Letter to my MP on the EU referendum results
I wrote this to my MP (Daniel Zeichner, Labour, Cambridge) today:
Dear Mr. Zeichner,
Thank you for your efforts on behalf of the Remain campaign. Although I'm normally a Lib Dem voter, I'm quite in agreement with your article in today's Cambridge News: this was likely a protest vote in many areas, it should never have been a referendum in the first place, and it is a disaster for the country.
I'm scared now that parties of the Left will move sharply to the right in appeasing a perception of voters' intents. We're already seeing signs of this kind of thing: the "Lexit" campaign focusing on the theoretical structure of the EU at the expense of the human costs of leaving it, the Shadow Home Secretary saying that this is a vote for "real change on migration policy", and the constant refrain that politicians must do more to react to concerns about immigration rather than leading the national debate and fixing the underlying issues of deprivation and austerity that cause people to cast around for somebody to blame.
Please could you do all you can to hold the line? I would vote for a politician with the courage to assert parliamentary supremacy and say that a 52-48 referendum result is indicative of widespread public criticism of the state of the country but not a mandate for massively destructive constitutional change. But failing that, we need the Left to stand up for social justice and ensure that the vital protections formerly afforded to the underprivileged by the EU are preserved in some form. The Right are quite capable of campaigning to "reform" immigration, demonising those who want to come here as scroungers, and stripping away the human rights of people who are already here. The Left, and Labour in particular, doesn't need to help them; it can only make itself irrelevant by trying.
Thank you.
ETA: Zeichner has stated that he will be voting Remain when this comes before parliament. Good news!
This entry was originally posted at http://cjwatson.dreamwidth.org/20453.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Dear Mr. Zeichner,
Thank you for your efforts on behalf of the Remain campaign. Although I'm normally a Lib Dem voter, I'm quite in agreement with your article in today's Cambridge News: this was likely a protest vote in many areas, it should never have been a referendum in the first place, and it is a disaster for the country.
I'm scared now that parties of the Left will move sharply to the right in appeasing a perception of voters' intents. We're already seeing signs of this kind of thing: the "Lexit" campaign focusing on the theoretical structure of the EU at the expense of the human costs of leaving it, the Shadow Home Secretary saying that this is a vote for "real change on migration policy", and the constant refrain that politicians must do more to react to concerns about immigration rather than leading the national debate and fixing the underlying issues of deprivation and austerity that cause people to cast around for somebody to blame.
Please could you do all you can to hold the line? I would vote for a politician with the courage to assert parliamentary supremacy and say that a 52-48 referendum result is indicative of widespread public criticism of the state of the country but not a mandate for massively destructive constitutional change. But failing that, we need the Left to stand up for social justice and ensure that the vital protections formerly afforded to the underprivileged by the EU are preserved in some form. The Right are quite capable of campaigning to "reform" immigration, demonising those who want to come here as scroungers, and stripping away the human rights of people who are already here. The Left, and Labour in particular, doesn't need to help them; it can only make itself irrelevant by trying.
Thank you.
ETA: Zeichner has stated that he will be voting Remain when this comes before parliament. Good news!
This entry was originally posted at http://cjwatson.dreamwidth.org/20453.html. Please comment there using OpenID.