Alec Fullerton

Tuesday

Alec Fullerton

Wasn’t the ‘March for Europe’ supposed to be about tolerance?

From our UK edition

'Get back to the 1930s, you f***ing fascists' was one of the more printable insults screamed at the small group of Brexiteers holding a counter protest at the March for Europe on Saturday. Given the event was intended by the organisers to be a 'huge celebration of peace, tolerance and diversity', it's a shame that no one had told some of those taking part. Let me set the scene for you. The march started as predictably as could be imagined: a sea of blue-clothed, London-types, largely middling in both age and class. Banners, flags, balloons and dance music, pumped out by a bicycle-drawn loudspeaker, filled the air. But this feeling of goodwill didn't last for long. A couple of hundred metres from Parliament Square there was a buzz of commotion. It was the counter protestors.

Monday

Alec Fullerton

It isn’t just Remain campaigners who are scared about what happens next

From our UK edition

Anyone who hasn't been living in a cave for the past week or so will by now be growing increasingly tired of the repetitive and overly emotional responses of camp Remain. But what the visceral social media posts and pessimistic articles in the media have revealed is the genuine fear felt by many Remainers. These are people who are actually, and in some ways justifiably, terrified by the prospect of us leaving the EU. However, at a debate hosted by Spiked and The Institute of Ideas, 'Brexit: the battle for democracy starts here' last week, I experienced first hand the other side of the coin. Many of the victorious Brexit-supporters, who you'd imagine to be elated by the referendum result, are in fact just as frightened as their opposite numbers.