Some things are beyond good manners

The of the most irritating facets of Twitter debate is people imploring me to play the ball, not the man. Why should I? I am sick and tired of the public debate being dominated by fatuous, trivial, party political acolytes who know absolutely jack all about nine tenths of anything. It was intolerable before the referendum and it's dangerous now.

The "free market" think tanks are little more than a propaganda outfits pushing a handful of demonstrable lies and because of their monopoly on the debate, and the London-centric nature of media, reasonable and considered voices are drowned out entirely.

These are the people attempting to engineer yet more polarisation, redefining the terms to mean that anything that isn't the hardest possible Brexit isn't Brexit at all. They are shameless liars. They are in the process of a systematic manipulation of leave voters, hijacking Brexit entirely for their own ideological ends making this not a referendum on EU membership, rather a binary choice between EU membership and the Tory wet dream of Singapore on Thames.

Now as much as there is no mandate for any such shock doctrine ideas (and wouldn't win an election) it is also based on a number of classic Tory free market nostrums, none of which have even a passing relationship with the modern trade world as it is.

When they're not deliberately misinterpreting WTO law and skirting over the gaping holes in their argument, we have doe-eyed children from the TPA and BrexitCentral reciting "Global Britain" claptrap which doesn't begin to address the very serious issues thrown up by Brexit. This is compounded by the idiocy of Julia Dunning-Kruger and the never knowingly informed Brendan O'Neill. They are waging a populist campaign with zero idea how they are being manipulated and what is at stake.

And what it at stake here is Britain's future as an equitable, stable, wealthy, influential nation. Brexit can be managed well but then it could very easily slide into a national calamity that would define the UK's standing for the next 50 years. A successful Brexit is made all the more difficult by the cynical and breathtakingly dishonest agenda of the Tory think tanks and the obstinacy of liars like Rees-Mogg and the Brexit blob.

In this people tell me to play the ball not the man (or woman) but despite how many times their arguments are dismantled, they simply repackage the same propaganda and belch it out again. They are not responsive to argument.

That then raises very serious questions about their motives but also their personal integrity. For those who already have money and know how to play the markets a disaster Brexit is actually big money. If I had cash right now I'd be pumping it into German stocks.

But then then there are those who are simply true believers who are so weak willed they will not speak against their tribal scriptures and they are actually stupid enough to believe that a WTO Brexit is without savage consequences.

We therefore need an inquisitive media which challenges these bogus narratives and exposes these frauds and idiots for what they are. But do they? Nope. They give them a prime time slot on R4 and BBC QT because they have institutional prestige.

They, therefore, get a free ride of it, not least because TV presenters are about as thick and/or dishonest as they are. Consequently the debate is regressing, and all we get is the usual tropes from TV quasi-celebrities.

So you will excuse me, if you please, if I do not see any cause to be polite to or about these people. Empty-headed media whores employed precisely because they will slavishly repeat the mantras of the tribe.

I am tired of the brainless partisanship of this entire debate where Tories automatically line up to praise these dolts irrespective of the quality of argument, fawning over them simply because they support Brexit. This isn't good enough for a mature democracy. It cannot function this way. There are several variants of Brexit and differing motives, some of which are ideologically mutually exclusive. We need better, more informed debate than this.

It is especially urgent that we drop the sloganeering and concentrate on addressing the issues. By parroting superficial panglossian rhetoric voters might very well conclude that leavers are bullshitters. And indeed most of them are. They are not adequate defenders of Brexit.

From the beginning these people have been utterly negligent in failing to have a plan, having no realistic policy objectives with which to steer Brexit and in so doing have handed the game away. I am somewhat entitled to despise these idiotic mouthbreathers.

This is no longer a question of pessimistic economic guesses. The EU is sending Notices to Stakeholders telling us what is going to happen on exit day. This is not a negotiating ploy. It is a simple matter of consequences. These are the issues we must urgently address or history will not look kindly on us.