Brexit: Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson attacks 'vicarious racism' that contributed to EU referendum result

'Racism is a blunt and heartless term, too, for the bewildered alienation people can feel when the demographics of their neighbourhoods change, or when the language they hear on their streets is not one they recognise'

A 'Vote Leave' sign is seen on the side of a building in Charing on June 16, 2016 urging people to vote for Brexit (Getty)

Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson has criticised the "vicarious racism" he says contributed to the UK's vote to leave the European Union.

Writing in the New European newspaper, the former Independent columnist lamented the large increase in racist attacks and hate crimes the country has endured in the wake of the EU referendum result.

He argued that while the warnings issued by the Remain campaign had turned out to be largely accurate, those who wanted the UK to stay within the bloc should be wary of premature vindication - or taking an overly negative view of post-Brexit Britain.

"Even those of us who were sure the spirit of Brexit would make us a less generous society, didn't expect to wake up in a Bosch hell the very morning after the vote," he writes.

"I don't accuse anyone of lying or massaging statistics; I simply wonder whether it's we who have been too quick to embrace Armageddon."

Jacobson suggested that while the referendum campaign and the aftermath of the vote had given rise to an increase in displays of prejudice, blame could be placed upon those prominent deemed to have legitimised racism.

"We all have a stain of racism in us; in the main we recognise and manage it," he writes.

"As with envy or sexual jealousy, it is only when we become its slave that we are dangerous to others.

"Racism is a blunt and heartless term, too, for the bewildered alienation people can feel when the demographics of their neighbourhoods change, or when the language they hear on their streets is not one they recognise.

"But what the referendum disclosed was something far more disreputable and dangerous than any twitching of net curtains in Tyneside: a vicarious racism practised by cynical rabble-rousers who, though not necessarily bigots themselves, took pleasure in tickling out bigotry in others."

Howard Jacobson's full essay on Brexit can be read in The New European newspaper, on sale in the UK today and available online at www.theneweuropean.co.uk and also at the app stores