People in Britain used to agree to disagree. Since Brexit, they no longer dare to talk about difficult things | Elif Shafak

A demonstrator leaves an anti-Brexit protest in central London, 28 June 2016. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenA demonstrator leaves an anti-Brexit protest in central London, 28 June 2016. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty ImagesPeople in Britain used to agree to disagree.

Since Brexit, they no longer dare to talk about difficult thingsElif ShafakStudies suggest the country is more divided than ever – but we won’t come together unless we begin to talk rationally and calmly Read more from the Brexit Vote: 10 Years On series When I first moved to England, nearly two decades ago, I was invited to attend a talk in London on “the future of British identity”. It was a heated debate from the start, and it became all the more intense when the subject of putting colonial history in the school curriculum was raised. The two main speakers held opposite views and they traded barbs wrapped in velvet – scathing but polite at the same time.

It wasn’t just the particulars of the oratory that stayed with me, but what happened afterwards. When the session was over, I saw the speakers shake hands, and then I heard one of them casually ask the other whether he would like to go for a pint. Off they went looking for a nearby pub, these two men who were at loggerheads on so many issues.

I stood there absorbing what I had just witnessed. That two people with clashing worldviews could still find the openness of heart to share a drink together somehow left a bigger impact on me than anything that had been said that evening. This is because I came from Türkiye, a country of profound political chasms and unhealed social fractures.

Equally, I had lived in the US for about five years in the aftermath of 9/11 – writing and teaching in various universities in Boston, Michigan and Arizona, which gave me the chance to observe the deepening fissures between liberal campuses and anti-liberal small towns.That day in London, I could not help but notice and appreciate that in Britain, despite many obvious points of contention, people from different camps could still find a common ground. As I am writing this piece in the week of the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum, so much has changed, and this distinctive characteristic has been sadly shattered.

Nowadays, “opponents” are regarded as “enemies”.I have seen this at first hand. On my way back from the Hay festival this month I was told by a local man that we were in a time of war.

He was not talking about Ukraine or Iran. He was referring to Westminster as a battleground. “They are all enemies and this is a war,” he repeated, before calling anyone who voted Labour, Green or Conservative “traitors”.

There is a direct correlation between this kind of incendiary rhetoric and a frightening rise in political and social violence. History has shown us, time and again, that polarisation, populism and ethnonationalism are preceded by a sinister shift in the usage of words. In his essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell reminded us that a systematic degradation in speech goes hand in hand with a decay in critical thinking, deterioration in politics and the loss of shared reality.

In 2018, in Liverpool, an Istanbul-based artist, Banu Cennetoglu, had an art project dedicated to dead migrants and refugees. The memorial featured the names of more than 34,000 people who had lost their lives as they were trying to reach Europe. This installation was repeatedly vandalised and torn down.

It was then sprayed with these words: “Invaders not refugees.” When refugees are called invaders, when political opponents become enemies, when people who vote differently are accused of being traitors, it becomes easier to dehumanise the other. A study carried out by researchers from the University of Michigan, Columbia University and Stony Brook University in 2023 revealed that sweeping generic statements about whole categories of people exacerbate existing divisions.

This further erodes coexistence and social cohesion.View image in fullscreenPeople on opposing sides of the Brexit debate take part in the ‘Let Us Vote’ day of action on 31 August 2019. Photograph: Rick Findler/PAOver the years, I have become a British national and the UK, just like the English language, has become my home.

I am old enough to remember a time when the words “diversity” or “multiculturalism” or “pluralism” were used in a positive sense. That no longer is the case. Now we are being told that we will be safer in the embrace of sameness.

Politics has become increasingly dualistic between clashing certainties. Dualities in the shape of “leave versus remain”, “woke versus anti-woke”, “us versus them”, “natives versus immigrants” are being further amplified by social media platforms and tech empires that make enormous amounts of profit from climates of anxiety, anger and animosity.Brexit revealed and reinforced the faultlines between political fractions, between generations and between locations.

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