I haven't lost all hope quite yet - but, let's face it, it's not looking too good for Thursday, especially not after David Cameron's startling official announcement from a podium outside No. 10 this morning that he's backing Remain. Who knew? Until recently, when contemplating defeat, I've consoled myself with the thought that the result is more a matter for my son and his generation (he's 22) than it is for people my age. But that nonsense isn't working for me any more: I'm not backing Leave because it would benefit me - I'm retired, and I can't see it would make any material difference to my life, apart from some short-term turbulence on the markets while all the lady-boy finance folk indulge in one of their regular collective panic attacks (it's a mystery to me that these grotesquely overpaid scaredy-cats persist in viewing themselves as Big Swinging Dick Masters of the Universe when every little thing results in their behaving like hysterical children).
No, I'm backing leave for two main reasons: (1) it has been obvious for years - undeniably so since the crash of 2008 - that the vast, unresponsive, rust-riddled socialist EU supertanker is sinking, and I don't want to see a country I love go down with the rest of the passengers and crew, and (2) I believe that the self-governing nation state whose people share a living history and a coherent culture, and who can elect their own governments (and fire them,) is one of mankind's greatest inventions.
I was rather hoping those were the sorts of issues the referendum would be about - but no, it's come down to little Gideon Osborne ("Pater! The men are coming up the drive!") telling us that a vote for Brexit would mean suspending stock market activity on Friday, and companies immediately announcing huge redundancies; Nigel Farage practically being accused of murdering an MP; the threat of more expensive mobile roaming charges; puddles of foul-smelling, incoherent drool about the rest of the EU refusing to trade with the world's fifth largest economy; tosh about how a major nuclear power will become an embarrassing irrelevance in world affairs; piffle about how America won't deign to even discuss a trade deal with us until they've sorted out one with Tuvalu; idiocy about how all scientific research in these islands will instantly cease; bilge about how the NHS will cease to function altogether on Friday morning; and arrant nonsense about how leaping from a sinking ship and getting into a lifeboat is somehow "running away" and about how true patriots are those willing to cede yet more power over their country to unelected foreigners.
And now that the chips are truly down and the vote is just hours away comes the clinching argument for staying with the devil we know: anyone voting leave is a (wait for it)... RACIST! Ah, of course. They've rumbled us! Wanting to decide who can live in your country and wanting the right to deport foreign rapists, terrorists and drug dealers is, incontestably, a sign of vile bigotry. I should have known it would eventually come down to this.
And - right now - it looks as if that campaign of unremitting, conscienceless mendacity could end up swaying a sufficient number of undecided voters to hand victory to Dave and Gideon (and Jean-Claude and Angela and Barack and J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs). So, in the event of a Remain win, how will we committed Leavers console ourselves?
Well, for a start, there'll be the turmoil within the Tory party which will eventually result in the premature defenestration of Dave and Gideon. There'll be a few weeks of the party ostensibly pulling together and burying its differences and talk of letting bygones be bygones and of "getting on with the job". And then all-out war as the majority of Tory Party members and the near-majority of Tory MPs - who already loathe Cameron and Osborne - gather sufficient current courage (and rage) to force the buggers out. Enough, after all, is enough.
It could be that we'll finally see the major realignment of British politics that people have been talking about for decades. I doubt it, to be honest - but as the two main wings of the Labour Party now have virtually nothing in common, and as it's screamignly obvious that the two main wings of the Conservative Party don't either, it would seem to make sense for the five main English parties to reconfigure themselves, leaving us with:
(1) The Right-Wing Party, consisting of a mix of Thatcherite (i.e. classical liberal) Tories, more traditional conservatives (i.e. culturally conservative but not necessarily fully in favour of unrestrained free markets), and like-minded UKIP supporters (and the MP Douglas Carswell).
(2) The Centrist Party, consisting of old-style Tory wets, corporatists, social liberals (i.e. LGBTI enthusiasts and those who want to force BME and female quotas on businesses and universities and to phase out "divisive" private schools), and those who feel that the EU is basically A Good Thing. This would provide a home for some Lib-Dems - the rest of them could join:
(3) The Social Democrats, consisting of Blairite Labour MPs and supporters and most Lib-Dems. They would essentially agree with everything proposed by the Centrist Party, but - because they're the sort of people who like to feel good about themselves - would want to impose slightly higher taxation and slightly higher welfare spending than Centrists. This really would be the old SDP revived, only with all of Labour's right-wing involved, and without any pretence that the Labourites and Lib-Dems were somehow equal partners.
(4) The Socialist Party, consisting of the Corbynite wing of the Labour Party and most of its current membership, public sector union types, cultural Marxist social justice warrior and identity politics pressure groups, anti-Semites (or pro-Palestinians, if you prefer), plus a few Trotskyites for old time's sake. Oh, and Ken Livingstone would be welcome to join. (To be honest, this wouldn't look all that different from the current Labour Party, only without anyone remotely sensible like Frank Field or John Mann in its ranks.)
And, of course, we Righters will - albeit with tears in our eyes - be able to experience Schadenfreude on an almost 24/7 basis over the next few years as every damned thing we predicted would happen if we stayed in the EU does happen: there is no reason whatsoever to expect that our EU masters will prove magnanimous winners.
As far as I am concerned, if we lose the referendum it will because we have had it stolen from us and I shall consider that an act of war by the government and its associated establishment.
ReplyDeleteFrom that point on I will A/ Never vote Conservative again (not that I have for the past few years anyway, but even so... B/ Look for every opportunity to deprive the government of any economic benefit from my labour, C/ Double my efforts to undermine the BBC in any way possible, D/ Ditto the bloody EU, E/ Aim to subvert, ridicule and frustrate any politician from the big two-and-one-tenths parties.
I may not be Atlas but I am bloody well going to shrug.
I'm with you on A, B and D - but that's basically maintaining the status quo. I'll keep my BBC attack/praise ratio just about where it is. As for E - I'll carry on being nasty about pretty much the same politicians I've always been nasty about, but with a few Tory turncoats added to the lengthy blacklist.
DeleteMeanwhile, I'll dream about the new mainstream right-wing party described above emerging - a genuine one-nation coalition of like-minded people from all the classes - and enjoy the Tory bugger's muddle that's about to ensue after the triumph of Project Fear.
It always surprises me when people who should know better assure us that negative campaigning never works - it ALWAYS works!
And I am utterly fed up with waking every morning, without fail, to the sound of a new threat from the Remain campaign. "Where are their carrots?" I have asked myself. Alas, answer came there none. Anyone undecided may well have been whipped into obedience by the bullying tactics of the Remains.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the reason Cameron went full project fear from Day One was that he simply had no carrots available - after all, he could hardly claim that he was going to sort out the EU in our favour, having conclusively proved that he has absolutely no power to change anything whatsoever. He had carrots aplenty to dish out during the Scottish referendum campaign (paid for by English taxpayers, as usual), but this time there were only threats and lies available, which he deployed relentlessly and without conscience - while quite illegally using the machinery of government to do so. In the old days he would have been described as a cad and a bounder - these days I think we would probably all agree that the chap has proved himself to be an unmitigated shit.
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