I generally try and avoid talking about Brexit. Division and opinions run deep and even within my own family it has resulted in fraught and difficult conversations. Conversations where older and younger generations fight pitched battles hurling accusations. So, I have found it best to hold my opinion, only sharing when asked.
But things are starting to move. Faced with growing evidence that Brexit was oversold people's opinions are starting to shift. In 2016 52% of us thought it was right to leave the EU but now opinion polls show that with hindsight only 35% of people think it was the right decision. This is a huge change with 30% of Leave voters changing their minds. Broadly, for every two people who still think we were right to leave, 3 take the opposite view and think we made a mistake (the balance are undecided).
It''s hard to know why people are changing their minds. For the 3 years after the Brexit vote opinions hardened and everyone dug in. But it's now 6 years later and people are fed up with waiting for what they were promised. When I talked to voters during the campaign in 2016 people usually fell into one of three categories, categories that defined and influenced how they would vote. Immigration, economics, and sovereignty.
My belief is that on each of these fronts Brexit has failed to deliver for Leave voters. Immigration has not changed, our economy is actually getting worse rather than better, and there is no sense that free of the EU we are better able to chart our own course in the world. The Labour party has responded to this with the line 'Make Brexit Work' but I believe this mistakes where public opinion is heading. More and more people are concluding it's just not possible to make Brexit work.
There will always be a core that stick to their original view, who deny the iceberg as the Titanic sinks. But faced with overwhelming evidence public opinion is changing, a clear majority of voters now accept that Brexit was a mistake.
I believe that standards in public life matter. That what politicians say and do matters. That we, the public, should be able able to rely on what they tell us. They will spin their view of course, down play the negatives, and emphasise the positives, but we know this. However, as voters we have always relied on our politicians to 'honour the truth' in their remarks, that their comments must always contain a kernel of truth, even if they are economical with it. That what they say is not simply wrong, a lie.
What was different about the Brexit debate was the degree to which campaigners were willing to depart from the truth. From lies about Turkeys imminent ascension to the EU to the £350m a week we could give to the NHS, the campaign deliberately employed misunderstanding, ,misinformation, and misdirection to mislead the public.
This was a new style of politics. A Trumpian approach that promoted a populist right wing narrative over traditional values of discovering truth through open and frank debate, a debate which voters could listen to and use to inform their vote. An approach that prioritised winning over truth. It was the first major post truth campaign in British politics, an approach that reaped rewards for its proponents as it triumphed over an ill-prepared and ill-equipped opposition.
Brexit campaigners did use lies to promote their cause. That's not to say the Remain camp didn't either, it's just that the Leave campaign did it first and much more extensively. This style of politics needs to stop, hopefully with the ejection of Boris Johnson from office (a notorious lier), we can have a reset.
As someone who campaigned against our departure from the EU it would easy to adopt a 'I told you so' approach to those who voted Leave. However, over the past few years I've come to realise that if you want people to change their minds then you need to make it easy for them. This also reflects my view that we all sometimes makes mistakes, and that when we do, that last thing we need is someone smugly pointing it out to us.
Fundamentally though, I have come to understand why so many did vote Leave. There are of course a core of people who still maintain it was right, but there are an increasing number who are coming to regret their decision and accept that they were lied to. It is incumbent on all 'remainers' to welcome their conversion, not to be smug or to castigate, and accept that its not their fault they were lied to.
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Published and promoted by Ashley Cartman for and on behalf of the North Somerset Liberal Democrats, 10 Fenshurst Gardens, Long Ashton, BS41 9AR.