This is not generally something I do. But then of course, there are times when you do have to pick a side no matter how odious your bedfellows are. I'm well aware that I'm in the same camp as Ukip, Breitbart and the Brexit blob when it comes to the EU. It can be no other way.
I sometimes forget this is more than just about leaving the EU. This is as much a war against the political creed who did this to us in the first place. Blair, Major, Brown and all the latter day europhiles like Adonis and Umunna. As much as I detest the likes of Rees-Mogg and Farage, the remoanoids make my skin crawl. It's a values thing.
As a rule it's leavers who are painted as thick - largely because we have the temerity to vote against what the establishment deems as our own best interests. Now there are plenty of leavers who still believe all the economic warnings are little more than remoaner histrionics and can't be persuaded otherwise, but the "don't care so long as we leave" crowd is not small.
Here there is a base instinct and it's far from "thick". I actually think the progressives of this world are the thickies. Time and again they've been told it's not the economy, stupid. And they just don't get it. They think that their economic projections are grounds enough to disregard the authentic voice of the people. And don't say it's not authentic unless you can show me evidence of ballot rigging. People voted for their own complex reasons which are still not fully understood and perhaps never will be.
What we can all agree on, though is that there is a very serious cultural disconnect between the London metropolitan "progressive" establishment and people from pretty much everywhere else. The metros have had the rug pulled from under them - and though they are not presently in office, they do have power - and they're using it. They feel absolutely entitled to reverse the vote in a way that betrays their overweening belief in their own right to rule. It is that very obnoxiousness that came oozing out of the remain camp during the referendum and has not abated since. That most likely, in my view, what took leave over the finish line.
If there is now any doubt about Brexit in the minds of leavers, it is not an endorsement of the EU, rather it is a balk at the upheaval and economic disruption. The remainers are waving placards with the words "is it worth it?" - which is certainly a fair question now that we know more than we did. Some remainers believe the constant demoralising barrage of Brexit negativity might have pushed opinion back into their camp. And they might possibly be right if polls are to be believed.
But to prove that they would have to put it to the test - which isn't going to happen, but if it were, we would have to go through the rigmarole of a new referendum, with an equally long campaigning period in which their general unpleasantness would once again come to the fore. Leave would be starting from a stronger position than it was in 2015 and there is no reason to believe it would play out any differently.
But then we leavers would have to really answer that question - is it worth it? I certainly think so. If there's one thing that stands out among the legacy remain crowd, it is that ever present contemptuous sneer at leave voters. We can't have a system of government that essentially locks in the politics of people who do not trust us and actively despise us.
Most notable about the remain crowd is that they trade mainly in platitudes. They worship Macron as the new leader of the free world, despite him having less substance than the holy ghost. Everything the EU does at the top level is a giant virtue signal where none of the rhetoric matches the reality. Not in a domestic sense or in its murderous external action. It is a giant pyramid of hypocritical cant.
I have often remarked how Westminster is the result of putting 650 narcissistic sociopaths in one room, but the EU is what happens when you take the worst of the preening hypocrites and have them congregate in Brussels. The EU is as much a symptom of our political malaise as it is an indirect cause. It's a toxic closed loop.
I am often asked by demanding remainers if there are any tangible benefits to Brexit. I can name one but they are not going to like it. The newly formed Independent Group could not have happened without Brexit and now the worst of the mediocre progressives have been vomited out into that particular dustbin with more to follow. When we are out of the EU, they are then an irrelevance with no instrument by which to subvert democracy. Marginalising these people - ridding politics of their presence, will be one of the greatest things to happen to British politics in more than two decades.
It is at that point we can get down to some proper politics - and have a real debate about how the UK is going to adapt to the encroaching new age. The "new politics" that The Independent Group talk about is politics that doesn't have them or their ilk in it.
Y'see, the right didn't start the culture wars. What this is, is a fightback by people who have been overruled and belittled for certainly all of my adult life. People whose voices have been excluded from the political arena whose views are labelled "vile" and "racist". The code of decorum they seek to impose on us, manifested in their renewed attempts to control the internet, is an attempt to put that genie back in the bottle. It's no coincidence that the EU has also taken an urgent interest in "combating fake news".
What they don't want is people like me and you having a voice - and they certainly don't want us having a voice more powerful than the legacy media through which they set the agendas. One by one they pick us off if they see us as a threat. Voices vanish from Twitter, Facebook pages disappear, Youtube channels are deleted. They are de-platforming public resentment. And that's what makes the whole pack of them dangerous.
And we know why they are afraid. We are talking about all the things they find too politically inconvenient to address. The things far outside of their comfort zone. More to the point, they fear that if we do take power we will do all the things they have flinched from doing as we clean up their mess.
In respect of this, you will notice of late that I'm not talked too much about the trade aspect of Brexit. It's important, but it's not paramount. Whether we sign May's deal or there's no deal at all, the paramount concern is sorting out domestic politics and if there is an economic price to pay then so be it. We are not moving forward as a country until this unsustainable division is resolved.
The country is divided roughly into two. There are those who would rather suffer the status quo, choosing to believe the empty promises of the establishment and there are those who demand far reaching change. These two positions are irreconcilable. One side has to lose and the real disaster is if it's the latter. If the remains win then UK politics has effectively rendered leavers voiceless once more. I am certain that doesn't end well. There is nothing they could ever do to placate the resentment while we remained in the EU. No funding bungs and no token changes to freedom of movement.
I'm quite certain that Brexit is not going to be pretty. I think it's going to cost us in a big way - especially without a deal. Sunlit uplands there are not. But this is not and never has been about GDP - this is about the sort of country we want to live in and having a say over what is done to us. We need to settle that question once and for all. Is Britain a home or a free for all borderless business park?
The real thickos are not leavers. It's the remainers. There are plenty of articulate hacks with a reasonably good handle on what is going on with Brexit talks and the potential fallout of it, and that is their reason for remaining when they're not penning doe eyed tributes to Emmanuel Macron. They can think only in two dimensional terms, but all the real thinkers I know of are leavers - the ones who recognise that democracy and sovereignty are not intangible valueless concepts. Not that we ever see them in the media.
There is a distinct relationship between liberty and wealth. Under the current regime we have certain economic liberties licenced by the state and the EU, but for as long as we remain under that regime, a whole raft of policy is considered off limits - out of the reach of democracy. Your average remainer is generally unaware that Brussels has competence over such areas and at the more extreme end, is only too happy that the people we elect cannot change or repeal law. The progressive agenda is enshrined in the EU system of rights, targets and quotas. The EU is their backstop against being voted out of office. Blair knows this better than anyone.
That is what makes this not just a battle to leave the EU. It is a battle for democracy itself. It is a never ending struggle that requires ever present vigilance, and the fact we are so deeply enmeshed in the EU is precisely because we collectively took our eye off the ball, and let the politicians roam free while the going was good. But now the going is not good and now we recognise there is a penalty for our collective political negligence.
Politics as it has evolved under the EU regime has degraded now to the point where politicians barely even understand their own role. With matters of substance far removed from their shop, they have been conditioned to believe their function is to either ban, subsidise or tax things. State craft and governance doesn't even come into it. We have lost touch with that art and it is going to take time to reconnect with that instinct. We can only do that as an independent country. We cannot consider ourselves a democracy if we must grovel to Brussels to change our laws. That is why this war needs to be fought - and yes - it is worth it.
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