1. It's easy to propel a negative, scapegoating message as the answer to all ills. It's particularly easy when a vast swathe of the media are on board and daily magnify the propaganda against an already unpopular far-off body (not to mention those hapless, almost entirely blameless souls who are the face of immigration in this country), not least because so many of them have vested interests in ensuring that nothing truly challenges the status quo, at least not in a way that may harm the bank balances and political ambitions of media magnates, from Dacre to the Barclay brothers to Desmond to Murdoch. Faced with that reality, it's hard to see what these "lessons" for the left Harris identifies may be.
2. There is no doubt there was an element of the personality cult about UKIP. The flailing now in the run-up to their leadership election bears that out. That's not to dismiss the Brexit vote and the motivations behind it as simply that, but how many media hours and relatively easy rides have Farage and a few other of UKIP's flash-in-the-pan rising stars had to reinforce their message over the years?
3. What exactly is this "fundamental change" that's been brought about? Harris grudgingly acknowledges that immigration, and the casual and not so casual xenophobia that makes for a ready audience for flip answers to serious questions, was a central issue for many: "... it’s painful to make the point, do not underestimate the centrality of immigration to the Brexit vote, and how irate a lot of people may get if the status quo persists – a point underlined by this week’s net migration figures (in the year to March 2016, 633,000 people arrived in the UK, while 306,000 moved overseas)."
But Brexit as anybody at all sane is envisaging it at the moment shows no signs of being able to address this issue without doing untold harm to the UK's own interests (let alone causing misery for many caught up in the machinations). Can anybody realistically look around them at the moment and say that the UK's a better place to live post-referendum, or that there's any clear prospect of how that goal may ever come about?
Making a concerted fuss and turning over a few applecarts, then running away in the hope somebody else will sort it all out, along with a legacy of really ugly racist incidents, isn't a "fundamental change". It's just chaos.
4. As for this: "More generally, there is still a sense of far too many of the political class thinking the vote can soon be nullified – witness the hapless Owen Smith claiming that “we didn’t actually know what we were voting on” and holding out the prospect of another referendum. If the Brexit vote was motivated by people’s sense that Westminster either ignored them or failed to take them seriously, what does he think will happen if their one briefly successful protest is treated the same way?"
I'm certainly no Smith fan, but on the point that people didn't know what they were voting for, he's absolutely right, and it's mindboggling that it's even considered debatable. Once we do know what we may be voting on, why is it unthinkable that we should revisit the issue, either with a general election or - heaven forbid - another referendum?
And what the hell is this "what does he think will happen"?
Within a million or so (quite likely less now that buyer's remorse has set in), just as many people are pissed off with the result as are content with it. Is he implying we may see violence on the streets if immigration isn't curbed? Is he condoning mob rule? We have police to deal with that. Am I going to have to threaten to - or actually - take to the barricades and take out a few windows and police officers etc. before somebody takes just how pissed off I am about the whole situation seriously?
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