If Rohan Silva can hug Brexit campaigner Steve Hilton ‘there's hope for us all’

The former director of strategy for David Cameron played a prominent role in the Leave campaign. But whichever way you voted, there’s no point in being bitter, says Rohan Silva
The enemy within: Leave campaigner Steve Hilton in Remain voter Rohan Silva's flat
Liz Connor27 June 2016

“Steve — you’ve ruined the country!” That was the angry shout from my wife at 6am on Friday morning as we woke up to the shock news that Britain had voted to quit the EU. The Steve in question was my old Downing Street colleague Steve Hilton, who’d played a prominent role in the Leave campaign, appearing all over the media as he made a passionate case for Brexit.

Like most Londoners, my wife and I were both firmly in the Remain camp — which is why Steve faced a barrage of abuse when we discovered the referendum result. You see, tensions had been running high in our house over the past few weeks.

Steve lives in Silicon Valley but whenever he’s back in London from California he crashes on our living room couch. Normally that’s not a problem but in the run-up to the referendum he was staying with us for weeks on end.

I’m not going to lie — it got extremely awkward at times. I was worried about the impact that Brexit might have on small businesses such as mine, so it was horribly weird to have a good friend staying in my flat who was playing a massive role in getting Britain to leave the EU. Our staunchly pro-Remain neighbours started referring to Steve as “the enemy within”, which neatly summed up the bizarre situation.

Things came to a head late one night when Steve and I had a blazing row in our living room about the referendum. We then agreed to give each other some space for a few days until we’d both calmed down a bit.

That wasn’t easy to do — my rented basement flat is tiny, with only two rooms, plus a bathroom. (The kitchen is in the hallway.) So with Steve sleeping in one of the rooms, we were literally a house divided.

On the morning after the referendum result, it was impossible to avoid one another. Steve rolled in at around 6am from the TV studios where he’d been commentating on the results. After my wife had finished laying into him and left for work, Steve and I sat around in a daze, when suddenly the TV news cut to Downing Street, where the Prime Minister was about to make a statement.

As soon as the famous black door opened and David Cameron came out with his wife Samantha, Steve’s face suddenly drained of colour. “Uh oh, Sam’s with him. That’s not good.” Sure enough, the PM was resigning, a desperately sad moment for me as I’d worked with him for more than seven years, and greatly admired his leadership and vision.

For Steve, however, it was something much more personal. He’d played a pivotal role in getting Cameron elected as leader of the opposition in 2005, and they’d been mates for decades. To be pitted against his old friend on the biggest issue that Britain had faced in 40 years was an incredibly strange turn of events — but to be fair to Steve, he had been an advocate of leaving the EU for as long as I’d known him.

Leave wins EU referendum - in pictures

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So we watched the PM’s resignation in silence in my hallway, surrounded by piles of books. When it was over, the enormity of the moment hit home. This really was a brave new world, and it was clear that we now all had to pull together to make the best of things.

In our own small way that’s what Steve and I did that morning. We hugged, and went from being on opposite sides of a policy debate to being friends again. Given that 40 per cent of Londoners backed Brexit, in a sense that’s what we all have to do now.

So whichever way you voted, there’s no point in being bitter. If I can hug a Brexiteer, there’s hope for all of us.

Follow Rohan Silva on Twitter: @Silva

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