A Positive Case of Mistaken Identity
The Referendum jury – the British public – has given its split verdict and cancelled its membership of the European Union.
Found guilty-as-charged by Mr Farage and other staunch defenders of our freedoms and sovereignties, the accused has been banished to Brussels, Berlin and other distant-sounding, foreign places.
But was it a case of mistaken identity, with the wrong accused in the dock?
For the early evidence of the vote’s geographic split suggests that the ‘leavers’ were predominantly those citizens who have arguably suffered the greatest pains of austerity, inequality, job insecurity, health, housing, educational and other deprivations which have been their lot since the 2008 financial melt-down and beyond.
These come courtesy of the Neo-Liberal political ideology which has progressively blighted our own and other western economies. The EC is tainted but by no means prime propagator of this Anglo-US blight, pioneered by our own Margaret Thatcher and her US alter-ego, Ronald Reagan. I don’t recall when they were brought to justice.
Meanwhile, we have special need to take heart from the example of Jo Cox at such a moment and when we need it so much. Jo’s great life and work gives us permanent witness to those better, more inclusive, selves we are all capable of.
Supplementary comment — June 28, 2016
UK political establishment still in acute shock and turmoil at EC Referendum result!
But early (and some surprising) evidence mounts that we were right (A Positive Case of Mistaken Identity) not to run with the herd blackballing all things Europe! The angry Brexit vote was, in reality, a desperate cry of ‘enough!’ from the UK citizens made to bear the heaviest of our own Government’s inflicted pain from the austerity and inequality deprivations of the years since 2000.
Now we have endorsement for our thesis from, among others, think-tank The Resolution Foundation (“weak income growth and rising housing costs have in effect wiped out any gains for half of working households.”)
And, mercy-be!, even international investment firms Pimco, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and others have chosen to alert clients that “Brexit Is a warning that the persisting gulf between rich and poor has added to the anti-establishment backlash”.
Truth will out!
Supplementary comment — July 1, 2016
As the Post-Brexit blues continue, and some jostling Tory wannabees self-destruct, we can only wonder again at the born-to-rule assumptions and sustained hypocrises of our political Right.
And, though this should come as no surprise, we also begin to get a clearer sighting of the manipulative, hands-on puppeteers in the wings – Messrs Rupert Murdoch, Paul Dacre and other committed Defenders of the Holy Establishment Church. It’s in the family, of course, via Mrs Gove!
Meanwhile, the shameless immigrant-averse referendum campaign has quickly morphed into a predictable surge in race-hate abuse. So soon after Jo Cox’s death, this is a cynicism too far, and we must stop it in its grimy tracks.