The right side of history

One must always remember that the government is not on your side; that isn’t possible, as there are far too many sides and the government – any government – can only lead in very general terms. Administrations can set the tone, convey an air of confidence and optimism (or their opposites) and generally set the scene. It is up to you and me to make the most of it. More money for education doesn’t make education better, but parents lobbying their schools just might. More money for the NHS won’t fix the NHS - as we see, over and over again – but the way we use the services just might. And minimum wage policies do nothing to improve my standard of living; that is my job.

Similarly, Brexit is a sideshow to what is really important, which is how we deal with it, because deal with it we must. Yet there are still some, who insist they speak for many, that wish to bury their heads in the sand and imagine that if it can only be stopped the world will revert to loveliness. This is naïve in the extreme. The world has already changed – it was doing so before Brexit; Brexit is just a symptom – what matters is how we shape the world in which we wish to live. And grizzling and griping about what might have been is the reaction of a spoiled child.

So it was greatly disappointing to see the glee with which the Remain camp seized upon the latest outpourings of the government’s Nostradamus Department which recently released more of their imaginings about what might happen should we leave the UE – horror - without a ‘deal’. Our driving licences will cease to function, our mobile phones will cost us the Earth, etc... Who cares? YOU choose whether to be affected by any of these things. Seriously, if the quality of your life is measured so nebulously as by whether you will still be able to purchase your favourite artisan cheese from the Dolomites I would urge you to re-evaluate your priorities.

Department Nostradamus is publishing mere conjecture, not facts; ‘could’ is not a fact, ‘might’ is not a fact. But to Remoaners this is like a sermon, a call for their cult to ascend the mountain and await the magic mothership which will save them all and transport them to the golden EU galaxy. Over the same old ground we have to tread and reach the same conclusion we must and this is that, fundamentally, Remainers did not know what they were voting for. In fact they were lied to and they are being manipulated by forces far more powerful than themselves. And they have no actual plan for remain.

Leave votes were based on forty-odd years of cold hard reality and discontent with the intransigence of the EU project. Remainers indisputably based their decision on faith – a belief, so far not founded, that the EU could be reformed, further integration could be halted and  the future would be rosy. ‘When the facts change I reassess my decision,’ Remainers love to say in support of their demands for a referendum re-run. Well, from a Leaver’s perspective the facts have indeed changed – the EU has proved itself to be even worse than we thought and far from us not knowing what we voted for, we see even more clearly how right we were.

The future?

Remainers on the other hand, read all the anti-UK rhetoric and, like cultists everywhere refuse to see it for the propaganda it is. Every pessimistic forecast is gospel; every report of our fragility is sacred lore. They are characterised by an abject lack of confidence in their own ability to survive outwith the walls of their cage; the door is open but they dare not step outside, afraid that to do so spells disaster. ‘Why would one vote to make anybody poorer?’ they ask. I say, if the continent wants to make itself poorer, if it wants to cut itself off from civilisation, from the future, then who are we to prevent it?