The EU referendum has showcased the worst of politics. Calling someone 'red Tory' or 'Trot' doesn't count as debate

Blairite, Tory, Stalinist, Trot – these are all quick ways of dismissing complex political ideologies and thought processes, shoving them straight into the box you’ve already marked “wrong”

Boris Johnson MP, former Mayor of London and leading Vote Leave campaigner, speaks at Armada House in Bristol (PA)

Our political debate has rarely been so noisy, so impassioned and so electric than during the last few weeks of EU referendum campaigning. It has also rarely been so shallow, so divisive and so utterly bewildering to anyone not in fully at the deep end.

At its finest, debate should be about the free exchange of views, the challenging of ideas, and the changing of minds. But at its worst, it’s nothing more than the exchange of insults, personal posturing and an open suspicion of questioning.

Politics has long been about the cut, the thrust and the parry. The aggression we see today is not a new phenomenon that arrived on the scene with Twitter, Jeremy Corbyn or the EU referendum. But there is no doubt that we are now seeing politics at its very worst.

It’s not just that we’re getting the heat and no light; the way political debate is being conducted at present is anti-illumination. One comes away feeling less informed and less inquiring then when you started.

When arguing politics, we should have three audiences in mind: those who oppose us; those who agree with us; and the persuadable majority.

It is very tempting to go for the easy win – the sharp insult or the devastating put-down. Doing so may well win us plaudits from those who already agree with us. That feels great.

But why did you enter the argument in the first place? If you felt passionate enough about an issue to take the time to have the debate, didn't you want to change minds, hearts and election results? And can you achieve that through praise from your own side?

No. To persuade you have to be persuasive, not abrasive.

I have a few red flags. When they are waved, I will tune out of any debate, whatever the subject, because I know immediately that I won’t be seeing persuasive arguments and counter-arguments but a spiral of confused rhetoric, a tirade of tedium.

The first is identifying your opponent as anything – and particularly anyone – they are not. Blairite, Tory, Stalinist, Trot – these are all quick ways of dismissing complex political ideologies and thought processes, shoving them straight into the box you’ve already marked “wrong”.

I equally have a problem with “what X really meant to say” delivered by self-professed followers of X. If you are going to define yourself wholly politically through the prism of someone else’s belief system, at least have the guts to accept the rough with the smooth. If the person you believe to be such a master of politics that you define yourself by them has said something that you disagree with, they probably did mean it. The ideas these should challenge are your own.

Finally, references to neoliberalism or, conversely, neoconservativism. Unless you are an economist, you probably don’t know what this means. These are complex theories that take in far more about the philosophy of politics than free market economics and whether it’s possible to have a just war in the Middle East.

Unless you know understand how these theories intersect with other economic ideals, they aren’t helpful words to bandy around. Again their use all too often feels more like a way of shutting down debate, rather than opening it up.

We live in an increasingly complex world. Much as we would like them, there are very few simple answers.

We need good debate – good arguments – now more than ever before. We don’t get these if we allow ourselves to be cheered by shallow, and ultimately hollow, victories of rhetoric.