A most interesting little snippet: people identify much more strongly with Leave or Remain than with traditional party affiliations, and this has surprising consequences. According to a recent survey only 9% of Leavers would object if their child married a Remainer, but 37% of Remainers would object if their child married a Leaver!

I would like to work towards a reconciliation between the two factions into which our country has been divided. Theologically, reconciliation is the fruit of forgiveness and repentance – forgiveness from the one who has been hurt, and repentance from the one who has done the hurting. Of course, at the moment there is not even agreement on what counts as ‘hurt’ – I think there are many things that count – so perhaps the priority is to ensure that there is a careful delineation of differences, so that we actually gain some clarity over what it is that divides us.

A good principle in argument is that criticisms of a position have most effect if you have first demonstrated that you understand that position in terms that the advocate of that position would accept as a true account. In other words, to criticise Remain requires Leavers to articulate the Remain position in such a way that Remainers say ‘yes, that is what we think’. This is best done in an iterative fashion – an attempt to articulate it is made by a Leaver, and the Remainer then comments yes or no to the various elements, the Leaver adapts the articulation in response, until there is agreement between both sides as to what the Remain position is.

So here goes…

The Remain position views the European Union as a force for good in the world. It sees the legacy of the repeated conflicts between European nations, most especially in the twentieth century, as a tragedy, and the development of the European Union as the foundation of peace in Europe that ensures that such conflicts do not recur. The enhanced friendship between nations that the European Union allows for is well expressed through the ability of all citizens within the Union to move freely between the members states of the Union. The Union upholds excellent standards in human rights, workers rights and environmental protection. In addition, the economic aspects of the Union underpin the wealth that we enjoy. To discard these benefits by Leaving is an act of financial folly and cultural self-harm that we will regret for decades. For Remain, being a member of the European Union is a significant part of their personal identity, and a source of pride.

I don’t see that as an exhaustive summary of the Remain position, but I hope I’ve captured the key points – and I invite any and all comments to enable that presentation to improve. It is not an ignoble position to hold, and there are many values within it that I would wish to affirm, especially the importance of friendship across national boundaries.

I would also invite those who wish to understand the Leave position to carry out a similar exercise, and to help that process I would like to recommend several books.

The first is Jonathan Haidt’s ‘The Righteous Mind’, subtitled ‘why good people disagree about religion and politics’. Haidt argues that those who hold to a more ‘progressive’ perspective – what we would call left wing – recognise two sources of moral value, those being care (do no harm to people) and fairness (treat people equally). In contrast, those who hold to a more conservative position also value three other sources of moral value, loyalty (do not betray your group), authority (respect for traditions) and sanctity (recognise what is holy and reject what is disgusting). The key element for the Remain/Leave dialogue is that the two sides give different weight to what it means to be British.

Which leads to the second recommendation, Linda Colley’s book ‘Britons’. This is a very readable work of historical analysis, that outlines how the British sense of national identity became formed against the ‘other’ of continental Europe, starting with the religious division against the papacy in Rome, but incorporating over time the wars with Napoleonic France and the traumas of the twentieth century. This book helps to understand what it is that Leavers are valuing with their loyalty, authority and sense of sanctity.

Bringing this perspective up to date is Matthew Goodwin’s and Roger Eatwell’s ‘National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy’. This analysis has been written after the Brexit vote and considers the way in which the wave of national populism can be found in many diverse countries, and why it is only going to get stronger over time. The analysis centres on what the authors call the “four D’s”: Distrust of the existing political class, Destruction of communities and patterns of life, the Deprivation that has followed economic disclocation, and the De-alignment from traditional political parties that is the result. I would particularly recommend this book to anyone who thinks that the vote for Brexit in 2016 was the accidental result of anything that happened during the three weeks of the referendum campaign.

Paul Lever was the British Ambassador to Germany, and he has written an excellent account of how Germany and the EU inter-relate: ‘Berlin Rules: Europe and the German Way’. I hadn’t appreciated quite how far German thinking had shaped the setting up of EU institutions, such that the Federal structure of Germany is replicated on a larger scale in the EU, and that the inevitable consequence of this is that the EU will become a single state with all that this implies, including a single army. The EU is a thoroughly Germanic project.

For a sharper sense of what this implies I strongly recommend a read of Yanis Varoufakis’ ‘Adults in the Room’, which is an account of Varoufakis’ short tenure as a finance minister in Greece, and the way in which a democratic vote in that country was overturned by the EU machinery on behalf of French and German banks. It is difficult to credit the European Union with any moral authority after reading this!

So far, reading these books will give a sense and understanding of a general Leave perspective. For an additional recommendation, which would help to understand my own specific point of view, I would recommend Joseph Tainter’s ‘The Collapse of Complex Societies’, which analyses around a dozen different Empires in human history, seeking to account for why they collapsed. In brief, they collapse when a central authority takes more from subject territories than it returns in benefits. I believe that his analysis applies quite well to the European Union – and that the Union will therefore collapse before too long.

I hope that it is possible to pursue civilised conversations about the differences between the Leave and Remain perspectives (and I confess to have occasionally added more heat than light to the debate). We are one nation after all.