- Cameron has to take a massive amount of blame for all of this. He probably didn’t think he was going to win the last General Election, and therefore including something in his manifesto to keep UKIP at bay was probably just a sop to them. But he won unexpectedly and so felt he had to carry through to prevent party divisions. This despite knowing it was a dangerous ploy, despite knowing that this is a complicated argument to make to the electorate, and despite nearly losing the Scottish referendum previously. He didn’t make the case strongly enough, and he’s now fallen on his sword, possibly to be remembered as the prime minister who ended our membership of the EU, saw the end of the Union, and possibly worse.
- Osborne must be a dead duck. His Project Fear didn’t work. The “emergency budget” he talked about was just too extreme to be taken seriously. I don’t doubt that there will need to be remedial action, and we’ll find out in the days and weeks what that’ll be. But he over-egged the pudding, and voters saw through it. He was planning to be the next PM, but now his career must be in tatters.
- Remain did not remotely make their case. It’s hard to prove a negative, and easier to say we should do something rather than continue as we are: “Something must be done!” But there’s no doubt that the Remain campaign was abysmal. It’s now pretty clear that while they reached the educated population, who understands why the economy is important. To many less educated, that’s just a nebulous thing. As the exchange rate tanks this morning, to many people that only really matters to them when it comes to changing some holiday money. They don’t think it affects them. The importance of the EU on jobs and trade wasn’t made clear in a way that reached the politically illiterate. There are a lot of people I’d class in that group. They will get out and vote, even if they don’t truly understand what they’re voting for. That’s not the whole story of course, but for some it truly is as you heard people giving the most awful reasons for leaving during the campaign.
- Jeremy Corbyn was useless. I’m sorry — I’m sure he was a lovely guy — but he didn’t lead from the front. In the early part of the campaign there was silence from Labour, because the whole thing seemed to be about in-fighting Tories. They woke up a bit latterly, but there’s a suspicion that he’s actually a bit of a Eurosceptic. His call for invoking Article 50 immediately seems misplaced. But mostly, it was about not campaigning hard enough or loud enough. You need more charisma than he seems to exude. While I’m sure he’s a compelling speaker in a hall somewhere, most voters only see or hear candidates on television. I can’t think he really thought a Leave win would so damage the Tories, that Labour would be able to win through the middle. He must be wondering if Labour are going to replace him in time for any general election that might follow the Conservatives choosing a new Prime Minister, because I can’t see him prospering in the next election.
- Immigration. The dirty word that Leave bandied around the whole time, but that Remain did little to really counter. When it comes down to it, this is the issue. Whether people really think they’re losing their jobs, or there’s just a little bit of racism, I’m not sure. I suspect some of both. But this was the key issue.
- No facts. Electors were being asked to make a decision about something they didn’t really understand. This goes back to Cameron calling a referendum in the first place. But with a biased printed press, and a broadcast media forced to play a straight bat and counter any claim with a counter claim, it left people with little real understanding and no way to tell truth from lies.
In the meantime, the nearest A&E to me has closed down, and is currently being redeveloped as housing. And the only other hospital in my borough with an A&E department is now described as “unsafe” and “unsupported.” So I’m looking forward to learning in which week we’re going to get a shiny new hospital as promised by Leave. We’ll ignore the nitty gritty about not being in power, and there not being any staff to support such a new facility – at least not without lots of immigration.
