When Richard Burgon, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, recently declared that December’s snap general election “is going to be about more than Brexit”, I wondered whether a single member of the voting public believed him? I reasoned not. Additional funding for the NHS, increasing police numbers, re-nationalising public services, abolishing tuition fees – nothing but background noise. This would be the Brexit election.
Like the rest of the electorate, I want to unravel the Gordian knot that has been slowly strangling the UK for the past three and a half years, poisoning our politics and dividing the nation along this unhelpful leave/remain binary. Who then to vote for? I am now, as I was on the 23 June 2016, an enthusiastic Remainer – not only do I fear the economic consequences of leaving the EU, I also believe firmly in the European project.
The obvious choice is the Liberal Democrats – they are unequivocal in their desire to remain in the European Union. Furthermore, their progressive and compassionate politics align almost perfectly with my own. Leader Jo Swinson appears both honest and formidable. When she claimed recently that she could do a better job than either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, I believed her. I think she would make a far superior prime minister than either of them. In spite of this, there is no way that I could vote for her party on 12 December. Their campaign pledge to revoke article 50 is inherently undemocratic. Our system of democracy is sacrosanct, the will of the majority, whether you agree with it or not, is paramount. Promising the revocation of article 50 belies a wilful abnegation of this core democratic principle. Yes, some of the public may have been misinformed, mis-sold or even directly lied to, yet for democracy to be seen to work, the referendum result has to be – begrudgingly – respected. I vehemently disagree with all 17.4 million people who voted to leave, but I also realise many voted that way because they believed their voices simply didn’t matter. Voting Liberal Democrat would prove them right.
Labour then? Three and a half years of obfuscation and obscurantism in the name of “constructive ambiguity”. Playing party political games with the sole aim of stagnating the whole process. A concerted effort to insult the electorate’s intelligence with the most half-baked, inane proposal, whereby they would renegotiate a deal with the EU, which the majority of the party would then campaign against in a confirmatory referendum. A Faustian Bargain made with the SNP that would almost certainly hasten the break up of the United Kingdom. Shockingly none of the above would necessarily lead me to dismiss voting for Labour out of hand, that ignominious award goes to the toxic miasma of anti-Semitism that has emanated from the party since 2015. Even if you incredulously swallow
Corbyn’s cynical excuses for defending a glaringly anti-Semitic mural or his assertion that Zionists “don’t understand English irony”, the fact that the party has become a space where members feel emboldened to extol virulent anti-Semitism and peddle pernicious conspiracy theories, confirms it is clearly beyond the pale. The fact that Labour MPs Luciana Berger and Louise Elman felt compelled to leave the party under a hail of antisemitic abuse only reinforces this view. If antisemites feel comfortable voting for a party, I most certainly do not. Some things are simply more important that Brexit.
That leaves the Conservative Party. Unlike many of my fellow Remain voting liberals, I do not consider Johnson an insidious tool of the radical right. Mendacious charlatan? Yes. Hateful ideologue? I just don’t see it. His reductive promise to “get Brexit done” would at least allow the result of this democratic exercise to, finally, be enacted. The protracted suffering caused by the seemingly endless Brexit withdrawal negotiations would end. Maybe, just maybe, the healing process could begin. 31 January – day zero – my fellow Remainers and I could morph into the Rejoiners, we could create Facebook groups, sign petitions, establish pressure groups and organise marches demanding a referendum on re-joining the European Union. A quixotic daydream, no doubt. Regardless, I could never countenance rewarding the party whose inveterate navel gazing over Europe dragged the UK into this needless debacle, one that has greedily devoured three and a half years of our lives and created a giant fissure in the societal fabric.
Like millions of fellow voters, on both sides of the Brexit divide, I feel angry and let down by our political system. So what to do? I am acutely aware that it is a self-indulgent – indeed self-defeating – and ultimately futile symbolic act; nevertheless, on 12 December, I intend to spoil my ballet paper. Am I cutting my nose off to spite my face? Probably. I would, however, prefer to think of it as the principled stand of a democratic Remainer.
Andrew Morris is a freelance journalist and PhD candidate in political communication.