Farage in Channel: Continent cut off!

In 1973, without consulting the country, Ted Heath signed us up to what was always intended as a grand federal project. In 1975 Harold Wilson honoured an election pledge to hold a referendum on our continued membership of what was then the EEC. Two thirds of those who voted did as they were told by the well-funded campaign to stay in and driven by a heavily propagandised fear of isolation and hardship, opted to remain. Since then those who have openly questioned the project have been derided as Little Englanders and worse.

We’ve had our ups and downs with the EU over the last 41 years, not least because of the lack of transparency of a system of government which has become increasingly unaccountable to those who pay for it. True or not we feel we are ruled by shadowy, unelected bureaucrats, detached from the often hard reality of those they impose on. To almost everybody in Britain the EU represents a clear loss of sovereignty but those born under EU rule appear to accept this as a benign thing, a necessary price. Propaganda works, you see. Overall a referendum will be a close-fought thing but even those who are very pro EU are still unhappy with the way this racket is run.

Yet even today, when it is clear that of those who voted - even after the smears and the backstabbing, the racist, homophobic, sexist labelling - a majority mobilised, braved the demonstrators at some polling stations and endorsed a party with zero presence in Westminster, the so-called ‘mainstream’ parties are demonstrating that they are anything but mainstream: The UKIP vote was a protest; we will try harder to get OUR message across; we’re sorry, we got it wrong (this from Labour); we hope that our supporters will return to us next year in the general election. It's still all about them - they still don’t get it, do they?

For now, at least, we like to imagine we live in a western democracy and in a democracy the government is supposed to do what the electorate want, not the other way around. For several decades now, however, successive governments have sought to tell the people how they should behave and what they should think. And much of that diktat emanates squarely from a central politburo that has no accountability to the people it likes to pretend it is there to serve. The people of Europe are treated like squabbling children by the European institutions and comfortable commentariat alike. That is what yesterday’s result is about.

The EU Hokey-Cokey

Forget about pushing Toryism, Labourism, or whatever it is the LibDems support. It’s not that you are not getting your message across chaps – far from it – it’s that your messages have been roundly rejected. And given that we know there is almost nothing you can do to take back powers from Brussels while we remain in the EU, all your bluster about reform is just so much hot air. The British people want their country back. Find a way to do that and they might, just might, start to trust you again.