From a young British woman:
The first domino has fallen. Today a Tory Minister broke rank and suggested we could cancel Brexit.
The problem is that Brexit is a semi-religious cult.
It’s based on a toxic, delusional mix of xenophobia and racism and a myth of English exceptionalism and superiority seen through a rose-coloured prism of heroic war and grandiose empire. Originated by a post-WW2 lost place in the world, fed by media hatred and fear, unchallenged by education and grounded by elitist politicians who served their pockets rather than their constituents, Brexit has become a self-defining value, not just a political rationale, for its hardcore supporters.
This is why when those who speaks reason, fact or evidence against their warped and wrong worldview are seen as ‘enemies’, ‘saboteurs’, ‘mutineers’, ‘traitors’ and ‘citizens of nowhere’.
Judges. Parliamentarians. Ministers. Civil servants. Scientists. Economists. Journalists. Lily Allen, Gary Lineker, David Attenborough, Brian Cox and other celebrities. Fellow citizens. The EU. And now, even their own Brexit Department and their Brexit PM.
Many of these are threatened with death and civil war is promised if anyone suggests their beloved Brexit is taken away from them.
This is not politics. This is religious fervour or madness akin to other political or religious extremism.
Why? Because their values are now defined by this struggle. A illusional return to a bygone past where their world was secure and not changed.
Where women were secondary. Where everyone spoke without an accent. Where all faces were white. Where gays were outlawed. Where transsexuals were an unknown word. Where jobs were local and done by hand, not global and via a technological device. Where Rule Britannia meant just that, rule.
This is why blue passports are so important to them. Not our economy. Not our parliamentary democracy. Not our reputation for tolerance, openness and welcome.
Only nostalgia. The memory of their lost and changed world.
This is why Brexit is the twisted dream of an older, ageing, dying generation. This is why our evidence, our facts and our rationale cannot penetrate an age-old dream given falsely to them of an England standing alone again, against its enemies, building its new empire 2.0 with blue passports waved to Johnny Foreigner as they strut around an inferior world abroad looking for a sign of Home, an English breakfast, a cup of tea or a sign that good, ole’ England’s empire once ruled.
These people are not only wrong. They are the past. Their time vanished long ago and Brexit is their death throes.
The world belongs to the young. They will inherit a place where mobility matters, where education and science drives creativity, where automation replaces the manual, where belonging is global and roots are secondary, where colour, creed and citizenship are irrelevant to your worth, where women stand side to side with men and your sexual preferences are not defining you.
The masters of the 19th and 20th century have reacted to this trajectory via Brexit and Trump as its form of capitalism has left its citizens behind, and they seek their belonging in the comfort of their bygone past memory.
There is not a way back to this place. That’s why Brexit is wrong. That’s why we must say No and Enough to the delusion that is looking to engulf our nation.
The Rule Britannia ship docked long ago.
Perfect analysis by Orjan Pettersen .
Thank you .
