Revulsion

I did a really stupid thing yesterday, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since. I've been trying to distract myself with light fiction - Money from Holme by Michael Innes - but even that brings me back to the horrific things that I have been trying to forget.

For I have reached a bit in the frothy narrative where a gallery owner, (foreign, with a rather odd grasp on the English language), explains that the painter whose works he is exhibiting was assassinated in a revolution (or 'revulsion' as he has it) in a faraway country. It was not, he explains, a Fascist revolution or a Communist revolution, but "the worst", that is, a "revulsion of the Moderate Democrats".

And yes, after yesterday, I know that gallery owner's judgment is absolutely right. You see, yesterday I made the mistake of going along to Parliament Square and standing in the midst of Britain's very own Moderate Democrats - lobbyists for that extraordinarily insultingly named initiative, the People's Vote. 

It was horrible. It was vile. Most of all, it was delusional. Those people  genuinely believe that they are actually moderate, when in fact they are fanatics. Furthermore, they are utterly convinced that they are democrats, while simultaneously channelling all their energy into an effort to overturn a democratic vote.  

As soon as I crossed Lambeth Bridge, I began to see them, in their EU flag berets, their clothing acned with stickers bearing the words of the supremely rude (not so much because of its use of a mild swear word but because of its aggressive dismissal of the democratically expressed majority point of view*) Liberal Democrat party's slogan, Bollocks to Brexit. 

Then came the more intelligent arguments:

When did we come to this?

Nearing Parliament, I passed College Green, where once upon time there was nothing and no one, save the occasional lonely Channel 4 journalist recording a piece to camera, hampered by a gritty wind.

Heavens to Murgatroyd, how things have changed. No wonder the journalists strut and preen these days - they have swarmed over that place and turned it into their own private circus. They've built stages for themselves and set up a fence and not only are journalists being filmed to camera but other journalists are filming them filming themselves, while in the background others are also recording yet more interviews with other journalists. It's like one of those mirror facing mirror producing eternal ever diminishing reflections kind of things that you usually only see in shop changing rooms. But actually, in essence, it is more like an outdoor treatment centre for extreme narcissism (or perhaps not a place of treatment so much as a holding pen for sufferers until they can receive genuine longterm help).

And then on, into Parliament Square, which was a sea of enormous fluttering EU flags, held willingly by EU enthusiasts. A really tremendously upsetting sight. Particularly when I heard one of the flag wavers (who was also wearing another EU flag as a toga) saying to his neighbour: "On top of everything else can you imagine how much its going to cost to manufacture all the new flags when they have to take off our star." 

Does he think there are only twelve members of the EU at the moment? Or, despite wearing it and waving it, has he not noticed that there are not 28 stars on the flag as it stands? Who knows. I've since been told that this is in fact a line from an anti-EU comedian, and thousands of people think it is witty and clever and applaud when it is rolled out in "hilarious" Remain comedy venues. Which, unbelievably depressingly, leads me to wonder if many Remainers actually understand anything about the EU, this institution to which they are so fiercely emotionally attached. 

I guess the way to find out might be to ask, "Do you know the difference between the Council of Europe, the European Council and the Council of the EU"? With a supplementary question about the European Parliament and where legislation is initiated and how European Commissioners are appointed and what the Commission does. I have tried this strategy occasionally but I try not to be a cruel person and I'm afraid the responses from Remainers have made everyone involved  in the resulting conversation feel embarrassed and ashamed. 

But I didn't have the chance yesterday anyway because the Letwin amendment was passed and joy broke out throughout the land (well the square):

A woman on the stage (someone I've seen commenting on the BBC regularly but never had it explained to me that she is and always has been an extreme Remain activist), then yelled, without the faintest trace of irony, "Now THAT is democracy. Next stop a People's Vote!" and the crowd went wild.  

While I've never been a great enthusiast for the Common Market, the EEC or its latest iteration, until that moment yesterday I hadn't decided that I was definitely and utterly in favour of Leave. But as the crowd around me roared their support for their own warped version of democracy, I converted and in that moment I recognised that it is vitally important that the UK manages to get out. 

My lack of great enthusiasm for the organisation came initially from the fact that I lived in Brussels for several years - long enough to discover that the EU institutions and those who work for them exist in a bubble where everyone agrees with everybody else. Long enough to be able to recognise that the whole set-up has, among its fundamental functions, that of being a gravy train for the bourgeoisie. 

For instance, I was told not long before leaving Brussels for good that everyone, no matter their salary, who works for EU organisations only has to pay a flat 20 per cent tax rate on everything that they earn, (no matter how high their salary). Such arrangements are often referred to as golden handcuffs and, if indeed that information is correct, it has to mean that all those benefitting from the arrangements are very, very keen that things continue smoothly - and, ideally, (they have children, and eventually those children will need jobs, after all), that the EU organisations  multiply and increase. 

All the same, it seemed to me to be a relatively benign kind of sheltered workshop for people with arts and law degrees. And I liked the restoration work that some parts of the EU funded, (although, now I think about it, I'm not sure an entire bureaucracy covering all aspects of life is absolutely vital in order to ensure restoration - why not just have something solely directed towards the restoration of buildings and cultural institutions and dedicated to helping those countries ruined by years under Soviet rule, a set up along the lines of the kinds of things that went on after World War Two? Is it really necessary to have an entire, separate diplomatic service, on top of the diplomatic services of each member state; or a "parliament"  - more or less a parliament in name only, actually, as anyone who looks at the system quickly understands - that moves between two cities at vast expense; or civil servants working on external human rights and various other things covered by each member state's own government as well?)

But until I thought about it yesterday and today, I tended toward a disgruntled and cowardly tolerance of the status quo (it would all be too hard, would leaving be worth it, would it be too economically dangerous [which is still a question I fear has no good answer]?)

Not any more. There was something about what I witnessed yesterday that turned me against those who wish to force Britain to remain within the Brussels power structures. It seemed to me that what I was witnessing was a meeting of cult members who want to ruthlessly crush democracy and who loathe their dissenting fellow citizens. 

I began to wonder what the main advantages are that they believe the UK derives from remaining in the EU? If they are well-off, there are some selfish ones, such as keeping lower paid workers badly off by flooding the market with cheap labour through freedom of movement. Or, (judging from the People's Vote badge wearing man ahead of me in the queue at the butcher's in Pimlico that morning, who bought vast quantities of meat, explaining that he was off to his house in France and was taking all this stuff to put in the freezer for Christmas, in case Brexit comes and people are no longer allowed to take food over the channel) the equally selfish motivation of access to property that costs less than property in the UK.  

Thinking about it now, that man, I realise, was displaying wonderfully confused loyalties, loving the EU for the chance it gives to buy relatively inexpensive houses in the country, (even if not his own country), but apparently not liking the local produce, (I told you these Remainers were loony - not liking French food, I ask you), and so taking advantage of the opportunity to scuttle across the Channel with nice British meat, while never having to come in contact with the local economy there at all, (the neighbours must really love those Rosbifs).

To clinch matters, I then came home and saw Gina Miller, the Princess of People's Vote supporters, explaining that Britain had to stay in the EU, in case a future government might one day be elected on a promise of diminished rights for some marginal identity group. If the UK did not remain in the EU, she explained, there would be no-one to protect human rights, no outside force to override the democratic will of the nation to take a path that diverged from liberal EU values. 

I saw it then, the most important argument of all, the one about sovereignty. Gina Miller, inadvertently, elucidated it with startling clarity, (after all, she is such a clever woman, innit). If Britain stays in the EU, it doesn't matter what government its citizens choose to elect - democracy will be overridden if that national government strays from EU principles, which will be enforced regardless of what anyone in the nation may think. 

The will of the majority will mean absolutely nothing. Just as with the referendum, it appears, voting will make no difference. Brussels will be the ultimate arbiter. As anyone can see, this is enormously dangerous. And, strangely, it hasn't occurred to Remainers that one day the boot may be on the other foot. The future is long and, who knows, EU principles may change. Then, when their own views are no longer aligned with those of Brussels, the sovereignty issue could be very vexing indeed for them. They really should consider that, but, sadly, I suspect that Remainers are in the grip of a terrible mental illness in which they worship Brussels and all its many elements, while not necessarily understanding them - or perhaps it is a lack of understanding that is most essential to their faith. 

In any case, I am convinced now that it is vital the United Kingdom does leave the Union, particularly as not to do so would be a betrayal of voters. Roll on 31st October, roll on Johnson. Gosh I hope he can pull it off.

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* Oh Zoe, but those voters didn't really understand what they were voting for and they were lied to, yes, yes, blah, blah, blah, comfort yourselves with your own vile calumnies but deep in your hearts you know, you do really, that not only are you lying to yourselves but you are undermining the foundations of civil society, which is stupid and dangerous, especially when it is for a cause of so little worth