‘Brexit’: The recriminations continue

July 3, 2016

I don’t really like the term ‘Brexit.’ It is one of those snappy things, coined by the media, latched onto by so many. I prefer the fact. We voted to ‘Leave.’ It is not an exit, it is a final departure.

The ‘official’ part of the Remain campaign has been very quick to organise, in retaliation for their disappointment. Over 17,000,000 people voted to leave the EU. According to the critics on the other side, that makes us all xenophobes at best, Nazis at worst. The Far Right will sweep to power in the UK, followed by a Fascist revival in major European countries, according to many commentators. War with Russia, or somewhere else, (anywhere will do) seems to be the obvious outcome, and must happen sometime soon.
They say.

Many want another referendum, calling the vote ‘too equal’ to be considered binding. Mass protests have been held in London against the decision to leave. The difference was 1,268,501. That is the population of quite a few large cities here. It is far larger than most margins in parliamentary elections, and more than the population in at least sixty independent nations. But the numbers are irrelevant. It was a referendum. One vote either way would technically have been enough.

Frustrated and bewildered by losing, the accusations from the Remain side have come thick and fast.

Leave voters hate foreigners, therefore Leave voters are racist.
Leave voters are ignorant.
Leave voters don’t understand the consequences.
Leave voters are uneducated.
leave voters come from poor backgrounds.
Leave voters come from areas where crime rates are high.
Leave voters will cause the collapse of the EU.
leave voters will devalue the pound.
Leave voters will bring about the financial collapse of the UK.
Leave voters will break the Union, by disuniting the kingdom.
Leave voters will cause another European war.

I also read this week that an institute in Cambridge has determined that most Leave voters are clinically obese, and have poor diets. They came to this startling conclusion about more than 17,000,000 Britons by researching the areas that mostly voted to Leave, and comparing those with national obesity rates. They also said that many of them are likely to be unemployed, claiming benefits, and to live in deprived areas. All based on the same pie-charts, no doubt. Nice to know that these statistical boffins are making good use of their time. Perhaps they would have been better employed looking around the county of Cambridgeshire, outside of their cosy science park. They might see real deprivation, in the rural community on their doorstep.

One of the other complaints is that the country is now divided; with Scotland, and most of the south-east of England voting Remain, and Wales and the north voting Leave. They obviously had no idea that the country was already bitterly divided before any referendum, between the haves and the have-nots. The Scots may have voted to stay in the UK last time, but their hearts are not in a country outside of the EU. The divisions in the main political parties have always been there too. Corbyn is only the leader of the Labour Party because the members wanted him, not because he ever had the support of most of his own fellow members of parliament. And the Conservatives were never really going to want a buffoon like Boris Johnson as the next Prime Minister. When he had played his part, they disposed of him to make way for a hard-liner. Anyone who is surprised by all this just hasn’t been watching or listening.

Foreign critics are plentiful too. European commentators will be happy to see us go, and made sure to let us know that we will never be allowed back in. If we want to stay in the ‘single market’, we will have to pay for the privilege and have no say. Like Norway. I hope we don’t even try to, why would we vote to leave, and then negotiate to stay, with worse conditions? That might happen of course, one of the many chances we had to take, when voting Leave. Americans have been quick to lament our departure too, although President Obama toned down the rhetoric from his last visit here.

If I was reading all this guff from somewhere else, what would I conclude? Leave voters, like myself, come from a poor area, have little education, and are clinically obese. They hate foreigners, black people, and Jews, and would vote for Adolf Hitler to be the Prime Minister, if he was still alive and standing for office. From a personal perspective, I feel insulted, but not surprised. Bad losers are the same everywhere. It’s never their fault, always somebody else. If Trump wins in America, by less than two million votes, then I am going to write that all Americans are racist, stupid, hate Muslims and Mexicans, and want to build a wall, before killing anyone that gets over it with the guns that they all love to own.

And if you believed that, you would believe anything.

Written by beetleypete Posted in Politics Tagged with Backlash, Brexit, EU Referendum, Leave, Remain, Votes