The Holy EU

It still irks me today how EU fanatics impacted UK politics so negatively, particularly the performance of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party. I actually witnessed people crying after the referendum result. How unfortunate. Then the comedian Stewart Lee, who I normally like, writes "arguments about Brexit are tearing my family apart".

Peoples vehement emotions towards the referendum vote were cultivated by mainstream media. I distrust any issue that is constantly shoved in my face by the popular press. Genuinely significant, nefarious events in the world are always hidden from the population. Our society in fact punishes those who reveal significant events. The imprisonment of Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, is the ultimate example of this. Wikileaks revealed to us evidence of war crimes by Western Governments, along with classified information about other governments. These war crimes require deep interrogation and bring into question the fundamental workings of the imperialist societies in which we live. A humane, moral society would promote transparency and honesty in all its operations. We don't live in such a society.

The reason the referendum vote was such a polarising and divisive issue is because UK media and politicians wanted it to be. The issue was in fact nuanced. It wasn't binary and it didn't warrant emotional, childish, heated conflicts. Corbyn was one of the only politicians willing to have a measured, balanced discussion about it, and just look at the way he was treated for doing so. 

At the time, I couldn't understand why the passion and intensity reserved for the EU wasn't also reserved for other things. People were possessed by the referendum vote, in an evangelical and superstitious fashion, and significantly lacked awareness of other issues at the time. An example of one such issue was Saudi Arabia's murderous treatment of Yemen, in what is still the worst humanitarian crisis across the globe, and Britain's complicity in this. The human cost and suffering of such a crisis may be hard for us to comprehend.

We are fed superficial narratives painting the EU as a communal institution, where countries are connected and support each other. One look at Greece's treatment, in recent times, will show you that such communality doesn't exist. But even if some communality did exist, it certainly does not extend to Libya or Syria, where refugees fleeing from conflict-stricken countries are unlawfully denied access to Europe. The automatic belief that the EU is about multiculturalism, tolerance and the eradication of borders is thus erroneous.

It seemed that many liberals reached tipping points with Trump and Brexit, seemingly blind to the fact that these events were symptoms of years of oppression and corruption. My tipping point wasn't Trump or Brexit. My tipping point was thousands of innocent civilians dying in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Or maybe the systematic oppression of working class people, in the US and UK, for over 40 years. Or maybe, depending on how far back we go, the Vietnam war. Or Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Corbyn was always critical of the EU, like his friend and colleague Tony Benn, with good reason. But he was clearly under immense pressure, by senior Labour colleagues, to push for another referendum vote. In this regard, the compromise that the Labour Party made at the 2019 General Election was a major factor in their defeat. Corbyn actually didn't go far left enough. By compromising and being more centrist and liberal, rather than truly progressive and left-wing, the Labour Party suffered a great election defeat. I don't think enough people get this.