- Sat Jul 29, 2023 2:26 pm
#49939
I felt the need to write this. I don’t know what to with it, so I thought I might as well post it here.
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Seven years on from the Brexit referendum, a lot has been forgotten . Most significantly, in my view, the extent to which the entire process of the UK’s removal from EU membership was, in reality, the biggest con-trick ever perpetrated on the people of the UK. I intend to show why this was the case - how the British people were massively lied to, were persuaded to vote directly against their own interests, and were gaslit into believing, with considerable belligerence, that a marginal decision to end the UK’s EU membership was somehow the unchallengeable “will of the people”. First, some background :
2010 : The Tory/Lib Dem coalition government takes power. During the following five years, Tory Eurosceptics’ influence grows. UKIP enjoys some electoral success, with at least two rebel Eurosceptic Tory MPs defecting to Farage’s party. Cameron, in an attempt both to appease the incipient Europhobe rebellion within his own party and neuter the continuing rise of UKIP, approaches the European Commission to request further concessions for the UK on child benefit payments, Eurozone/non-Eurozone rights, and the principal of “ever closer union” as applied to the UK. He vowed that if the EU did not agree to these concessions, he would institute an “in/out” referendum in the UK on continuing EU membership. When he obtained only partial agreement from the EU on these concessions, Cameron duly made the setting up of an “in/out” referendum a commitment in the Tories’ 2015 election manifesto. In doing so, Cameron was gambling on two things : either that the 2015 election would deliver another hung parliament and a continuation of the Tory/Lib Dem governing coalition, in which the Lib Dem part of the coalition could be expected to veto any referendum, or alternatively, if he was obliged to deliver a referendum, that he could carry the day and ensure a vote to remain, as he had previously done in the referendum on switching the UK electoral system to the “Alternative Vote” model. In the event, the Tories were returned in 2015 with a governing majority, with the Lib Dems left largely out in the cold. Cameron duly legislated for an “in/out” referendum to take place in June 2016.
This, truly, is where the deception really begins. The referendum that was legislated for by the Tories was to be run on a restricted franchise : younger people aged between 16 and 18, who had been able to vote in the referendum on independence for Scotland in 2014, were excluded from voting. So too were citizens of EU countries living and working(and paying taxes) in the UK, and UK citizens resident outside the UK for more than 15 years. So the three groups of voters with arguably the strongest material interest in the UK remaining part of the EU were explicitly excluded from voting on a matter that would directly directly impact their lives. The referendum question (Leave or Remain) was to be decided only by a simple majority, when a referendum on a significant constitutional change would normally require a “super majority” vote of greater than two thirds to effect change. Most egregiously of all, the legal status of the referendum was that it was advisory only, and non-binding. This meant that legally, the government was not obliged to implement a decision resulting from the referendum of say, 52-48 (the eventual actual result). Cameron, however, had pledged solemnly to implement whatever the referendum result indicated, thereby giving the referendum the effect of binding status, though quite invalid in legal terms. In political terms, the advisory only legal status of the referendum therefore meant that the decision to leave the EU was *entirely* a decision taken by the Tories in government for political reasons, and not the binding “will of the people”that it was relentlessly touted as.
The referendum campaign itself was, of course, infamously conducted, and won, on the basis of lies. The big, central lie was that the UK sent £350 million per week to the EU, with a suggestion that this amount could or should be spent on the NHS. The UK did not send £350 million to the EU. The figure failed to account for the UK’s contribution rebate (secured by Margaret Thatcher), or for the significant amount of funding that came back to the UK through EU funded schemes like the Common Agricultural Policy or the Regional Development Fund. It was said, dishonestly, that Turkey was about to join the EU, and that some 77 million Turks would then be likely to come to the EU. Turkey was not about to join the EU, and still isn’t, seven years later. It was asserted that the UK’s access to the EU single market was not under threat. It was. It was asserted (by Penny Mordaunt) that the UK would be “forced” to sign up to a new EU army. It would not be, and still would not be, seven years later. Up to 40 new free trade agreements outwith the EU were promised. Virtually none have materialised, seven years later. Cheaper food was assured. We can see for ourselves the magnitude of that particular lie. I could go on, but there is only so much you can stomach of this sort of thing.
The damage that losing our membership of the EU has caused, to the UK economy, its trade, society, race relations, our international reputation, our NHS, to people’s lives, is so massive as to render the way in which the decision to leave the EU was engineered , in my view, nothing short of a crime. A crime motivated purely by perverse ideology within the Conservative Party and UKIP, and for which, regrettably, those responsible have not been brought to justice, and are unlikely ever to be.
Last edited by Abernathy on Sat Jul 29, 2023 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"The opportunity to serve our country: that is all we ask.” John Smith, May 11, 1994.
35.3 %
23.5 %
29.4 %
