Brexit isn't really about Brexit
For months now, I've been asking the question, what is it about the EU that is so oppressive, and what would Brexiteers do once we're "free" of it? And no real answer has come, which I put down largely to an inability or an unwillingness, to articulate a vision. But now, and apologies for taking so long to get there, I've finally come to the conclusion - and the following should really be in italics - that the urge for Brexit isn't really about Brexit, about the EU, at all!Why do I think this? Because, until as recently as 2015, the EU was well down the list of concerns of voters: it hardly even registered as an issue for most people. But this has changed since, and quite suddenly, the oppressiveness of the EUSSR has become such a big issue with so many. Of course, it wasn't a sudden concern in some, like Bill Cash and those who John Major, when he was PM, referred to as "bastards" and other long-term Eurosceptics like Jeremy Corbyn, but for the mass of people the EU simply wasn't something they worried about.But the change has come with the referendum, and suddenly people are expressing great concern about being "ruled" by Brussels, about the "oppression" of the EU, not one bit of which is objectively real, as Fintan O'Toole's book made absolutely clear. What the Brexit divide is really describing (and I referred to this the other day but then failed to join the dots) is the huge gulf between those who've done well in recent decades and those who haven't. Those who've done well are largely in London and the south east - where, counterintuitively, the mass of public infrastructure investment has been happening: we get Crossrail 1 and 2, HS2 costing many billions, whilst the government can't even manage to electrify the cross-Pennine rail link - and the greedy chief executives and fake non-doms exploit the system for all it's worth. On the other hand, there are the 'left behind' who, when the big industries like mining and steel production, to say nothing of the manufacturing industries, have been destroyed, have been left with rotten jobs with no prospects in the service industry and call centres and zero hours contracts. No wonder they are angry, and rightly so, but this anger has been subtly (and not so subtly) deflected onto Brussels, as if it were responsible and not our very own government and its austerity racket. We're all in this together? Ask someone with disabilities who is wrestling with the "reformed" benefits system if they believe that! And this is why, whether Brexit happens or not, the conflict will remain because the base problem will be unsolved. And in this wider context, whether we leave the EU or not will not solve our problems as a country, although leaving will make things worse. What we need is wholesale reform, but with our hopeless parliamentary system I am not at all optimistic that it will happen. A very bleak prospect indeed.
Richard Carter ● 2857d7 Comments ● 2856d