The Day Before the Vote: how to prepare

Tomorrow is the last day of the referendum campaign. What's the significance of the "day before"?

The temptation will be to engage in a frantic bout of last-minute canvassing, arguing, blogging and generally engorging ourselves in a social media frenzy. As someone who passionately believes that the EU is good for Britain and Britain for the EU, I'm as desperate to win the contest as every other Remainer. When the race is neck-and-neck, that final sprint to the finishing-line can make all the difference.

But I'm wondering whether to be "desperate" is quite right. If this has been a real debate in which we have been listening well and paying attention to one another (fond hope!), our campaign needs to end in a considered way. To crash into the buffers at the stroke of midnight is not how to conclude a serious process of laying bare what really matters in the decision we must make the next day.

At "Christians for Europe" we've tried to model a reflective approach to the referendum. We haven't always got it right but we have not wanted to disparage anyone, impugn their motives or shout. We've wanted to respect people who differ from us in good faith, even if disagreement has sometimes been sharp, like Paul and Barnabas in the Acts of the Apostles. If we have given offence, we are sorry. "Good disagreement" is becoming something of a mantra in faith circles, but it's precisely what we believe about how at our best we should be listening and talking to one another.

But we don't at all apologise for stating clearly what we believe, which is that Christianity requires us to have regard for the neighbour, the stranger and the needy. Our faith urges us to live together in community rather than apart. Its social theology highlights the imperatives of solidarity and the common good. This is why we believe it points us in the direction of playing a leading role within the EU, not turning our back on our friends and allies. We believe that God cares about our nation, our continent and our world. We believe that by being a leading member of the EU, our nation will have a democratic, peaceful "reach" that transcends the boundaries of Europe. We believe that it's in the interests of peace, justice and the integrity of creation that we remain and don't leave. That's an ethical, theological and spiritual position to take. It's much more than mere pragmatism.

If you follow this blog, you'll know that I've been trying to nuance that set of affirmations in a number of different ways since late last year. There's nothing more I can add at this late stage. Except, to come back to where I started: what tomorrow could mean for us. Bear with me. 

The day before the referendum, 22 June, is Saint Alban's Day. He is celebrated as the first British martyr who, when Christianity was under severe persecution, was executed for sheltering a Christian priest. The pagan Alban had been so impressed by the devotion of his guest that he converted and became a Christian himself. When the Romans came to search his house, he changed into the priest's clothes and presented himself to the soldiers. His punishment was to suffer what would have been due to the priest. Bede tells of this, Britain's "proto-martyrdom" in words that indicate how moved he was to have heard about it. 

Britain (as distinct from its member nations) doesn't have a patron saint. Alban is the obvious candidate. He embodies everything that is noblest in human nature when it is redeemed by grace and love. His hospitality to and care for someone who needed sanctuary is a powerful metaphor of one central issue in this campaign. Every Christian, every decent human being, must be alarmed at the xenophobic, not to say racist undertones of the more extreme Brexiters' discourse. The Hebrew Bible commands us unambiguously never to forget "the stranger who is in your midst". Jo Cox lived and died campaigning for some of the most needy people on the planet. Justin Welby was completely right to condemn UKIP's hateful, hate-filled poster with its sinister echoes of the 1930s. Alban shows us the more excellent way of love. What better patron saint for the British people to be proud of?

And he took this way of loving to the very end. St John says this is precisely how Jesus "loved his own". He laid down his life for a friend, just as Jesus did. If ever one human being modelled what a whole nation could be like, it is Alban. To give up your life for others is how the gospel says we must all live. What I've disliked more than anything else in this campaign has been the self-serving rhetoric of so many of our political leaders. "What's best for Britain, what's best for you the electorate" can only be part of the story, and not even the most important part. The headline ought to have been: how can this great nation of ours that in two world wars "laid down its life" for its European friends and allies suffering under the iron fist of fascism, do the same again in 2016? What's good for Europe, for the wider human family? I've no hesitation in saying that the UK has an outstanding contribution to make to global politics and the mending of a broken humanity. I unhesitatingly say that we're best placed to do this inside the EU. Alban can be our model of Britain-in-Europe.

So how shall we spend St Alban's Day? By learning from his example, I say, and trying to imitate it. In this final blog before the vote, I'm asking that we find time tomorrow to reflect on the values our faith teaches us and ask how they translate into our decision. Put it this way. The X on your ballot paper stands for two things. The first is the title of "Christ" himself (from the initial Greek letter of the word Christos, χ). The second is that it represents the cross on which he gave his life, the inspiration that led Alban to make the supreme sacrifice that he did. Your simple X on your voting slip is filled with a profound and eloquent symbolism. 

What would this Christ want us as a nation to do at this cross-roads (pun intended) in our history? I'm not falling into the trap of imagining I know where he would cast his vote - if he had been unlucky enough to have to make a choice. But the faith I follow bears his name and it leads me to believe that what I must do is to try to imitate him in his living and dying. That means I simply cannot vote only with my own interests in mind, but must think first and foremost of the millions of others in our country, our continent and our world who are very much less privileged than I am. That's what St Alban's Day unambiguously teaches me.

Here's a suggestion. Why not stop campaigning at noon tomorrow, and spend the rest of the day reflecting on the values that matter most profoundly to us? A great decision needs vigils of prayer, not just good debate; so that when we come to vote, it becomes an act of prayerful, courageous love that springs directly out of our heart and soul and mind and strength. If it calls us to lay down our lives or our self-centeredness, so be it. That's the cost of discipleship, isn't it? Alban our native British saint can inspire us to make the generous, unselfish choice. 

In this spirit, "Christians for Europe" will stop posting at 12 noon tomorrow. After that, we could get on with the day job, cook a nice dinner, go for a walk, play football, read a novel, watch a movie... anything to give our over-stimulated brains a rest for a while. Maybe even take a nap - therd could be a long night ahead. 

Oh, and it goes without saying: reflect quietly, think carefully and say our prayers. 

Believing or Beleaving? On being an In-thusiast for the EU

A week is a long time in a political campaign. It was only last Saturday that David Cameron stepped off the plane (so to speak) waving his hard-won EU summit agreement in front of a waiting nation.

So with the starting fun now fired, how is the debate about the European Union taking shape? It's too early to tell, of course. But already it's becoming clear that battle lines are being drawn up along familiar fronts. Will Britain be better or worse off staying in the EU or leaving? Will the pound and the FTSE strengthen or weaken if we leave? Will Brexit encourage large and transnational organisations to decouple from the UK or not? Will our overseas trading relationships be helped or hindered? Will we be better or worse placed to face international crises? Will our country be more at risk from terror attacks in or out? Do the EU's governance shortcomings in its democratic transparency and accountability pose a fatal risk to the UK's sovereignty or not? And so on. Of the making of many arguments there is no end.

I am learning a lot by following news feeds and commentary about the referendum from all over the world and from many different perspectives. When it comes to the themes I've just listed, I am no expert. It all depends on whom you listen to, I suppose, or whom you listened to last, and of course whom you trust. I've said before that serious listening comes into things right now. It's important, when we don't know (or even when we think we do) that we pay attention and don't come to premature conclusions about arguments that have a long way to run. 

However, the rules of engagement have been set in utilitarian, pragmatic terms that largely focus on the matters I've mentioned. These are all important but on their own they limit the discourse of the debate. The functional tone was set by the PM when he went into the summit. 'I'm going in to demand, and to get, what's best for Britain' - or words to that effect. Was I the only one who felt depressed, even dismayed, by that kind of talk? It sounded self-serving to me, lacking inspiration, falling short of the big idea. David Cameron famously said that he is not in love with Brussels. But what if we began at a different starting-point altogether, one that took us back to why the European Union was created in the first place, and why it might still be worth belonging to?

I've argued in my blogs that a Judaeo-Christian perspective on politics, public life and social ethics begins with the great commandments of the Torah, especially the second: to love your neighbour as yourself. This, to me, is the fundamental reason for believing in the EU as a family of peoples who, without sacrificing their own national identity and integrity, covenant together for the sake of one another's wellbeing and flourishing, what Catholic social theology calls 'the common good'. So we need to celebrate the signal achievements of the EU in safeguarding the peace of Europe since the War, bringing a degree of prosperity to its peoples undreamed of before, and beginning to get collective purchase on global threats that no nation can tackle on its own, such as terrorism and climate change. Whatever its failures to live up to its high ideals (and they are many), the vision, the purpose and the achievements still matter. And not to be talking up a noble ideal seems to me to lack real belief in the European project, the conviction that it could still be a force for immense good in the world and that Britain should be taking a leading role at the very heart of it.

You may say: this is the passion of the Europhile preacher speaking to emotions and soul rather than the hard-headed realist addressing the mind. Well, I am a preacher by trade and believe in the power of good rhetoric to change both minds and hearts. Heart speaks to heart and my heart is unequivocally in this. And believe me, it's precisely this 'heart-work' that we need to do: for if we believe that the EU matters to an entire continent and indeed to the world, then it should certainly matter to us as one of its member states and to each of us as UK citizens. But a lot of what I've read and heard from our leaders seems to be along the lines of: the best that can be said for the EU is that because our membership is the status quo, and because we are persuaded that we'll be no worse off by leaving it, we may as well stay and make the best of it we can. Some of the campaigning seems to be striking that rather grudging note as if to say, we'd really rather not be bothered with all this but since we are where we are, let's try to sound convincing. 

When it comes to passion, Brexit Beleavers may well be more prepared to own up to it than we who are EU-Believers. After all, it's so un-British to talk up the EU - isn't it? (Though it's also true that the spirit in the pro-EU organisations out on the streets is becoming energised and excited by the campaign, and that's how it should be. If we aren't afraid of speaking to the heart, there's a chance that people in the UK could become as engaged in the referendum debate as the Scots were over the independence vote in 2014. Indeed the two issues are not so very different as I'll try to argue in a future blog.)

So I want to urge us as Christians for the EU to speak up as those who are proud to belong to a body with such an enlightened view of how human beings can grow together. Because as Ben Ryan has said in his recent Theos report A Soul For The Union, the challenge is far bigger than securing assent to some abstract organisational idea called the EU. We need to become Europeans, and persuade others across our continent and in the UK to think of themselves as having that sense of both identity and belonging. It's similar to the difference between assenting to Christianity and being Christians, or as we might say, 'believing that' as distinct from 'believing in'. If Latin cuts more ice than English, it's fiducia that we need, not just fides. 

That's my pitch: that it's belief in that we badly need to foster in this campaign. Not naïvely, not uncritically, not without asking the hard questions of governance structures and processes that everyone acknowledges need reforming and renewing. (If only the PM had focused on those things at the summit!) But let's reawaken the vision of the EU's founding fathers and mothers. Let's rekindle their first fine (though not careless) rapture. And yes, let's be passionate about what we believe - in politics as much as religious faith, and urge our leaders to be as excited as we are by our future in the EU with all the possibilities that lie open before us. 

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