Brexit has already taken quite a toll on the British economy, and worse may be lying in wait. But the political damage seems graver. Lies, threats and insults have become ubiquitous. So has open contempt both for the opposite side and for once-respected institutions. As for the situation in Northern Ireland, or diplomatic relations between the UK and the rest of the EU, let’s not even think about it. (The English usually don’t.)
It’s tempting to obsess about the tone of politics, but that is a trap. If we spend our time wringing our hands over the form of the political conversation, it leaves little space to think about the content.
Remember the lesson of the lie on the bus: a fact-checking dispute about the UK’s contributions to the EU successfully consumed all the oxygen in the 2016 referendum, leaving no breathing space for a discussion of the issues involved. The exact claim didn’t matter: what mattered was that in order to dominate attention it had to be palpably false.