The Great Brexit Bait and Switch

THEY SAY THAT a week is a long time in politics, which makes two weeks a virtual eternity. Less than a fortnight ago the Great British public trudged down to the polls in their millions to answer a simple question; “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” During the referendum campaign the entire political and media establishment joined forces to urge the British public to vote Remain, with warnings of dire consequences if they did not. The few public figures who dissented against this view were portrayed by the media as eccentrics, fruitcakes or closet racists. All of the opinion polls showed that Remain would win. But then the unthinkable happened. By a margin of 52% to 48% the British public voted to leave. The people rejoiced believing that the matter had been resolved once and for all. That Britain would leave the EU and then seek to negotiate new trading relationships throughout Europe and beyond.

But it wouldn’t be that easy. The political, media and financial elites have far too much invested in globalism to let it crumble without a fight. No sooner had the result been declared than the Remain camp (including virtually all of the mainstream media) began its campaign to resist the democratic will of the British people. The media universally stated that Leave won by a mere 2%, when even the dimmest of schoolboys knows that the difference between 48% and 52% is 4% of the total vote and that 8.3% more people voted Leave than voted Remain. This was a clear and decisive victory for Leave, not the “nothing in it, practically inconclusive” margin the Luegenpresse immediately tried to paint it as.

Then, a couple of hours after the result was announced we saw the resignation of David Cameron. A vanquished man nobly falling on his sword, or a cynical attempt to kick the whole issue of Brexit into the long grass for a few months while they worked on Plan B?

Within 24 hours of the referendum result most mainstream media outlets were publishing bizarre stories about individuals who claimed to regret having voted Leave, despite there being absolutely no evidence that they had voted leave in the first place. I am not aware of stories of alleged post vote regret being published in relation to any previous public vote. The operation to soften up the public for establishment manipulation by discrediting the referendum result had begun.

Now that they had tried to discredit the result, they could move on to phase two and seek to entirely subvert it. Jean-Claude Juncker told us that Brexit voters were ignorant, uninformed, and should be overruled by parliament. Similarly, we had David Lammy MP brazenly suggesting that parliament should simply vote down the result of the referendum. Well, that’s how democracy works in his ancestral homeland of Guyana anyway. Then we had the astroturf online petition and the street protests by assorted SJW weirdos, all laying the path for senior politicians to seriously discuss the possibility of a second referendum.The principle objective of this relentless media campaign was to lower the public’s expectations that their voting to leave the European Union will actually result in Britain leaving the European Union and make them believe that some diluted, lesser, outcome may be an acceptable alternative.

With public expectation suitably lowered, the real substance of the bait and switch manoeuvre could begin. Cameron’s resignation took the invocation of Article 50 off the table for at least three months until a successor could be appointed. The current leader in the Tory leadership race, Theresa May, is both the Westminster establishment’s and the EU’s preferred candidate. She recently had a private meeting with leading anti-Brexit campaigner Sir Richard Branson, who is a proponent of a second referendum. In a 2014 speech Theresa May described her views on the EU as follows:

“These are the reasons I believe that the politicians who argue that we are better off in the EU, whatever the terms, are wrong,” she said. “But I also believe that the politicians who argue that we are better off out, whatever the terms, are also wrong.”

Clearly she is not so much a Eurosceptic as a Europragmatist or Euro fence sitter. It is difficult to imagine her fighting with blood and sinew to get us completely out of the EU, whatever the cost. She will most likely claim that her having been chosen by her party post referendum gives her a mandate to handle the negotiations the way she promised her party she would.

By PR manipulation and sleight of hand the outcome of the Brexit vote has been changed from a mandate for immediate withdrawal, which it clearly was having regard to to the wording of the referendum question, to a mandate to attempt to negotiate some form of changed relationship with the EU, whether as an associate member or as an independent entity bound by treaty to obey pretty well all of the EU’s regulations, including freedom of movement, in exchange for the privilege of trading in their single market. This article from the co-director of Open Europe sets out the range of options currently under consideration. If the British government stays on its current trajectory it is likely that we will land some way short of complete withdrawal from the EU. Our political class seem determined not to give full effect to the Brexit vote.

Ironically, British withdrawal from the EU proper, whilst maintaining some form of associate status, may be the preferred option of the EU’s greatest powers, France and Germany. Their decision to publish proposals to turn the EU into a de facto United States of Europe complete with an army and tax raising powers within days of the Brexit vote shows that they clearly have no interest in wooing the UK back into the fold. The UK is the spanner in the works that has been holding back their superstate ambitions for decades. Despite the UK government’s desperation not to leave the EU, the EU seems to be quite glad to see the back of us.

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Source: Morgoth’s Review