Without knowing it, I posted yesterday’s entry around the same time MP Jo Cox was being shot and stabbed in Yorkshire by a right-wing extremist. I first heard the news later in the afternoon, and hoped against hope that she would pull through; it was awful to hear the police announcement of her death on Radio 4, and her colleagues being asked for their reactions moments after they heard that news themselves (they were in the studio to talk about the attack). The presenter sounded just as upset.
Rod Liddle wrote last night: “Call the vote off, as a mark of respect. We are in no fit state to vote anyway, to judge by the level of debate. Call it off.”
The level of debate is exactly where a lot of the people who pushed for this referendum wanted it. Now we need to hold the damn thing to find out whether or not Britain is the tolerant country people believed it to be. I know there are Leavers who are voting for other reasons, as a strike against bureaucracy or to save a few quid or to bask in memories of British greatness or whatever, but people like Farage turned this into a referendum on immigration and race long before it was formally called.
Reject them. Remain.
Jo Cox passionately defended immigration and Britain’s EU membership in her maiden speech.