It was always about votes. It was always
about power. The only control they wished to retain was their control over us.
We only had a referendum about EU
membership because of a Tory election promise. The promise was only made
because Tories needed to stop people voting UKIP in their marginal seats. We
got a referendum because David Cameron wanted to stay in power, he wanted those
UKIP votes.
A decision whether to remain in the EU was
always too nuanced and important to be trusted to the public: until it started
to cost the Conservative Party votes.
It was never about what’s best for us, only
what was good for them. It was about votes then and it is about votes now.
Labour can’t properly oppose Brexit because some of its key constituencies
voted for it. They’re scared, they should be. Should this turn out to be the
catastrofuck that most of us expect we will remember who stood up for what’s
best for the UK.
It was never about what’s best for us. We
were so deeply entrenched in the EU that it was difficult for politicians to
explain what benefits we got, particularly if they were trying to claim credit/votes
for those benefits. The EU were also a too convenient scapegoat, a distant
powerful force who could be blamed when stuff wasn’t working. Don’t blame us,
it’s all their fault.
Now the protagonists are scattered to the
wind. Still they re-surface to poke the wasps nest before disappearing again. Shit-stirrer
supreme Boris Johnson got the f—k out of Dodge when he failed to have any
influence. He only has any impact by being an agitator. Calculated remarks
about Muslim women keep him front of mind and firmly positioned as a right-wing
poster boy, jocular Etonian for hire, good old Boris, one of the (rich) boys.
He wants that Tommy Robinson sheen for his next assault on the leadership.
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| Pawel Czerwinski, unsplash |
Illogical and unreasonable
It never made sense to leave. Boris himself
said as much before he lumped his lot in with the Brexit Brigade. An opportunist to the
last, don’t expect anything to restrict him from holding a position that
furthers his interests.
Ignoring the broadcast media’s
over-reliance on ‘balance’ there were some simple arguments that would have
destroyed the ‘leave’ argument in an instant. For example, how can one country
fare better solo than in an alliance of twenty-eight? What magical thinking
imagines that 1 vs 27 can prevail? When we’re looking for our new, improved
trade deals what is it that we exclusively produce that is required by all the
other countries of the world. What unicorn horns have we got in our back
pockets that can’t be found elsewhere at half the price? We don’t even own the
bulk of our infrastructure, we don’t own our utilities – a hostile foreign
power could turn off the lights in an instant. Who will come to our aid when we’ve
so resolutely strived to isolate ourselves?
Collaboration has been a key word in
communications and industry for quite a while now. If you’re going to stand
alone you’d better be occupying a position of strength. Without invoking some
misplaced notion of 2nd world war supremacy (or the idea that we won
it alone) I’ve yet to hear where our strengths lie. We’ve all heard plenty of
lies though.
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