About three years ago, a certain stockbroker known to many of us on Twitter nailed the central Brexit factor. The prize, he said, will go to those the voters despise the least. I wholly concur. The vote was not an endorsement of the Vote Leave message or even a vote of confidence in the likes of Boris Johnson. It was a rejection of our political class.
This is why I think remain would lose a re-run of the referendum. Not only have they learned nothing, their behaviour is worse than ever. Nobody disputes that the leaver brigade are a band of incompetent charlatans but somehow the remainers still manage to be worse. We can put up with a certain crookedness from politicians. It goes with the territory. One thing we can't stand, though, is smarm.
Long time readers of this blog will know I dish it out to both sides. Farage I think is the rank incompetent whose ego has paved the way for the disintegration of Ukip, but even then he's not a savvy operator and quite a bit naive. His Tory counterparts, however, are pondlife. Redwood, Rees-Mogg, Paterson, Hannan and Baker are not only ruthless ideologues, they are also pathological liars. No lie is too big and any lie will do.
The supporting cast do not come off well either. Liam Halligan is a deeply unpleasant individual, as is Peter Lilley, Matt Ridley and the Tory think tank set - Singham, Littlewood etc. The Brexit blob. Given that they have pushed us to the brink of oblivion one could very easily conclude that I'm on the wrong side.
Further down the chain we have the likes of Gisela Stuart, Kate Hoey and Frank Field. I do not regard them as mendacious. They are sincere. Rather they are easily led and easily exploited by the Tory Brexiters. I know they mean well but by supporting the Tory blob, they are complicit in a massive deception. There is a lot to despise about the Brexiters; the intellectual paucity, the duplicity and the borderline criminality.
All of that though, pales in comparison to the Remain brigade whose contempt for democracy is total. They regard themselves as intellectually and morally superior in every way. They are share a mile wide paternalistic streak; believing the plebs to be hapless dupes taken in by the Brexiters and must be saved from their own ignorance.
The great thing about humans though, is that though not all are blessed with intellect and are not exposed to the information they need, most of us are equipped with a razor sharp bullshit detector. And that's why the remainers lose every time. James O'Brien, for instance, is a shrewd propagandist - master of misdirection and the lie by omission. Like Adonis, Campbell, Dunt and Umunna, there isn't a sincere bone in his body. They feel entitled to crush the 2016 vote and would do so even if leave had won by a far larger margin.
I am often chastised for attacking my one side, but I don't see the Brexit blob as being in any way on my side. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. To a large extent they are all the product of the same Westminster bubble culture and it's largely a coincidence that we are on the same side of the Brexit argument.
Central to the Brexit vote was the gulf between London and the regions. The dysfunction in our politics stems from an aloof and remote political class ensconced in its its own sordid little nest - whose values are alien to the rest of the country. If you've understood the problem then you despise them all in in equal measure. They are all in the business of manipulation and have no scruples about it. When you realise the self-serving games in play, they are all equally disgusting.
That, though is the very nature of politics and that is what happens when decision making is centralised in London. This is why I've always taken the view that Brexit is a good start but not the end in itself. This is primarily about the people asserting their sovereignty and putting the power in the hands of the public - and EU membership is a barrier to accomplishing that. Brexit is an anti-politics vote.
Sadly too few Brexiters have realised that that the self-styled progressive remainers are not playing by the rules. The Brexiters maybe crooks and self-serving shits, but the Remainers are engaged in a highly organised, well funded jihad against democracy. These people are the establishment, they know Brexit is an existential threat to their order and there is no limit to how low they will sink. They feel wholly entitled to stop Brexit by legal chicanery and they have the money, position and power to try.
The more gullible audiences love them for this. Remainers like to think they are the intellectually superior side of the argument but through arrogance and overconfidence they've started to believe absolutely anything if it fits the narrative. They've also convinced themselves that their referendum loss was more to do with that bus than their own failings. This is their weak spot. Arrogant to the core.
If there is any part of me that thinks we should leave the EU without a deal, it's the part of me that recognises we are already deep into a culture war and we are up against a tyrannical and wicked tribe of elites be they professors, QCs, media personalities and politicians. They are every bit as fanatical as the SS and capable of equal atrocities. Their mob behaviour would gleefully bring down the full weight of authority on the individual to silence them. This is why the stakes are so high and why the situation could become deadly if we don't leave.
In many ways, the EU has become a proxy issue in this culture war and it is why, to a large extend, rank and file leavers do not care a jot about the economic consequences of leaving. I can actually respect that. I detest the London Brexit blob who spin an elaborate web of lies to tell us that the WTO option is entirely viable. That is both dishonest and wrong. To say though that the principles of Brexit trump economics, though, is a wholly coherent view. It is also rational and not too far from my own view.
For me, if there is a way to do this without torching the economy then I would rather we did it that way, and would prefer evolution over revolution to wrest power from the incumbents, but I don't discount the nuclear option if the situation calls for it.
In this I have sufficient self-awareness to realise that my own side has some ugly elements, much of it on display at the pro-Brexit march last week. I do not, though, see them as "far right". It's a far more authentic voice of dissent than the highly orchestrated "people's march" aka The Waitrose Warriors. Authentic is ugly.
One of the first observations in the Twitersphere was that the Brexit march - made up of working class Ukip elements, was mostly white men of a certain age. That is what the business end of raw politics looks like. Though the march doesn't have the numbers to show to the camera, this rabble is but the tip of a rather large iceberg. When the remain activists show up in force, that's all of them. My side, however, is a sleeping dragon. One which has shown extraordinary patience.
Far from being "far right", this is the unsanitised politics that has simmered below the surface of the UK's progressive veneer for two decades. It's a pissed off and neglected working class who have endured insult on top of insult, and betrayal after betrayal. This is why the stakes are so high. Brexit is the one safety valve - and though it may cost the economy, the cost of erasing their votes is potentially explosive.
The remainer jihadists are ultimately servants of the status quo. The regime has successfully suppressed dissent for decades and kept the working classes bottled up and voiceless. This is how they like it and they very much want to keep it that way. The system serves them well and any upset to it is a threat to their gravy train. They won't go without a fight.
The mistake they make is to believe that leavers believe what the London Brexit blob believe. When they say that Brexiters are dinosaurs pining for the loss of empire (and all the other cliches) they may be accurately describing a handful of Tory backbenchers, but in doing so they gravely insult those of us who voted to leave for entirely honourable reasons. It is that fundamental misconception that feeds their own sense of superiority and entitlement. It is why they are actively despised - and more so than the Tory Brexiters.
As we approach the endgame, the fighting is as bitter as ever, and there is no mood for compromise. The remainers have stepped up their dirty tricks and the Brexit blob are ramping up their lies. The biggest losers are those caught in the crossfire. But this transcends Brexit. This is a fight to the death. One side has to lose and nothing is resolved until they do - much like any civil war. Moreover, there is no end to this unless the remain establishment is usurped.
The reason being that the UK is becoming ungovernable because the views and values of the metropolitan ruling class are so estranged from reality. This is especially evident in Radio 4 comedy output - tin eared, snobbish and vindictive. It's the cliched scripture of the chattering classes. The snobbery of the Hay-on-Wye set.
Unless and until we have a politics that reflects the values of the nation rather than the empty media driven triangulation, we will continue to see the mood sour and real politics will turn ugly. The sight of Ukip marchers brandishing a gallows is a taste of things to come. Unless there is real change, the sleeping dragon will arise.
No comments:
Post a Comment