Snobs and mobs agree on the cost of a second referendum

Britain moved a step close to Weimar yesterday when the Prime Minister used the threat of terrorism to get her way. Being a conservative woman of the upper-middle class, Theresa May did not precisely mimic the cries of ‘there will be blood’ that come from the right’s more deranged corners. You don’t talk like that if you want to get on in Thames Valley society. Rather the Prime Minister issued her warning in the careful language of a bureaucrat. ‘There has not yet been enough recognition of the way that a second referendum could damage social cohesion by undermining faith in our democracy,’ she said. You would have missed her intent behind this seemingly bland statement unless you had been paying attention to the noise that surrounds her.

It is now standard to suggest that holding a second referendum will provoke violence, and that the violence will be justifiable. Indeed even the act of challenging a hard Brexit and asking for a second referendum is enough for the right to predict, in voices dripping in insincerity, that visits from hard men in leather jackets will follow.

Brendan O’Neill of this parish greeted the sight of far rightists harassing Anna Soubry with ‘it is entirely natural that she should become the focal point for people’s anger’. Tim Montgomerie agreed. With all the sincerity of Uriah Heep, he opined, ‘the abuse is unacceptable…but’ – and in listening to today’s hypocrites one should always remember Jon Snow’s wise line that ‘everything before the word “but” is horseshit’ – Soubry had no one to blame but herself. ‘A parliamentarian who advocates overturning a referendum result she promised to respect should not be surprised at unleashing such ugliness.’