BY STEWART SLATER

People, Lee Kuan Yew argued, always vote for people who look like themselves. It is one of his lesser noted, but more praiseworthy achievements that the country he built disproves his dictum. Cross the causeway into Malaysia and you will find Malay parties, Indian parties and Chinese parties, but in Singapore, there is only really the People’s Action Party which squats across politics like a chubby benevolent frog and for which everyone votes. If they know what is good for them.

Lee’s remark was made in the context of a multi-ethnic state. A combination of British policy and ructions in the Middle Kingdom had, in the 19th century, led the peninsula’s native Malay population to be joined by Indians, Chinese and Westerners and, in Singapore, their descendants continue to rub along together reasonably well, if not always in perfect harmony. In such societies, it is easy for people to sort themselves into groups.

In the more ethnically homogenous West, such an approach was less viable but Lee’s point remains valid. Man is a tribal animal who likes to divide the world into us and them. If ethnic origin is not a reasonable way of forming a distinct identity, people will find another. Accordingly, people like us came to mean not people who look like us, but people of our class. And, just as in Malaysia, people tend to vote accordingly. When Labour fielded candidates who were hoary-handed miners, it attracted the votes of hoary-handed miners. When it switched to minimally-employable social “science” graduates, it lost its old base but gained the distressingly large number of minimally-employable social “science” graduates the country produces.

The advantage of class as a source of identity is that it offers a wide pool of potential tribe-mates. Defining one’s identity as “Malay” limits one’s fellows to Malaysians. Defining oneself as upper class, gives access to the upper strata of every society. For, despite what its detractors may think, class is not a uniquely British phenomenon. Most countries have some form of social segmentation. And there is evidence that class can trump nationality; those who base their identity on it can see greater commonality between themselves and foreigners of similar standing than those of lesser rank but shared ethnicity. As I noted here it was entirely possible for a grand memsahib of the Raj to feel greater kinship with the Indian princeling she was entertaining than the Glaswegian domestic in charge of the catering.

Such an attitude may seem like a remnant of earlier, snobbier times, but it is far from dead. For a certain segment of society has spent much of the past seven years touting its fidelity to a foreign political entity, and decrying its countrymen who think differently.

Almost as soon as the votes in the referendum were counted, it was noted that there was a class and education split. 69% of graduates voted to Remain, while 69% of those whose highest attainment was GCSEs voted to Leave.

Such a difference requires an explanation and for those on the Remain side, it was simple. They were clever and could judge the situation in the round and reach the rational conclusion that staying in the E.U. was best for the country, while those on the other side, being of lesser ability, were unable to undertake such a calculus and were instead influenced by politicians seeking their own advancement/malign foreign actors/an unfortunate strain of atavistic racism. The Lord might forgive them since they knew not what they do but, with cheap Polish au pairs no longer an option, and dreams of a retirement home in the Auvergne going up in smoke, the country’s Waitrose shoppers certainly couldn’t.

That their own decision may have been less than entirely rational never seemed to cross Remainers’ minds, but, were he alive, dear old Lee Kuan Yew might raise an eyebrow at their harrumphing. For while they decry their opponents for their ethnic tribalism, their vote can equally be portrayed as a simple example of good, old-fashioned class tribalism. Middle class graduates had voted for a system in which power is wielded by middle class graduates who, the system being slightly short of the Platonic ideal of democracy, find it remarkably easy to ignore the desires of everyone else. Leaving the E.U. raised the uncomfortable prospect that the out-group might actually get some power.

Were the vote purely a matter of unemotional, rational calculation, Remainers would have responded by accepting the result and seeking to make the best of the situation. And, to their credit, some did. But others didn’t. We all remember the shenanigans of 2019. Were the vote purely a matter of unemotional, rational calculation, Remainers would be more open to accepting confounding data, such as the recent upgrade to GDP numbers. Were the vote purely a matter of unemotional, rational calculation, Remainers would not behave in such a tribal fashion.

As it is, they have their own newspaper (The New European), they have their own language (FBPE), they have their own activities (those pro-EU marches), they have their own entertainment (R S Archer, the almost certainly fictional Twitter (X) personality whose comic tales of Gammony Brits struggling with the reasonable French delight an audience already soiling themselves over the opulent lifestyle he recounts with all the glee of one born to the top drawer but three). They have their own symbols (the EU flag) which they display most vigorously when they know it will annoy their out-group (the Last Night of the Proms).

All of these things allow them to show that they are part of the tribe of British Remainers. Some of them, such as the EU Flag, allow them to display their membership of the larger tribe of middle class European graduates from whom they have been untimely ripped. Those whose identity is secure have little need of such markers (R S Archer informs Twitter of his expensive wine-pairings, the Duke of Devonshire does not), it is only when it is under threat that they become valuable.

A vote based on identity, however, is not a rational vote, it is an emotional one, every bit as much as a Chinese Malaysian voting for a Chinese Malaysian. So when Remainers take their little flags to the Albert Hall, we should remember two things. They’re not as rational as they would have us believe. And they’re losing.

Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.