers and the financial institutions. The electorate, in the main know this, they see it as soon as he opens his mouth. However brilliant, however politically canny he is, he will never be trusted.

This played out during the referendum campaign as the more Osborne spoke, the less credible he became. It doesn't matter now whether he was right or wrong, it matters hugely for the country, for the government and any future governments that he and politicians like him are not trusted.

On the flip side of this you have Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Farage packages himself as everybody's mate down the pub. He 'says it like it is' and isn't afraid to breach acceptable standards of political correctness to make a point. He revels in goading any EU official he can, and preens himself in front of cameras at every opportunity. He knows how to play the crowd and his message is as simple as it is facile.

Boris presents an excellent facade of being a bit of a bumbler, a cheeky chappy, a cross between Benny Hill and General Melchett. Subconsciously he connects to people, they trust him more, because they don't believe he's slick enough to pull wool over their eyes. Beware.

Hindsight is of course super sharp, but the Leave camp had all the cards in their favour.

The message was simple, you don't like this, get rid of it. No technical details required, no test against any law to be checked, no transition plan to justify, no costs to pay for. Make a wish and it will come true. All that was required were primary school words that evoke positive emotional responses in anybody who cared to listen.

It's a technique advertisers and the political right in the US have been mastering for half a century. Package your message in frames which are already deeply ingrained in people's subconscious.

'Independence', 'take back control', 'sovereignty'. It doesn't get easier than this.

Secondly the Leave team benefited from many years of electorate priming.

The right wing press decided decades ago it wanted out of Europe. Was this because they felt they were the voice to save the UK from its own mistakes, or was this because their owners, like Rupert Murdoch and hereditary peer Lord Desmond, believed their business interests were far better served if the UK were less regulated and more corporate friendly like the US?

Did these press barons hire Editors and teams to ensure that every EU law was criticised, ridiculed and lampooned? Did they spread the myth that the EU was undemocratic? Were these laws always bad for Britain? Did they reduce our sovereignty? Did we give up control?

Sound familiar?

Like Arthur Dent looking for the planning permission for the destruction of his house in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, real information about the EU Council the Council of the EU, the EU Parliament or the EU Commission was really hard to find in the media. One reason, is some of the media had interests in presenting the EU as undemocratic, bureaucratic and an opaque goliath of an institution.

Thirdly the knockout punch.

The UK has lived through 6 years of austerity. But insultingly people have been told the UK is the strongest economy with the highest GDP growth in the western world? Like the US, the vast majority of wealth created since the 2008 financial crisis has accrued to just the wealthiest 0.1% people. Almost none of it has trickled down to the general populace.

If you tell me I am wealthier, I expect to have a healthier bank balance. I expect to wait a shorter time for a Doctors appointment. I expect my kids to get into the schools I choose. I don't expect to hear so may people in the pub complain they've had little or no work this week. Then I read the UK is still cutting services across the board. So the claims of growth and greater wealth, ring as hollow as a cave. When asked by an audience member why he couldn't get a Doctors appointment, David Cameron didn't take the option of saying it was because his government was failing to provide enough resources for the health service. He let it hang in the air so people kept believing it was because of immigration.

Because of largely domestic issues, the power of private individuals and corporations, the abdication of political responsibility by the Tory party and a good measure of racist feeling, the nation went to the polls and left.

Yes the EU is not perfect, expansion has been too fast, the Euro project was sketchily conceived and badly implemented. The refugee crisis has shown up that many countries in the EU are also struggling to rationalise their national identity with being members of the EU. However, the promise of peace for generations and the potential of 500 million people working together is enormous.

We were there when the rules were written and decisions made. We were the kid in the playground who didn't want to play and wouldn't share his ball. We knobbled it, complained when it didn't work, then helped to break it.

This 'nation of shopkeepers' has decided to close its doors to ninety percent of its customers. The electorate have been duped, seduced and lied to about independence, control and sovereignty by people whose interests are to take those benefits for themselves.