The Press and the Establishment versus Brexit and Democracy

Boris and the Brexit bus

I have to confess, come clean, own up, at the risk of alienating all my friends … I voted to leave the EU. But, you know, I object to the fact that this is something I have to admit to (that I have to use the language of blame and apology), as if anyone in favour of Brexit must be right-wing, bigoted, racist or worse. I'm angry that people are getting ostracised or attacked in the workplace as if they've committed some terrible sin rather than merely exercised their right to vote or dared to have an opinion. 

Voting for Brexit doesn't mean I've turned against my many European friends. It doesn't mean I no longer want to travel to Europe. It just means I'm rejecting an institution that point-blank refuses to compromise or reform.

Some people rejoiced

It’s pathetic that the politicians (from all the major parties), the BBC, the papers (the broadsheets rather than the tabloids), the youth, the woolly liberals on Facebook, are still angsting about this and bleating on about having another referendum. And why? Because the powers-that-be thought they had presented such a totally biased view of the outcome if we left that there was no way the nation wouldn't do as it had been told. We voted. We're out. Get over it. I would say that that's the beauty of a democracy but this remains to be seen as at the moment, everyone from is trying to ensure the democratic process is voided.

It's incredibly patronising, even insulting, when the politicians and pundits (does anyone really trust Tony Blair?) pushing for another referendum imply that the result would be different if it were done over because the idiots who voted to leave (that's me and statistically probably you) didn't know what they were doing, hadn't really thought it through. Why can't they accept that we thought long and hard and made a considered decision? It just wasn't the decision they desired or expected. In fact, what's happening now is that this liberal elite, from the upper middle to upper classes, are realising that they can't control the rest of us, the proletariat, the people they think of as plebs.

The BBC votes Remain

The BBC and the government worked hand in hand to prevent Brexit. Let's not forget that, in the run-up to the vote, the government was debating  whether it should renew the BBC's charter and ergo the corporation's right to charge a licence fee (for non-Brits, that's a fee we pay to the BBC for the privilege of owning a television). Can anybody calculate how much this is worth to them? At the time of the vote, it was £145.50 per household per year (with an agreement to increase it to £147.00, now done). There are approximately 27 million households in the UK. The maths is beyond me. With the EU referendum date announced in February and scheduled for June, and the charter ratified for another 11 years in May 2016, it is hard not to suspect that there was some quid pro quo, perhaps reflected in the BBC's almost unanimously pro-Remain coverage of the referendum.

Nigel Farage returns to sender

Even though the press was so pro the Remain camp in the lead-up to the referendum, sinking to the absolute nadir of implying that the killing of Jo Cox had something to do with Brexiteers, even though the financial institutions (or government tools) predicted doom, even though the government spent our money (£9 million) on producing and sending us (the 27 million again) their propaganda (a nice little full-colour booklet) before the campaign officially began (the only way they could get around the rules – I loved Nigel Farage's visit to Downing Street to return his to sender – he really came out of this as intelligent, committed and able to leaven his message with humour), even though the government acted as if our being in the EU was the only reason there wasn't a war in Europe (as if all EU nations were naturally belligerent) and maybe in fact because of all this prejudiced rubbish, the majority of us voted out. Press coverage in the aftermath of the vote has also been vituperative and extremely biased. The BBC as national broadcaster should be objective but instead it broadcasts one viewpoint only, over and over. Now BBC stalwart, David Attenborough, has jumped on board, crying woe and destruction. He has no vested interest whatsoever of course (coincidentally, his new series Planet Earth 2 is being broadcast on the BBC as I write). 

That booklet - fact or fiction?

Oh and then the BBC treated said booklet as the truth, waving it at Brexiteers, saying 'How do you get away from the facts here?' This is simply poor reporting. Since when have we taken any politician's word as gospel, let alone in the midst of an emotive campaign?

Just before the vote, the politicians and the establishment started to get anxious so they pushed through emergency legislation to extend the registration deadline by two days during which time over 430,000 more people applied. In other words, people who hadn't cared enough to bother to register till the last minute were given another chance. But this ploy didn't work either.

The people who voted out were not afraid to try something new. Some of them remembered that it wasn't so bad being on our own. After all, we signed up to a nine-nation EU in the distant past. Now it's a megalithic structure of 27 countries (since Brexit: 28) that's impossible to control, absurdly bureaucratic and rule-bound, with however many would-be members on the waiting list, all of whom will be entitled to a say once they're accepted.

It is quite widely known that I like shoes ...

I was pleased that Boris Johnson was involved with Brexit as I respect him as someone who has the courage of his convictions, is sensible, forthright and doesn't always toe the party line. I read an interesting piece that compared him with David Cameron at school and at university. While Boris was actively involved in politics, 'Dave' merely studied the subject and kept his head down. Boris was memorable, Dave forgettable. Of course some people will say that this was because Boris was larger than life (and mean that in a bad way). What I see is focus, commitment, someone who cares, someone who isn't at all interested in what he wears.

Airheads

I like my politicians like this. It shows that they're not influenced by the superficial or swayed by appearances, that they have different values, common sense and intelligence, unlike Theresa May, who was able to bond with Holly Willoughby, you know the total airhead from This Morning (she and Philip Schofield have turned what was previously a respected magazine format into a Saturday morning children's show) over their mutual passion for shoes. She, Theresa not Holly, said 'Birth should not be a barrier to an education'. I agree. Surely it should be a prerequisite. I'm dismayed that a PM can come up with such a sentence.

Those of us who voted to leave are being accused of letting down the 'young people', many of whom we're told didn’t get around to voting. That's not their fault though. Some of them, their Mums didn’t get them up on time. Some, they were up but no one would tell them where to go to vote. Some, they knew where to go but no one could give them a lift. Others thought they’d already voted by filling in a poll on Facebook.  We're told the issues were too difficult for them to understand and it should have all been made simpler for them. I'm sorry, if they didn't understand the issues, they should have tried harder. If they were eligible to vote and didn't, that's not our lookout.They evidently didn't care enough. Although I also think it's irritating that the press almost universally believe that they would have voted to remain, if they could have been bothered.

The Camerons make their escape

It is disappointing that, after the campaign and the win, the politicians let us down, with David Cameron stepping down as leader although he'd promised to stay on and see it through whatever the decision and Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage backing out of the fray when we needed them, needed a strong, enthusiastic Brexit leader instead of someone who appeared to have no opinion either way, was happy to sit on the fence, but who now gives the impression that she's willing to make the best of a bad job.

Now there's talk not only of another referendum but of wholesale changes to the EU monolith (which remember, wouldn't budge one iota when we were still part of it) so that no one else leaves, and a delayed two-year exit period. It's irritating that when people need to work together, they decide to rip each other to shreds, with Michael Gove betraying Boris, thus ensuring that we didn't get that forceful, committed leader. It's a pity that politicians by their very nature seem incapable of putting the nation's needs above their own.

Philippe Juncker - the pose says it all

The reaction of the EU President, Philippe Juncker should only confirm to those who voted out that we/they made the right decision. He had a hissy fit when we voted to leave, and is still acting like a toddler having a tantrum, trying to ensure that the Brexit negotiations are handled in a spirit of resentment and rancour and insisting that the EU remain 'intransigent'. That's a good starting point for a negotiation, Philippe, intransigence. He needs to grow up and stop taking a nation's decision as a personal insult. All this talk of a payment is appalling. We don't owe the EU anything. Many of us feel it's been bleeding us dry for years. Juncker himself has decried the low turnout at the European Parliament after only 30 out of 750 MEPs deigned to attend for an important vote. EU business mainly takes place in Brussels but the Parliament meets in Strasbourg, resulting in travel costs of 200 million euros per year.

Gina Miller

Here we go again. The High Court has ruled that the government cannot trigger Article 50 without the approval of Parliament after a court case brought by Gina Miller. Does anyone think that if Brexit had lost, it would still be in the news every day? No.
 

Tony Blair

Tony Blair, ever a media w***e, is bleating on and on about how, if only the common people (think Pulp), the young, were bright enough, or had had the whole thing explained to them in words of one syllable, they wouldn't have voted to leave the EU. It's not their fault – they were just too dim to understand all the issues and ramifications or the vote-registration procedure. Think about what he's saying here. And why should we trust someone who's partly responsible for the problems the UK now has, whom history has proven to be a liar?

Now it's the European Courts of Justice. This is getting ridiculous. Next stop, the Supreme Court. All because they can't accept that things didn't go their way. Last time I checked we had a democracy. This is a battle to ensure those that think they know better get the result they want. It's opposed to the very spirit of democracy.

Then there's the question of national identity, an emotive topic. On this, I would say that there's a reason why we never stopped thinking of Europe as separate to us. We're not European. We've never felt European. Here's a quote from The Times war correspondent, Anthony Lloyd, 'the UK suffered expensive strategic consequences after its hostages were publicly beheaded … while captives from European countries walked free after the payment of ransom'. I'm sure he meant to say 'other European countries' but to me, it proves that most of us don't think of ourselves as 'European'. Europe is somewhere we go for our holidays. The vote doesn't mean we hate Europeans. We just want to get off the train as we don't like where it's headed.

As for immigration, someone said that each country should take in immigrants/asylum seekers according to their capacity. Many of us living in the London suburbs feel that we reached our capacity some time ago. The disgruntled Remain voters in the posh parts of London aren’t the ones getting shoved out of the way in the pound shop and probably have private health care so will still be able to get a doctor’s appointment while the receptionist at my surgery was heard suggesting an appointment time to one caller with the words 'You'd better take it as I'll be selling it on eBay later for £200'.

One of the parks the council plans to 'dispose of'
- Old Farm Park

The character of the place I live, the sort of place where two elderly ladies reach the bank at the same time and then try to give way to each other - 'After you', 'No, after you', is already being changed by the influx of incomers, who arrive with their own codes of conduct, value systems, languages and religions. I'm not opposed to change but I want it to be for the better. The streets are already at gridlock. Our council has already built on school playing fields and now plans to dispose of 23 of our parks to developers so we'll have more housing but no infrastructure to support the people who move in. The council's been told to increase supply to meet demand. As Peter Whittle said 'How about reducing demand instead?'

Then there's the question of acculturation. There are such large groups of certain nationalities that there's no pressure to assimilate or learn the language. They come with their own ready-made community. And meanwhile everyone you meet is talking a basic version of English, a kind of Pidgin that can serve for many purposes but means that our language is gradually being denuded of multisyllabic words, that any pretence at proper grammar has left the building, that in a pub in the heart of London, you can't get a shandy because the girl behind the counter doesn't know or care to know what it is.

Child asylum seekers

Postscript 1: The images of the 'child' immigrants arriving in Croydon (blurred out in The Guardian and on the BBC because they realise their appearance belies the word 'child' and think that the general public can't be trusted to react the right way, the way they want us to) should raise concerns because, if we're letting in mainly young men rather than children, a) we're being duped and b) who's helping the actual children? And who's helping the girls? Of the child migrants at Calais, 52 were female, 1,000+ male – that makes them 95 per cent male. Is that a true representation of the gender split of refugees? Of 27 EU nations, 24 age-test child asylum seekers so why is it that anyone who suggests we do the same is considered guilty of cruelty? Surely we can show compassion without being taken advantage of?

Postscript 2: As for Donald Trump's victory in the US, the most shocking thing about this is that 47 per cent of those eligible to vote couldn't be bothered. 

Aside: Tristram Hunt (Labour MP) speaking on Victoria Derbyshire, asked about the Trump win and comparisons to Brexit: 'We on the left are not speaking to the people we came into being to represent.' Condescending much? Nice of you to come into being to represent us.

In case it's important to you, I'm mixed race, the child of a first-generation immigrant and only ever considered myself British.