TWENTY THIRD JUNE IS NOT JUST ABOUT OUT OR IN.IT SHAPES IDENTITY

Rayhan Ahmed Topader  :

Who do you trust?As we hurtle towards referendum day-it’s too late if you don’t register today-a poll suggests we will listen to family,friends,peers,colleagues first, followed by academics and heads of companies.Much lower down the list come journalists,and bumping along the bottom are politicians. It is cheering that we turn to family and friends, suggesting that we understand the personal magnitude of the decision. It means we listen to people we think have our own interests at heart, or who are at least impartial.Brexit politicians are reckless if they call for the public to choose between them or the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. For our Evening Standard debate this evening we have selected a panel from different walks of life and various hues. The Brexit debate has bust the notion of big-party loyalties but I am interested in the rebel Green on our panel,because the Greens are usually consensual.She is joined by Dan Hannan,Boris Johnsons intellectual muse and someone whose rhetoric is disarming.

On the Remain side we have big busine
ss represented by Carolyn Fairbairn, head of the CBI,as well as Rohan Silva as the voice of tech entrepreneurs. Who will you trust?
If we listen to those we love or respect in our own fields,we reflect the tribal loyalti es of our communities.So when Sir Sim on Rattle said in an interview yesterday with the Evening Standard that the peop le he knows are baffled by the impulse for Brexit,it is clear why.He lives in Berlin among artists. In the UK the divisions are as visible.My folks are in Norfolk,which has plenty of Vote Leave posters.I love Norfolk in a different way to London.Local pastimes include pig racing and clay-pigeon shoo ting,while last weekend there was a mag nificent rally of classic farm vehicles. Europe is an absurd construct there and  a hindrance. In London,Europe is in the bloodstream. The capital is cosmopolitan and multilin gual.It is the headquarters of the City, technology,fashion, arts, politics and science. Michael Gove’s argument is that heads of institutions represent the complacent status quo while the workforce may well be Brexit.

IT IS CHEERING THAT WE
TURN TO FAMILY AND FRIENDS,
SUGGESTING THAT WE
UNDERSTANDING THE PERSONAL
MAGNITUDE OF THE DECISION

You can see how tempting an argument this is for Corbynites and how hard it is for them to summon any enthusiasm for Remain. Brexit could be the chance to lop off the entire Boss Class. Both the Remain and Brexit camps need to fashion their arguments separately for London.Immigration plays differently in a city where so many are migrants and where the economy is booming. On the other hand, the idea of going it alone evokes less fear since we are gett ing used to being a city state,measu ring ourselves,for instance,against Singapore If the country bounds free when we vote, as Boris Johnson claims it will, London will feel stranger and newer than the rest of the country.The referendum puts our identity on the line.
Rayhan Ahmed Topader
raihan567@yahoo.co.uk