An open letter from the same European Immigrant to a Remainer

First of all

Breathe

Take a deep breath

Take another long, deep, breath

Enough of whining.

We are sleep deprived, battered, angry, ashamed, in tears, confused, shocked, fearful, terrified.

This is what Defeat looks like. And you are not familiar with it, because you won two World Wars, so you only know about Victory. You are the guys that win every time. But not this time.

Let me tell you what defeat looks like.

Your army has been routed from the battlefield, the survivors are scrambling to safety, ducking and hiding, everybody around you is shouting, and you are running back as fast as you can. You can hear the enemy screaming with joy behind you. All is lost.

Until

Until

Until there’s a part of you, a small part that was trained long ago, in the long summer days before the battle, that says, enough. I am turning around. I might be the last one on planet Earth to fight this battle, but I am turning around. I am digging the heels in the mud and hold my position, because this is my country and the enemy is not going to have it.

And if there is only going to be a shred of my country to fight for, so be it. Vive la Resistance. We’ll find ways to get the other pieces together, once we win this.

This was Italy’s 8th September 1943. When the King defected and fled to safety, the army was disbanded with no orders on what to do, and every young Italian had to decide who to side with, Germany or the Allies, every man for himself.

That was our day of defeat, perennially marked in our memories.

23rd June 2016 is your day of Defeat.

We often say that Democracy is a battle of ideas.

Us Liberals like the “ideas” part, but we often overlook the “battle” part.

If you go into battle with your opponent, you draft your army, you carefully pick a trusted leader that energizes the army, you study your tactics and your strategy. You put the hours in, you prepare the details, you demand discipline to yourself and to your people.

The Remain campaign has done none of this.

Us liberals came into this particular battle of ideas, wholly unprepared, absolutely complacent about the outcome. We were mocking the stupidity of the arguments on the other side, ridiculing their supporters, sharing funny updates on Facebook, virtually high-fiving each other on how witty we were.

Who would vote for the other side, knowing The Facts?

I mean, look at our incredibly intelligent arguments, look at all these smart and important people making the case to Remain in eloquent and elegant ways. We have The Facts, they only have emotions. Facts will overcome emotions.

How stupid and arrogant have we been. Liberals do this mistake every bloody time.

When was the last time that you bought anything based on Facts?

You don’t even buy your house, the biggest investment of your life, based on facts — and real estate agents know this perfectly well, otherwise they wouldn’t put flowers in vases before you visit a house.

We don’t buy a car based on facts, even if we think we do. We buy more stuff if we enter the supermarket when we are hungry. We like to think we are rational beings, but none of us is. We are all irrationals with a thin veil of rationality. If we were rational beings, all diets would work, nobody would smoke, and libraries would not be filled with self-help books. We have all sorts of cognitive biases: for example, once we take a decision, our brain discards all the facts that contradict that decision. It takes discipline and training to even be aware of this confirmation bias, let alone overcome it. And yet, we showered the campaign with facts.

But you can only fight emotions, especially fear, with other emotions, generally positive ones, and with intelligent persuasion.

On the other side, the Leave campaign entered this as the battle of their lives.

They had a 30 years strategy since the 80s, relentlessly disinforming about Europe day after day after day for 30 years, via the tabloid press. Gutta cavat lapidem — a drop of water, falling everyday, will eventually hollow the stone. They swallowed two Prime ministers in their struggle. UKIP grew from 1% to 5, then to 15 and then to 25% of the vote share, and we still didn’t take notice.

But we, we had all the talents. We had Obama, Christine Lagarde, Mario Draghi and the whole of the establishment — we were a team of Cristiano Ronaldos, David Beckham, Francesco Tottis, Lionel Messi, and Andrea Pirlo.

The problem is, the Leave campaign was Leicester, and they bloody thrashed us (no offence Leicester fans, I love you, it’s just an analogy).

This is a reminder that hard work trumps talent every day — it always did, it always will.

They believed in an impossible victory, they worked at it, they were convinced of their arguments, no matter how wrong they were, they had an enemy to fight, however fictitious, they put the hours and the enthusiasm, and guess what — against all odds, they pulled it. They won and they rightly cheered during the election night. This was their night of glory. They were the underdog and they won anyway. Don’t we all love the underdog?

On telly, there was this old lady crying with joy at the results, and I wanted to hug her. She had voted for me to be ejected like a missile from this country, but she could have been my granny and I just wanted to give her a hug. She was hoping for a bit of a better life, now that she had her country back. Dear old lady, how they lied to you.I wanted to hug you and cry a bit with you.

So, to make things clear, I congratulate the Leave campaign for their success, and I accept the democratic result, even though I obviously don’t like it.

The problem is, The Facts, however neglected, are still staring at all of us implacably in the face.

This is when we have to pick up the pieces.

This is when we learn the lesson of how bitter defeat is.

This is when we grow up.

Because, the Leavers took a fundamental freedom away from all of us, the freedom of movement. But to be completely honest with ourselves — if we had valued that freedom enough, we would have fought tooth and nail not to lose it, just as our grandparents did in the last War. We would have campaigned implacably, we would have worked tireslessly, not just by sharing stupid stuff on social media, but by putting the hours in and getting out there. Throw your bloody iPhones on the floor please. Can you remember the last time you changed anybody’s opinion on Facebook? No? Neither can I. But I can remember every time I managed to convince a crowd or a small group, or a single individual, by talking with them face to face, quietly, and most of all, by listening.

If we had valued freedom of movement enough, we would have fought tooth and nails not to lose it.

So this is the lesson for all of us Remainers.

Freedom is never never never again to be taken for granted. The Freedom we all enjoy is to be deserved, through resilience and persistence and intelligence. It means that from now on, we need to work patiently, to take back what has been stolen from us.

Our grandparents have fought a war so that we can have freedom. If that comes again in our lifetime, let’s at least be prepared.

And let’s be grateful that we only have to fight battle of ideas for now, with arguments rather than with rifles.

But make no mistake. It’s still a battle.

We have been routed, we are in retreat. Time to slowly turn around, find the courage, and dig the heels in the mud. Hold your position. Don’t say “I want another referendum”. That’s childish. Stop saying “I am moving to Canada or to New Zealand or to Germany”. That’s defeatist. We are running out of countries where tolerance and freedom are expanding rather than contracting. We have a duty to fight where we are, each one of us.

We are fighting back.

We start our fight by hugging the old lady in tears.

I am European, and no matter what’s written on the passport, Britain is my country. This is where I have a wife and children, this is my home. But I am European, and France is also my country. I am European, and Spain is my country. I am European, and Germany is my country. I am European, and Poland is my country. I am European, and Greece is my country. I am European, and Italy is my country.

I am European, and Britain is still my country.