How British exceptionalism caused brexit and makes it so hard to reverse

The are many reasons why brexit happened in the UK. Euroskepticism isn’t uniquely British, there are factors that are led the country to take the leap into the dark. Some of these relate to the weakness of British democracy, with few checks and balances. And those that do exist seem to assume those in power are all gentlemen, scholars and a good judge of whisky. By contrast, other EU countries distrust their politicians (probably for good reasons). They have these things called “constitutions” and a willingness of the police to arrest corrupt politicians and sling them in jail.

But in the UK its a different story. The arrogance and self entitlement of many British, means they see themselves as the exception to the rules (the number of times I’ve seen brits try and use the EU queue at airports while waving their blue passports). As well as an elite class of politicians and plutocrats who hold themselves above the law. It was this mentality that led down the path to brexit and its many consequences.

Take for example the campaign to “save British farming” from the damaging effects of brexit, which will mean the phase out of nearly all farm subsidies, places massive barriers to trade with Europe, while seeing the UK market flooded with cheap produce from overseas (which benefits supermarkets yes, but not consumers). Well there’s just one small niggle, a majority of farmers voted leave. Some polls suggest by a two thirds ratio. Farm gates were plastered with leave signs for months. In fact I recall calling out their absurd claims of exchanging trade with the largest trading block in the world for “emerging markets” (on Pluto I assume!).

And its not like the extreme neo-liberal version of brexit we’ve seen implemented has come out of the blue. Several leading Tories were openly talking with glee about turning the UK into Singapore on the Thames for decades beforehand (even thought its worked out more like Pyongyang on the Thames). Since the 1980’s its been the mantra of the Tories to burn down everything except the city of london and turn the country into a playground for yuppies, tax exiles and Russian oligarchs.

And despite this being open knowledge, the safest of safe Tory seats have been in rural areas. ….you know….where farmers live. But no we are told by the save British farming campaign, farmers didn’t vote for brexit. And neither did any farmers vote for the Tories, ever. How they keep getting elected is a mystery to us. And we shouldn’t blame those who voted leave for brexit (so if some yob burns your barn down, are you going to argue he’s not to blame, we should blame they guy who sold him the matches?). So basically they are resorting to gaslighting the public, because that worked out so well for everyone in the referendum.

In reality farmers voted for the Tories and brexit, for the very same reasons the rest of the Tory cargo cult voted that way. Bigotry, greed, tribalism, sticking it to townies and the working class, etc. They didn’t mind one bit when it was the miners or the factory workers who were loosing their jobs. Nor did they mind when the poor, the disabled or migrants suffered under the Tories. Their arrogance just led them to believe that they’d never been tossed into the Tory mincer too. And now that its time for them to get their comeuppance, they have the nerve to complain.

But you may say, at least they’ve learnt their lesson, surely now the NFU (national farmers union) will turn on the Tories and advise its members never to vote Tory again. Actually no, the NFU claims its politically neutral and its not going to oppose policies that will destroy their own industry.

Actually, its worse. The NFU knows that most farmers are massively pro-Tory (something to do with fox hunting and, as mentioned, a dislike of townies), so it really matters diddly squat what they say (in a rare moment of clarity they advised members not to vote leave & that made little difference). When labour were in power, farmers booed or egged labour ministers. They organised massive protests against labour governments over one issue or the other, most notably the fox hunting ban (which the Tories promised to repeal, but surprise, surprise it turns out that was a lie as well). They even once infiltrated the floor of the house of commons (imagine if any lefties did that, their would be martial law the next day!). So they were willing to show up in the hundreds of thousands to be allowed have dogs tear life foxes cubs apart, but aren’t willing to protests in similar numbers to save their own industry, go figure.

And why would the Tories even consider changing policy on brexit, if the farmers are going to all vote for them anyways? Once a Tory mug, always a mug. Farmers are the Tories doormat. And when was the last time you listed to the opinions of your doormat? The reality is that most farmers will sit and watch the Tories run their industry into the ground and likely blame labour and the EU for their fate. Such is the reality of being in the crazy Tory echo chamber.

But as for this save british farming lot, having realised they’ve screwed themselves over (just unwilling to admit it), what is their solution? Why just join the single market, via the EFTA. LOL. Ya like its a gym membership you can just sign up for. The EU would have to approve that and its unlikely to do so, until it sees a change in UK politics. i.e. the Tories getting tared, feathered and run out of their safe seats, labour running on a rejoin ticket, etc. Until that happens, they won’t give the UK the time of day.

Also, as I’ve pointed out before EFTA is really a club for smaller, mostly Nordic countries, who want to be part of the European trading bloc, but for one reason another don’t want to be official signed up members. This won’t work with the UK in the club, as it would become less an association of equals and more the England et al club – who will immediately start whinging about everything and trying to bully the other members (hence why the UK’s membership of EFTA will be black balled).

And it is kind of a silly idea. EFTA membership means you are a rule taker, not a rule maker. Now granted the UK is going to have to follow rules set by the EU anyways (such as the recent ruling on mobile phone batteries), as well as the rules of the other trading bloc’s its part of (the trans pacific partnership comes with a number of other rules, which the UK has to now follow). But why go for the value brand version of the EU when you can have the deluxe version for basically the same price. It would make far more sense to just rejoin instead. But that would mean farmers admitting that they were wrong to vote leave in the first place and their fragile ego’s, just can’t take that sort of a hit.

Which brings us on to labour. Every day Sir Kid Starver is more and more like Boris Johnson. Johnson sacrificed whatever principles he had by backing leave because he thought it would make him PM. Starmer has basically done the same thing. He knows brexit is extremely damaging to the country, he knows the vast majority of labour members and supporters want to rejoin, but he want to be PM and that takes priority over the interests of the country.

In order to become PM he reckons he needs to kiss Murdoch’s ass….although he’s been doing that for years even before he became labour leader (so one wonders if that’s just an excuse for his lurch to the right). Plus pensioners are the people who actually turn up to vote, unlike young people (who are too busy working to pay taxes to fund old people’s retirement). Smug, self entitled and protected by their generational wealth and the triple locked state pensions, pensioners also voted overwhelmingly for leave, for much the same reasons as the farmers (arrogance, greed, racism, hatred of the younger generations, etc.). But Starmer worries that if he questions this in the slightest, he’ll offend their fragile ego’s and they’ll vote against him (out of the same spite that drove them to vote leave). So he’s going to avoid even mentioning it.

Of course the trouble with this is, once he is PM, the Tories and their client media will immediately start blaming him for all of the problems the Tories created (cost of living crisis, NHS on its knees, brexit, etc.). And its not like the economy is going to magically start growing just because labour are in charge. He’s going to have to engage with the EU and at the very least get some sort of customs union.

I think he’s got it in his head, like most of the British elites, that he can just wander into Brussels and ask for what is effectively a customs union, just don’t call it a customs union. But, as noted, that’s not how the EU works (if he has no democratic mandate, they’ll worry it will just be overturned by the next Tory government, so he’s wasting their time). And inevitably the Tory press will catch him at it and call him out. Not least because any sort of customs arrangements will have an administration cost, which he’ll have to pay the EU to implement.

Now granted those costs will be chum change compared to what brexit is costing us now (all those customs agents don’t work for free, the costs to businesses, etc.). But it means putting an item in the UK budget, which the Tories press will label YOUR TAXES GOING TO BRUSSELS (probably next to an article discussing which upmarket Brussuels eatery the eurocrats will spend it in). The Tories will fight this tooth and nail, using their control over the house of lords, the courts and the monarchy to block it. So unless Starmer wants to turn every national budget into a blood bath, he’s out of luck.

In short, Starmer, a rich man, whose wealth and elite position shields him from the consequences of brexit, simply doesn’t care. Either he thinks can just ignore the consequences of it on ordinary folk, as they’ll jolly well just have to keep shovelling coal and keep quiet about it. Or he thinks he can just stroll into Monsieur Barnier’s continental delicatessen and demand a bespoke kebab and expect it to be served to him on a silver tray, and he’s not even going to have to pay for it. I don’t know which of the two is worse.

This the real problem with the UK. Many of its citizens are arrogant, selfish, lack any capacity for self criticism and see themselves as the exception to the rules. And it gets worse and worse the higher up the class system you go. Its these factors that led to brexit and its what will prevent brexit from being reversed any time soon.

Also, people need to realise that just because you are loyal to one party or another, doesn’t mean they are your friends. In fact, under First Past the Post, they more loyal you are to a party, the more likely they are to betray you, as they assume you’re too much of a mug to vote for the opposition (what are farmers going to do? Vote lib dem! LOL). While floating voters, who might switch their vote, tend to get treated a bit better. In short farmers need to learn the meaning of the phrase “you reap what you sow”.