Caroline Lucas on Brexit Voters

On Friday Green Party MP Caroline Lucas spoke at an event organised by campaigners for a second Brexit referendum.

She began her speech by thanking those who had voted to leave:

“I also want to say a genuine thank you to the 17.4 million people who gave the Establishment such a well-deserved kicking in 2016. Thanks to you, the crisis at the heart of our democracy – and the intolerable levels of inequality and insecurity experienced by so many – can no longer be ignored.”

Lucas made the case – often made by Remain campaigners – that the 52% Leave vote was motivated to a large extent by anger and frustration at inequality and poverty:

“Income levels in London have risen by a third since the financial crash – but fallen – yes, fallen – by 14% in Yorkshire and Humberside.”

But while Lucas argued that anger against the EU is understandable, her argument was that it isn’t the correct way forward.

“The tragedy, of course, is that Brexit would actually make it harder to address all of these problems. Not least because – under every single Brexit scenario – there would be less money available to repair and rebuild the social fabric that has been so viciously torn apart.

Britain has become a place of grotesque inequalities. Not just between classes, but geographically between regions, especially between North and South; and between thriving cities and failing towns within the same region.

Last year, the Commission on Social Mobility identified the 30 worst ‘coldspots’ for social mobility – and every single one of them voted to Leave. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Shamefully, levels of inter-regional inequality in the UK are 50% higher than in similar-sized economies such as France and Germany, a third higher than Italy, and almost twice as high as Spain.”

The solution then, in Lucas’ argument, is for a Remain campaign built around a unifying vision:

“Thinking and acting anew to tackle inequality and insecurity can help heal our divided country. So too can an honest conversation about what we have in common. About a fairer, greener economy that works for us all but also a conversation about who we are as a country – and what we aspire to be.

Those living in once proud communities that have been gutted often feel they have very little to lose. We need to give them something to gain from remaining in the EU.”

I’ve seen centrist commentators arguing that we should go back to how things were in 2016. But 2016 was far from rosy for a lot of people in the UK. A month before the referendum vote I, Daniel Blake was screened at Cannes. The film later inspired debate over it’s realism between those with experience of the British welfare system and those without evidence but with strongly held opinions.

We’ve seen in 2016 that pointing out the lies of the Leave campaigners wasn’t enough, as Leave were able to use these lies to paint a compelling vision, one that appealed to a large proportion of the population – of British ingenuity, Brits standing alone and succeeding because of our national exceptionalism. To be honest it’s a vision that would appeal to me if I thought there was any truth to it.

If the Remain campaign is to win a second People’s Vote, then there must be a compelling message – a vision of our place in the world and how we look out for the poorest and weakest among us.