Everyday I Write The Book

By Eyecatching

I really hope we do

But win or lose there are several problems. 

Firstly, we are a deeply divided nation, and not just in the obvious way that this campaign has highlighted. There are those, Remain voters like me who I think are genuinely committed to a world with fewer borders and want to see a flourishing of culture and co-operation. Being in the United Nations, being in Europe, being a United Kingdom does not stop me being English or anyone else being Irish, Welsh, Scots, French .... whatever. Membership of several clubs does not diminish my individual identity. Then there are those who believe Leave will offer - well what exactly? I've not hear any coherent case for the benefits.

Then there are those who seem incapable, when faced with the biggest decision of a lifetime in political terms, to process the information. Well it's not easy. But after all these weeks and months and even years of campaigning - well I find it remarkable that people can't just decide.

Worse still are the apathetic. The ones who won't vote or will do the lazy "I'm voting the same as my parents" thing. 

And then the most worrying of all who I think exist in greater numbers than we imagine: the bigots, the racists for whom a leave vote is nothing more than hatred of foreigners. The ones who are stupid enough to believe the Daily Mail headlines and the lies littered across social media, the ones who are spoiling for a fight, the physical and intellectual descendants of Moseley's blackshirts.

But there is one big problem underlying all this and that is the deeply rooted inequalities in our society. Both apathy and hatred have their thickest roots in extremes of wealth and poverty. This referendum is also a commentary on the disenfranchised and those who are blasé about inequality. But it is one of our most serious problems, far more so than immigration.

A look at the voting intentions of MPs also reveals one last feature of note: a very deeply divided Tory party. As much as anything this campaign has been an ill-concealed public cock fight between different Tory factions who have put their political ambitions before the needs of the country. 

I still blame the Lib Dems for the fact that we are in this hole. If Clegg and Co had not given the coalition credibility and failed to curb its worst excesses between 2010 and 2015 the tories would not have got a majority last year and been able to promise a referendum concocted in the witch's cauldron of UKIP and Daily Mile bile. That was a turning point that has bought us here.

Labour of course is moribund if not publicly conflicted. Which is another factor this campaign has bought home starkly. And I speak as a party member.

Anyway I make it 6pm. You have four hours to go and do the right thing, if you haven't done so already. I shall not sleep easy tonight...

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