At 5:30 pm tomorrow I will make my way to the annexe room at our local library to give blood. The appointment was fixed months ago so the fact that it falls on the same day as the vote in the EU referendum is just a coincidence. But as the 23rd of June has approached and the campaigns intensified, being scarred lately by lies and xenophobia, and then disfigured horribly by the brutal killing of MP Jo Cox, the symbolic aspects of the vote and the donation have come to seem fused.
I used to give blood when I was a student but, during my peripatetic early career working as a research assistant in Grenoble, Surrey and Boston (USA), I got out of the habit and only picked it up again a few years ago. I’m no great fan of needles, but as long as I look away I can cope with being pricked and drained of a pint of the red stuff. It’s for a good cause, though giving blood is clearly also an act of reciprocity: should I be in need one day, I hope the NHS will have the donations of others to treat me.
Blood is deeply symbolic. Famously thicker than water, it binds families and nations together. It is a sacrificial fluid in religious rituals. And on battlefields, such as those that erupted twice in Europe in the twentieth century to stain the whole world crimson, and give a slow birth to the idea of the EU. Modern science has added to its meaning: sequence the DNA from a drop of your blood and you will find it to be 99.5% identical to the DNA of every other human being, revealing a unity that some choose still to ignore.
Symbolism and imagery have been to the fore throughout the referendum campaign because, economics aside, the issues raised challenge our senses of identity and belonging, which are intermingled with feelings about what is right and what is fair. Unfortunately, the tendency has been to play fast and loose with those sensibilities. We reached a new low in British politics last week when Nigel Farage posed in front of UKIP’s “Breaking Point” poster of middle-eastern refugees in Slovenia. It was a tactic that reeked of Nazi propaganda. Even Michael Gove “shuddered” when he saw it (though he seems nevertheless to have been contaminated).
The Remain camp has not been free from fault. They may not have engaged in the “industrial scale” dishonesty of the Leave campaign, but the spinning of Treasury forecasts, crude threats to pensioners, and George Osborne’s grim warnings of another austerity budget have distorted the debate, raising hackles more rapidly than they have raised valid questions.
Those looking for evidence and rational argument have had to hunt. I’ve tried to help by examining some of the evidence and biases in play and don’t intend here to rehearse the arguments in detail – time is short and others have done it better. On the Remain side, one of the very best contributions I’ve seen is this brilliantly knowledgeable talk by Michael Dougan, Professor of European Law at Liverpool University. I also highly recommend these carefully argued pieces from LSE economics professor Nicholas Barr, economics journalist Chris Dillow, and scientist Ewan Birney. On the thorny and divisive topic of immigration, let me point you to Flip Chart Fairy Tales and the Guardian’s own Gary Younge.
As for the arguments in favour of leaving the EU, the pickings have been slimmer but the best contributions I’ve seen were from Larry Elliot and the Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. Evans-Pritchard’s piece is all the more powerful because of its reluctant, almost mournful tone, though it has been challenged on some points by Oxford economist Professor Simon Wren Lewis.
These and other reasoned contributions have provided moments of calm in an acrimonious battle that has been dominated by mendacity and cynicism. It has inflicted wounds on the UK body politic – and on Britain’s relations with our European neighbours – that may take a long time to heal. Blood has been drawn. I take solace from the tributes paid to Jo Cox in Parliament on Monday from all sides of the house. These were a reminder – unwelcome given the awful circumstances, but much missed from this intemperate referendum – that politicians are people who are capable of speaking honestly with feeling, and who can recognise inspiration when they meet her in the corridors of power. If there is one other thing that all sides are likely to agree on, it is that the end of this accursed referendum cannot come soon enough.
But before that there is still the matter of tomorrow’s blood donation and tomorrow’s vote. My mind is made up – the balance of the evidence I have seen confirms that membership of the EU is clearly in Britain’s economic, political, social and environmental interests.
My heart is made up too. I am alarmed and infuriated by the relentless, reality-defying fabrications of the Leave campaign. Though I am sure that among those who will vote to leave there are many who share my international outlook and hopes for our children’s futures, I choose to live, for now, with the inevitable flaws of the EU. But only because I believe that Britain’s best hopes are served by stiffening the sinews and summoning up the blood to play a full and energetic part in shaping the EU – and the world.
@Stephen_Curry is a professor of structural biology at Imperial College but the views expressed here are entirely personal. Whatever your view on the EU, please make sure to vote. If you can, please also consider becoming a blood donor.
