'Ichabod'

The blow falls

We did not stay up for the EU results. We went to bed lulled into cautious optimism by the polls, the stock market, and a splendid final day's campaigning. I was woken at 5 a.m. by my wife sobbing, so I knew the worst at once. I, too, cried, our daughter cried, even our son cried. Many we know cried, an elderly lady, a complete stranger, in the supermarket saw my campaign badge still on, and stopped me and wept.

Why did we cry? At the prospect of renewed recession, having only just crawled out of the last one, the longest in living memory. For all the hope and opportunities lost to out children, and their children. At being locked up in a small island run by xenophobes, racists and ultra Tory advocates of relentless cuts, privatisation and the gleeful destruction of our best public institutions. For the shame of it, being British now in a foreign country not something to be admired or respected, but pitied, derided, or blamed. For the damage we were doing to other countries, in Europe and beyond. For the encouragement we had given to Le Pen, Putin, and Trump.

But most of all, we cried for something more, infinitely precious, irretrievably lost. 'Ichabod', in the Bible, is a child so named who was born at the moment the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant and so God deserted Israel, it means 'the glory is departed'. 'The glory is departed' – that's what I cried for. We have lost what made us what we are, our idea of Britain as a place of optimism and hope, decency and gentleness, stable and sensible, inside Europe but wide open to the whole world, a place of enterprise but also social justice, a place where everyone in the world wanted to come to and work in.

'What were they thinking?'

How did this happen? A question for history exams in, say, the year 3000: 'Britain, 23 June 2016. What were they thinking?' Yes, what were we thinking?

I knew part of the answer early on, it was obvious while we were campaigning. I blogged during May:

"I see in the typical Brexiter – who tends to be over 40, white, not university educated, not in the liberal professions – a sort of truculent determination. They've been told for so long that they simply mustn't talk about immigration – mustn't even think about it. Now at last someone is saying their worries are legitimate and yes they can do something about it, that if they vote 'Leave' the foreigners will go, and the jobs and houses will be available for them and their children. They close their ears to warnings of economic catastrophe and march determinedly towards the precipice."

Gillian Duffy's revengei. (And the liberal establishment is still in denial. George Monbiot, writing in 'The Guardian' on 25 June, explains that it is neo-liberalism that makes so many people worried about immigration. You're still not allowed to say well, actually it is unrestricted immigration I object to. The message must first be 're-coded' by liberals as 'anti-globalisation').

To an extent, it was also the revenge of the older generation for everything else they disliked about what they saw as Britain's decline. Voting Leave became a way of wishing us back to....when everything was OK. The EU became a single simple explanation for unwelcome change in a complex world. I kept being told: 'we used to have these streets full of British cars' (no use telling him that there are plenty of cars on our streets made in Britain, it's just that they are Toyotas, Nissans and Hondas). Or: 'we will have nurses who speak proper English, instead of all these foreigners' (no good saying that the 10% of our doctors and 5% of our nurses are from the EU, and the NHS will fall to pieces without them). Or: 'there are no houses for our own people because of all these people coming from the EU' (no use explaining that we're short of houses because we've stopped building them, and if we carried on building at the rate we did in 2008, we'd have half a million more new houses today).

We are beginning to get data to fill out these impressionsii. We know that the strongest correlation for voting Remain was university education, that Leave correlated strongly with not having a passport, with poor educational attainment, with lower than median income. We know that the old overwhelmingly voted Leave, the young Remain. We know that Leavers had on many dimensions less 'liberal' social attitudes, thought that over the past 30 years things have got worse, not better, and expected things to get worse in future. Remainers were more positive about the past 30 years, less pessimistic about the future and socially more liberal.

(But be careful of the accusation that 'the old have blighted the future for the young'. We know that, historically, the old register, and vote: the young do not register, and do not vote. In 2015, 94% of those 65 and over were registered[ and of those 55 and over, 77% voted. Only 55% of 18-24s registered and only 43 % votediii. So the old have on average about 3 times the say of the young. I've seen wildly differing calculations for youth registration and turnout in the Referendum, but I'd be surprised if they were vastly different from the 2015 figuresiv. (There was a rush for late registration but, historically, this has often proved to be mainly by people already registered, who are under the impression, encouraged by government advice, that they need to register afresh for each election: so there may not have been the huge increase in youth registration that everyone assumed was happening) It is not yet clear whether higher youth registration and turnout would have achieved a Remain victory. But it is certainly true that the young bear responsibility for blighting their own future, as they always do, by not taking voting seriously).

The sociological narrative derived from this data is already familiar. That the remnants of the white working class, middle aged and elderly, were taking their revenge at last on the political establishment for having ignored their worries about immigration for years and years, for the decline of Britain's industrial base and the dearth of decently paid low skilled jobs and for the slow death of traditional working class culture.

I am sceptical about such a simple narrative. That picture wasn't true to anything like the same extent in Scotland. Birmingham voted Leave, Manchester and Leeds Remain: why? Some 'young' cities like Oxford voted strongly Remain: others, such as Glasgow, did not. And many in prosperous English home counties, awash with Volvos and Agas, voted Leave.

Above all, what puzzles me is this. I've no difficulty understanding why people don't like the EU: as I've blogged earlier, I share many of those views myself. The EU isn't loved, and doesn't deserve to be loved. But this wasn't a beauty contest. It was a choice between one poor option: lumbering on with an often dysfunctional EU - and a truly catastrophic one – leaving the biggest free trade area on the planet at a time when our export markets are shuddering to a halt, our economy is shakier than it has been for generations, our trade gap is massive and the world is in high anxiety about global meltdown. My puzzlement about the referendum result is that Leavers didn't seem to worry about the consequences of Leaving, and for that matter, they didn't even enquire what leaving meant. Polls show Remainers thought leaving would have disastrous consequences, but Leavers thought it probably wouldn't make a big difference either way. Why?

Undoubtedly one factor is that the understanding of how the EU works, and of the benefits we get from it, has never has much of an airing in the UK media. The media for years has sold papers on the back of real or imagined Brussels nonsense – straight cucumbers and such. But the benefits of trading in a single market have never been properly understood. GDP grew faster after we joined than it had before. Trading with the EU is easier not just because tariff free, but because artificial and accidental barriers to trade are eliminated, and the paperwork infinitely easier. I've never seen that explained. Peter Mandelson recounts the challenge:

"The problem was that, while the single market was the core of our argument, the majority of voters did not know what it was. This was a serious communications challenge, especially as we were up against Leave’s simple and seductive message of “Take back control” and “spend £350m on the NHS” — but I thought it was essential that we took it on.  In the end, however, it was decided that the focus on the single market was too difficult and that instead we had to hone the message about risk — hence the focus on the fiscal dangers Brexit posed to the National Health Service and public services, alongside stories about the threat to pensions, mortgages and house prices.

"This decision was pivotal. Whereas Leave was campaigning around a single number — the £350m — we presented voters with a succession of different figures which bounced off them and did not cohere into a single, overarching economic narrative.v"

Roads, building, projects done with EU money were seldom badged as such, as they are on the Continent: the authorities didn't feel it was something they wanted to boast about. One awful consequence is that it was precisely the regions that most rely on EU funding that voted most strongly for Leave. If you thought the only impact of the EU on the UK was unlimited Polish migrants and straight cucumbers, no wonder you voted Leave.

On top of that, we have to factor in the barefaced lies (£350m a week to spend on the NHS), racist hysteria (a million Turkish sexual predators), careful misrepresentation (extra-European migrant and free movement within the EU conflated) and cynical 'promises' (more fish in the sea!) pumped out by the Leave campaign - and parroted at full volume and without any questioning by the Tory media (promises disposed of like so much Kleenex within hours, not days, of the result). This is no accident: it was the Leave campaign's strategy form the start. As Arron Banks, founder and donor of the Leave campaign said:

“It was taking an American-style media approach.  What they said early on was ‘facts don’t work’ and that’s it. The remain campaign featured fact, fact, fact, fact, fact. It just doesn’t work. You have got to connect with people emotionally. It’s the Trump success.”vi

The campaign brought home to me as never before that the Tory press is a cancerous growth in British society. Not only is its dominance unhealthy, and totally out of kilter with the spread of political views in our society, it has developed a culture of outrageous lying, hysterical scare-mongering and suppression of truth that isn't echoed on the Left, and isn't seen in any major European country. I don't see how we can ever have a healthy society in this country without cleaning out the toxic filth spewed into people's minds, day after day, by the Mail, the Express, the Sun, and the Telegraph.

Even more extraordinary was that during the campaign there was no clear account from Leave leaders, as to what would actually happen if we left, replace the status quo. We'd be like Switzerland, no, we'd be like Norway, no, like Canada.....Or we'd trade with 'the Commonwealth' (a young Australian I canvassed said : 'stick with Brussels mate, The Commonwealth is just stuff in history books'. Or empty words: we'll be able to trade with the whole world'. Er, yes: as we always could. But half our exports go to the free trade area we are leaving. And China won't buy more from us just because Germany buys less.

And there was something else as well. It wasn't just that Leave voters were lied to, or were incited to racist hysteria. They themselves decided to stop listening, stop thinking. A few weeks into the campaign, it became clear that Leavers were simply tuning out all argument and evidence. Just look at who the list of those who warned about the baleful consequences of Brexit: here, the CBI, TUC, most economists, the Treasury, the Governor of the Bank of England, all our universities, our scientists, and abroad, NATO, the OECD, the IMF, the President of the United States, the governments of China, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France. They were all ignored. The only voices pro Brexit were Trump, Putin, Le Pen. It wasn't just Gove that derided 'experts' – that is, people who know thingsvii. Half the population did likewise. In some ways, it was this outbreak of Trumpian 'truthiness', of unreason and wilful ignorance, that most worried me about the debate. As an anonymous commentator said in the FT:

"When the facts met the myths they were as useless as bullets bouncing off the bodies of aliens in a H G Wells novel. When Michael Gove said 'the British people are sick of experts', he was right. But can anyone tell me the last time a prevailing culture of anti-intellectualism has lead to anything other than bigotry? viii"

In the end, there is still something about the outcome that mystifies. It's like an immense rock, which has withstood the sea for centuries, but when tapped lightly in just the right place in just the right way, splits immediately cleanly in two. Or a homogenised liquid, which when you add a single drop of reagent, turns instantly half to gas and half to solid. There was something magical about it – dark magic – improbable, inexplicable, dramatic and irreversible. However much it is analysed, studied and debated, I suspect there will always be something about this decision that will defy understanding.

What will happen now?

The situation now is so unprecedented and so chaotic that predictions are difficult. Although I did predict the result, I have already been proved wrong in forecasting an immediate market panic and economic crisis. But some things seem foreseeable, even so.

1) It's a long, chaotic path to the Brexit

The process of agreeing the terms of Brexit seem likely to take years, and the work of detailed implementation, of disengaging ourselves from EU law, to take some years more. This will taken even longer if, as seems likely, we decide against the Norway model, see below. That would suggest that negotiations with the EU, and all other trading partners, on the new terms of trade, would only start after the decision on Brexit itself. Likely this will still be swirling around well into the 2020s. During this period, we can expect rumours and uncertainty, firm announcements immediately undone, and of course misinformation and downright lies from the Tory media.

2) There's no way back

One thing is clear to me: that life in this worrying and sad new world must start by accepting that what has happened, has happened. I understand what's behind the emails urging us to sign petitions for a 2nd referendum and letters supporting Early Day Motions, the hopeful rumours that 'perhaps Article 50 will never be triggered', that maybe Parliament will vote no to Brexit. They are very like the denial one experiences immediately after an unexpected bereavement. But they are nonsense. A second referendum would require a new Bill: what government do you imagine putting that through? A second vote would be a massive affront to democracy: too many Remainers are saying to the majority of their compatriots, look, you're too stupid to know better, vote again, until you get it right. And if it took place and the result was 52/48 Remain, would credibility would that have – mightn't it be the other way round a week later?ix Above all, we know EU leaders have had enough. They have had enough of the spoilt child who is always demanding special treatment, but who is never satisfied, who constantly disrupts things, whose tantrums are an embarrassment (as Farage the other day in the European Parliament). They hoped we'd make a clear decision, hoped we'd decide to stay, but we decided to leave: well, then, please go, and don't take too long about it. So, lets not drag out our torment by pretending that the whole thing can be wished away, rather like that episode of Dallas where Pam Ewing wakes up and finds the plot so far was just a dream. We are going to Leave.

(The point at which a second referendum, or Parliamentary vote, or General Election might be appropriate is much further on, and not on the yes/no of Brexit, but on the terms that have been negotiated. The trouble with that, though, is what happens if we reject those terms? We couldn't just say 'please let us back in' – because Article 50 isn't reversible, we wouldn't have a democratic mandate for it and the EU would probably not countenance it. Or it might be offered, but on the terms of a new entrant i.e. full acceptance of the core EU terms, including the Euro and perhaps a more evolved European state. So, will we be left suspended between two worlds, unable to move back or forwards? I wouldn't put it past us!)

3)  A half way house looks unlikely

Likewise, I am doubtful about the idea that we can leave, but still keep access to the single market - whether as a rational proposition (joining the European Economic Area, like Norway) or irrational (Johnson's ludicrous optimism that magically the EU will now grant us a special deal that will give us everything we wanted and didn't get in Cameron's negotiations: what a nonsense that man is). Clearly, this would be by far the least damaging opton. But it is a simple syllogism: the EU have made it very clear, no access to the single market without freedom of movement (and clearer since we votedx). The Tories can't stomach freedom of movement, that is precisely what fuelled the Leave vote. Therefore, the Norwegian or Swiss models may not be possible (the Norway model, membership of the European Economic area, would also require acceptance of much EU law and a subscription, equally anathema to Leave voters). Therefore, we shall be pressed towards full separation – successful rather than attempted economic suicide. Of course, it's just possible that the price of doing so will become so evident that opinion will shiftxi. That is where, in a year or two's time. a second referendum, or failing that, a Commons vote, not on whether to leave but on the terms, might become appropriate and might prevent attempted suicide from becoming successful.

4)   Serious, cumulative economic damage, and therefore deep spending cuts

The consequences must be serious/ sustained economic damage, of four kinds. First, devaluation of sterling (which may well fall a good deal further than it already has done) will stoke inflation for imported goods, which will may mean interest rates rising and which will inhibit spending and borrowing.(Devaluation can of course boost exorts but there are good reasons to doubt it will in current circumstances, see: http://www.georgemagnus.com). Second, house prices and commercial rents will fall, good news for some, but discouraging spending and reducing confidence. Third, business and consumer confidence has already fallen very sharply., hitting spending and investmentxii The prolonged uncertainty during negotiations, which will last years, must discourage investment and hiring: a recent Institute of Directors poll showed two thirds of members thought the outcome negative for their business, a quarter intended to freeze hiring. Business will move jobs, investment and even their HQ s out of the UK in order to stay in the single market. In the IoD poll, a fifth of companies say they would consider moving business from the UKxiii. We have already seen Vodafone moot moving its HQ, Ryanair recasting its investment strategy away from the UK, and into Europexiv Fourth, when the terms of trade with the EU are finally clear, if I am right that we must lose access to the EU market, here will be major long term structural damage, for example if the City loses its 'passport' to trade across the EU (and bearing in kind the UK's strength in services, which may henceforth be protected by EU national interests against UK competition). The UK Government's credit worthiness has already been downgradedxv and it is even possible that the very low rate at which UK government borrows money to service its debts may rise, in which case we really are in a vicious downward spiral. And unlike Greece, we have no European central bank to bail us out.

Cumulatively, this looks to be an economic setback as great as the 2008 Crash - but permanent. I have seen no coherent exposition of what new, alternative sources of properity would offset it. True, all sorts of protections of workers and of the environment may now be swept away by Ultra Tories, but does that make for prosperity?

And economic damage means lower tax income which means even deeper cuts to services and welfare payments, on top of what we have already suffered. In particular, it seems unlikely that the NHS, already deeply in debt and warning of breakdown, and facing endlessly rising demand, can survive in its present form, as we head into a second, more prolonged downturn. The promise of £350m a week extra funding has already been withdrawn and no extra funding is in fact possible, if government income declines well below current projections. The elderly Brexiter may pay for their vote in more ways than one.

(It's also foreseeable that, to keep ourselves afloat, there's nothing we won't stoop to – a race to the bottom of corporation tax has already been proposed, and what chance our cracking down on dubious foreign billionaires, or tax dodging by multi-nationals, when we need every single last penny? The UK as the world's favourite tax haven, no questions asked, dirty money welcome.)

5)    The Tories will be pulled to the Right

The Tories will be pulled to the right through three forces: the extinction of the last of the One Nation Tories like Kenneth Clark; the continued challenge from the Ultra Right (a jubilant UKIP, freed to focus on domestic issues, and possible new far right partiesxvi); and the collapse of Labour competition for the centre ground. Thus expect ever more ideological emphasis on deconstructing the welfare state, on privatisation of the NHS, neutering or sell off of the BBC. A retreat from free trade towards protectionism is likely, as Trump already heralds in the US. The Tory project to turn the UK from a social welfare European country into a sort of cold and wet offshore Texas wll be complete.

6)     The permanent presence of the far right

In the campaign, UKIP mainstreamed overt racism and xenophobia. Expect to see more of that, as it dawns on Bexiters that the result did not mean foreigners disappear from their workplace, street and community, especially if the UK Government does a deal to guarantee those already here that they may stay indefinitely, in return for a similar deal for Britons in Europe.

7)       Labour is likely to  spilt

The campaign highlighted the disconnect of Labour from its traditional heartland. Corbyn's retro 1970s full blooded socialism exercises little hold over them, however much it excites 200,000 activists. And it is hard to see how the unprecedented and very visible stand off between Corbyn and his MPs, and between MPs and party members, and between party members and most voters, can end happily. Whether Corbyn is challenged or not, the most likely scenario is that he remains leader. That means 4 years in which the public see the leader at war with the MPs sitting behind him, more so if he moves to de-select 172 MPs, a slow and uncertain process that means that the bloody civil war is never out of the news, that MPs who have 4 years still to sit feel that they owe him no loyalty and have nothing to lose, and some will prepare to stand as independent in 2020 or form a new party. The public always punish parties that look divided and this is a deeper, more bitter, and more public division than any ever known. If new parties are formed, FPTP punishes multiple small parties occupying overlapping ground. Expect a collapse of left/centre representation in the Commons in 2020, and that's before Scottish independence deprives Labour of 50 seats for a Left coalition.

8)          Scotland will split

There has already been talk of a 2nd referendum on independence for Scotland, and polls show increased support since the EU votexvii. Tellingly, the Scottish Conservatives are willing to support a demand for another votexviii. Granted, the economic climate makes independence even more difficult to contemplate, especially the collapse in the oil price. But Scotland stands to lose over £200m in EU fundingxix If even Scottish unionists are giving up on the Union, what hopes is there? And if the UK economy goes into decline post Brexit, then separation and thus eventual return to the EU may be easier to contemplate. But it is uncertain that these economic calculations will be decisive. The vote means Scotland will be ushered out of the EU against its will: it is manifest proof that the English no longer care what the Scots want or think, if indeed they ever did. The political cultures of Scotland and England are drifting ever further apart. Scottish pride may simply demand independence. That will exacerbate nationalist anger on both sides of the border. It will also deprive the Left of 50 seats at Westminster.

9)     Britain's place in the world will decline

Self-evidently, Britain – or England and Wales – is going to be a lesser player in the world - a world which is already in the process of re-balancing between the old West and new East. Smaller, poorer, no longer part of a bigger bloc, why should anyone care much what we think say or do? (On the plus side, maybe we won't be invited to join wars any more.)

'What is to be done?'

I've said that praying for that the Leave vote will somehow be annulled or re-voted seems to me useless, merely postponing the moment where we accept the inevitable. But that is not to mean despair, inaction or switching off. Far from it. There is much we can do, indeed must do.

1)    Emigrate/acquire another EU nationality

Those young enough to start over, and with tradeable skills, should give serious thought either to emigration to a more hopeful country, one with a future (though the queues for the English speaking Commonwealth may be long, and if you head for the US, you may find post Trump Americans coming the other way!); or to acquiring another EU nationality. Maybe you have an Irish parent, or if living in Scotland, might eventually benefit when an independent Scotland rejoins the EU – a long wait though! And note the remarkable suggestion that Germany might offer dual nationality to young Britons working in Germanyxx. And there's always marriage.... Don't allow yourself to be shut into this small, inward looking, economically depressed and depressing country.

2)      Support EU citizens here

One thing we must do, a matter of honour, and urgently , is show visible support for EU nationals living and working around us. I know from canvassing that many are anxious about their future and are wondering whether the vote means people want them gone. Their worries shame us. We need to show that they are now doubly welcome, campaign to clarify their status and support any who are discriminated against or the subject of harassment. A campaign has already been launched by Labour and the Lib Dems to give them assurance that they can stay: not so the Government (but then, there isn't really a Government any more, only a vacuum)xxi.

3)      Save the Labour Party from itself. Build a left-centre coalition.

We desperately need an effective left/centre Opposition to hold the Government to account and influence the Leave negotiations. The status of EU nationals resident here is just the first of many issues which need to be decided. The rightward lurch of the Tories makes this even more necessary.

Labour is in deep crisis, and paralysed. I've previously blogged how disastrously inept Corbyn's intervention, or lack of it, was during the referendum campaign. My point is not merely that his comments were so heavily qualified that many thought he actually did not favour remaining in the EU. More than that, he demonstrated what I think is the real objection to him: he is not a leader. He does not see it has his job to mobilise a majority of voters behind his views and in the process modify his ideas so that such an alignment is possible. On the contrary, he thinks his job is to guard the True Faith, come what may. And his willingness to have party activists fight the Parliamentary Party to the death before an aghast electorate shows that for him, the True Faith is what matters, not winning power. We need to vote Corbyn out, therefore, even if you think his policies are right. And if he is voted back in, it will be necessary to create a new party, possibly with the Lib Dems, to re-build the centre left. Or a 'Popular Front' opposition grouping, that involves some form of inter-party electoral collaboration in order to overcome FPTP, and then replace it.xxii

4)       Fight for the right terms of exit

The terms of our exit matter tremendously, they may make the difference between a bearable future and a disastrous one. All sorts of related issues will be thrown up – starting with the status of EU nationals here. We need to fight hard for the least damaging terms possible - full access to the open market being the goal. And to head off the Tory dreams of dismantling all workers' rights, abolishing human rights, and generally turning non-millionaires into helots.

5)       Mobilise the young

The young are the big losers from Brexit - but only a small proportion ever get involved politically, or even bother to vote. If we are to have any positive future, that must change. Possibly that means mobilising them through means other than traditional party structures, using the internet and social media to construct a new mass movement. But they must get off the sofa: just clicking on e-petitions won't save us.

Conclusion

Three quarters of a century ago, at a time of greater turmoil and uncertainty, George Orwell, revolutionary and patriot, concluded his great essay on the future of Britain, 'The Lion and the Unicorn', on a note of high optimism:

“We must add to our heritage or lose it, we must grow greater or grow less, we must go forward or backward. I believe in England, and I believe that we shall go forward.”

Today, one has to come to the opposite conclusion: after all, the British people have just voted, precisely, to go backwards. Of course, you can't actually go backwards: history doesn't work like that. You end up somewhere that has at most, a distorted and partial resemblance to the past. What will it look like, in say 2025? Scotland will have gone its own way, with Ulster moving, perhaps bloodily, towards a United Ireland; the rump, England and Wales, poorer than it would otherwise have been, with much reduced public services; after 10 years of Tory rule with only weak and divided Opposition, we will be even more unequal, little left of the public sector, much of the NHS and perhaps the BBC privatised; isolationist in foreign policy and not much listened to abroad; a divided, unhopeful place from which the best seek to emigrate.

Will 'the glory' ever return? Not in my lifetime. We need the Brexiter generation to die off first – and that is my own generation (iv). And we are guaranteed nothing. As Shaw put it, in his metaphor for England adrift in a storm in an earlier crisis:

“She will strike and sink and split. Do you think the laws of God will be suspended in favour of England, because you were born in it?”

We may never recover our elan, our self-belief. A nation may sink into irreversible decline, its genius may wholly desert it. I think perhaps ours just has.

And yet....I discovered something about myself during the campaign and in the ghastly aftermath that surprised me – and if its true of me, it must be true of many others. I learned that if the challenge or opportunity arises to fight for the best in us against the worst, if there is any prospect of winning that battle, I'd give all I can, fight all I can – as long as there survives the slightest scintilla of hope.


Notes

i  The woman Gordon Brown dismissed as a bigot in the 2010 Election campaign
ii  Including on the day poll by Lord Ashcroft, and post vote poll by Ipsos Mori. Also, You Gov have 're-weighted' their eve of referendum poll to match the actual result.
iii  Ipsos Mori 'How Britain voted in 2015' and Intergenerational Foundation 'Voting and registration'
iv  Financial Times 'Turnout by age', Sky reported turnout for 18-24s as 36% but the basis for that is unclear: an Opinium poll for LSE suggested turnout for 18-24s was 70%, though that poll can be shown to be flawed because it does not match actual total turnout.
v  Peter Mandelson 'How the struggle for Europe was lost, Financial Times, 2 July 2016
vi  The Guardian 29 June 2016
vii  A strange thing for him to say because in his day job, he seems rather fond of experts. I was one myself, for half an hour!
viii  Financial Times, date unknown, post by 'Nicholas'
ix  A poll since the vote suggest that remarkably few people have changed their minds. Ipsos Mori post vote poll for Newsnight.
x  Interestingly, they have toughened up their line in negotiators with Switzerland, for which free movement is likewise a sticking point, apparently to head off precisely such expectations. (The Observer, 3 July 'EU tells Swiss no single market access if no free movement of citizens '. Quite why free movement should be such a shibboleth for the EU is unclear.
xi  This dilemma is spelt out in a post referendum poll, which shows that, asked what is key to a successful Leave agreement, one third say an end to free movement, one third say access to the EU market. Opinium 'voters react to a post referendum world', 1 July 2016
xii  See recent YouGov polls of business and consumer confidence: these are the sharpest falls since the banking crisis.
xiii  IoD 'First sign Brexit will hit jobs, 27 June 2016
xiv  BBC News 26 June re Vodafone, Irish Times, 28 June re Ryanair
xv  BBC News 27 June 2016
xvi  The Guardian 29 June 2016, 'Leave donor plans new party to replace Ukip'. For a profile of the remarkably unpleasant Arron Banks, see : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arron_Banks
xvii  Daily telegraph 26 June 2016 'Scottish independence has nearly 60 per cent support, poll finds following Brexit result'
xviii  Reuters, 4 July 2016
xix  The Scotsman, 2 July 2016
xx  The Guardian 3 July 2016 'German politicians propose offering young Britons dual citizenship '
xxi   The Guardian 5 July 2016 'Labour urges Commons vote over EU citizens' right to stay in UK'.
xxii  The Guardian, 5 July 2016 'Labour can still survive, but only if it abandons hope of governing alone '