Why I lie about voting Leave

There are lies, damned lies and pretending to back Remain. I lie because I am a coward. I hug friends who burst into tears, petrified by life without the European Union. I sympathise with strangers, who act like Lady Di just died and there’s nowhere to lay flowers. I obfuscate, I mutter, I am evasive. And I am not alone. There are hordes of us who’ll not admit we voted Leave to our best friends, our next of kin.

We learned to keep schtum a long time ago — thanks to social media — since they’d defriend us if said we’d vote to leave. Now they are outraged, deeply confused — and unsure which of us to blame. ‘Literally no one on my timeline said they voted out, so it was just an echo chamber of smugness,’ says one of my friends — who has at least 500 on Facebook. Now they are howling: ‘I am never one to be political but you are racist scum.’ Or, ‘I can’t stomach a single thing today, let alone a scone or some cream tea.’

Just as the Stepford Students deny a platform to anyone with a view they disagree with, Twitter was purged of Leavers who — knowing the vitriol they’d attract — No Platformed themselves.

Of all the things to fall out about, for ever, the EU debate seemed most absurd. But it’s been weird to realise how personally others will take an EU voting preference that is the opposite of theirs. We learnt early on: vote Remain and you were pro-sunshine, a cure for cancer and world peace — a perfect dinner-party guest. Vote Leave and you were for fascists, rabies and the apocalypse — and not worth a handshake, even in gloves.