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Caricaturing politicians is not helpful. Parts of the left have spent years calling Nigel Farage a racist, basically in an attempt to shut him down and prevent him from making his case to

the British people. How successful has this tactic been? Well, The Brexit Party leader is probably the most famous politician in the country right now, behind Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn.

People uninterested in politics could recognise a photograph of him, and crucially would be able to tell you what he stood for.

Strategically therefore, especially when faced with a cocksure opponent with controversial opinions, this is a bad move. Sensible politicians and media figures on the other hand have sought

to debate Farage wherever possible, and expose what is vacuity and dishonesty in his arguments. And if we end up having another Brexit vote, this is the only way to combat the hardest of

hard Brexiteres. We must all have learnt this by now: attempts to discredit a political opponent by labelling him or her as a bigot are rarely constructive, regardless of whether or not the

opponent in question is a genuine racist. Caricatures do not tend to really get us anywhere. 

Sometimes though, someone will say or do something so alarmingly predictable, assuming briefly the role of the satirical cartoon version of themselves, that one cannot help but understand 

why parody exists in the first place. Despite Chuka Umunna’s protestations since Change UK’s decision to reject the idea of a pro-Remain alliance with other parties at the upcoming European

elections, something really doesn’t feel right.

I have always thought it a lazy and often downright stupid criticism of the Streatham MP that he is a self-interested careerist. Politicians should be ambitious, and the pro-EU sentiment he

has expressed in recent years has been impressive, and has also most likely chimed with those among the 48%, like myself, who feel strongly that the country has made a profoundly wrong

decision.

Yet I’d wager that Change UK’s decision to go it alone at this of all times has left tens if not hundreds of thousands of engaged political people despairing.

Umunna says that he thinks people would be put off by cross-party alliances, which he calls ‘a backroom stitch-up behind closed doors’. I believe this shows a deep misunderstanding of what

Remain people really do want to see. Of course there is no one unified ‘Remain’ view, but rest assured that it is the very idea of cross-border cooperation that drove millions to vote the

way they did in 2016. Fast forward to today, and I am certain that these kinds of people, who have rightly decided that Brexit is the most important issue facing the country at this moment,

would be galvanized by such an outward display of togetherness from the pro-EU parties.

Perhaps I have this wrong, and ultimately I can speak only for myself, but wasn’t this a fantastic opportunity to make a rather special ‘Remain’ (both politically and culturally) statement?

For one election only, parties which certainly don’t agree on everything – Umunna gives this as another reason for Change UK’s rejection of the idea – putting those differences to one side

in recognition of the historic importance of the issue at stake.

The party has ‘change’ in its name for goodness’ sake, and what an interesting (and exciting for some) change it would have represented had yesterday’s press conference been that of a Remain

coalition, with Caroline Lucas and Vince Cable front and centre as well, in a show of defiance as The Brexit Party ranks continue to swell.

As it was we had Anna Soubry telling a reporter that ‘this [Change UK] is the Remain alliance’ when asked why they had chosen to reject a collaborative cross-party approach, a time-worn

politician’s answer with an emphasis shift which implied that the question started from a false premise. But it really didn’t.

Are the Change UK people content to lie to themselves about the the confusion that will undoubtedly be caused now there will be multiple Remain options on the ballot paper come May? Has the

shiny new logo, and the sense of being unshackled these MPs must have felt having finally left the main parties, filled them with an idealism that might end up backfiring horribly?

Of course a new party needs to believe in itself, and independently set out its own positions on the central issues of the day. But Change UK tells us that it will end up being about much

more than just stopping Brexit. All the more reason therefore surely, on this one question, to breathe new life into our old politics, and indicate a willingness to operate differently to

the mainstream parties.

For what it’s worth, I still think the caricatures of Umunna are lazy and stupid, and I do think his decision to leave Labour was brave and principled, especially as it certainly does not

increase his chances of winning his seat at the next general election. But the optics of this decision do not look good, and appearances really matter, especially when there have been such

overt displays of nastiness from some minority parts of the Brexit movement.

These times call for the odd stirring moment, and there were no doubt many on the other side stirred by Nigel Farage’s acrimonious pronouncements last week. Change UK have played this one

badly, and I dearly hope that in years to come we won’t look back and judge the decision they have taken as one that hastened the UK’s drawn-out, tragic but eventual exit from the EU. But I

fear that we might.  

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