Meet the secret Brexiteers

Much has been made of the Brexit Party’s insurgency amongst people in Leave-voting communities, who have been subject to disparaging and patronising establishment contempt ever since they dared to vote the ‘wrong’ way in the EU referendum. But far less attention is given to the minority of Leave voters who work and live in the professions and other areas where support for Remain is the default position.

One woman who approached the Brexit Party stall in Chester last week told me his:

“I am a solicitor; my friend here is a physiotherapist and we are both fed up of being shunned by colleagues because we voted Leave. I just don’t tell people anymore.”

She speaks for millions. Maybe it is because I am part of the media/ policy intelligentsia circle (or, at least, I was until I became an apostate and decided to stand as an MEP), but over the past three years I have come across a wide range of Secret Brexiteers who dare not admit they voted Leave.

This is how it goes: when I speak at universities, literary festivals, science festivals and arts gigs on a wide variety of topics, and mention in passing I support Brexit, one or two people always sidle up at the end and whisper – yes, whisper – “I agree with you, but I am not ‘out’ at work”.