When the chattering classes realised that Britain had voted for Brexit, they briefly fell silent as the horror sank in. And then, instead of chattering, they shrieked.
Their message can be boiled down to three words:
How dare you!
Yesterday was about more than Brexit. Many Remain supporters weren’t particularly interested in the grandiose European programme.
Nor were many Leave voters – even though, like a diabolical piece of malware, it had wormed itself into every crevice of our institutions.
They’d need to take a year out from their busy lives just to read a fraction of its control-freak regulations.
The map of the results says it all. The North, the West Country, Wales and – with a vengeance – the Midlands seized on the referendum as their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to humiliate the liberal city-state of London and its cultural satellites.
Final results from #Brexit referendum are in: https://t.co/7iDIn2Y3wJ pic.twitter.com/UO2VeLbT1l
— CNN (@CNN) June 24, 2016
(Scotland voted Remain, it’s true, but the results were distorted by nationalism and in any case the turnout was strangely low.)
This was a rebellion that united people from all manner of backgrounds.
The Remain crowd seemed to think it was a modern-day peasant’s revolt by “the old white working class”, terrified of immigrants stealing their jobs.
There’s an element of truth in that, of course. But it’s also a simplistic caricature. It leaves out thousands of small businessmen, struggling farmers, anxious pensioners, provincial accountants, lawyers and GPs.
Plus, intriguingly, a recession-scarred ethnic-minority working class increasingly detached from the sanctimonious Labour Party.
This was a rebellion by a big, sprawling coalition against another coalition –smaller but more influential, squeezed into the bits of the South-East of England where you need a six-figure salary just to buy a semi-detached house.
We’re talking about the metropolitan liberal elite. Yes, I know that also sounds like a caricature – but did you see how contented David Cameron looked in the company of liberal grande dame Harriet Harman as they campaigned together this week?
David Cameron and Harriet Harman visit Asda and warn the public that Brexit will lead to more expensive weekly shopshttps://t.co/jIsefKAjbp
— Press Association (@PA) May 22, 2016
The departing Prime Minister and his equally doomed closest ally George Osborne may once have been authentic Conservatives. But for many years they have lived by a simple rule of thumb that has nothing to do with political conviction.
It’s this: never, ever, say or do anything that might upset the painfully right-on wives of their banker friends as they dish out the asparagus soufflé at a select London dinner party or “kitchen supper” in the countryside.
Those wives, or some of the other guests, often work for fashionable charities and media outlets that specialise in reproaching Tories for “heartlessness” and the lower classes for wasteful vulgarity.
If Cameron had recommended leaving the EU, just imagine the embarrassment! He would have been accused of repudiating every aspect of European culture: its art, literature, design, couture and cuisine. Of preferring HP sauce to drizzled olive oil.
Then, after the third bottle of Chablis, someone would have mentioned migrants and racism. That would have ensured a stony silence from Sam on the drive back home – and, if there were lefty media folk present, quite possibly a good kicking from Newsnight or the EU-worshipping Economist.
Dave was always going to back Brussels. He didn’t want the referendum, though, because it forced him to try to win the support of old-style Labour and Tory types – both of which groups he had ignored in general elections, either because they’d never vote Conservative or because they would automatically do so.
And yesterday they gave him a kicking that ended his career.
Partly it was personal: he couldn’t conceal his disdain for them and they noticed.
But he was also caught up in a cultural backlash. Having sucked up so vigorously to the guardians of the liberal city-state, this “Tory” PM had become indistinguishable from them.
Ordinary people are sick to death of self-important quangos, pointless industry regulations, BBC bias, university thought police, smug media vicars, social workers disguised as police chiefs, political activists disguised as teachers, pontificating celebrities… the list goes on and on, and there seemed no way the public could fight this network of finger-waggers.
Yesterday all it took was a single cross in a box. Over 17 million people seized the opportunity. Cameron was the first casualty. There will be many more.
