The Fourteen Common Features of Fascism by Umberto Eco, Brexit, Leave, Nigel Farage, UKIP and The Conservative Party: a comparative essay and a warning. By Robert John

Preface

I am submitting this now, I would have liked more time editing, checking and adding links but thought I must submit it now before the election. I doubt it will have any influence but I felt I must submit it beforehand, I may well submit an adjusted version later. (Now edited)

To the inevitable people who will disagree with me, fine, I am not after everyone’s agreement, although, I do hope to get your consideration of the arguments and ideas presented.

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The Fourteen Common Features of Fascism by Umberto Eco, Brexit, Leave, Nigel Farage, UKIP and The Conservative Party: a comparative essay and a warning.

By Robert John

Umberto Eco lived under the rule of Mussolini, so, he is, or now sadly was, more qualified than many others to be able to determine the common features of fascism. Other writers have identified other features of fascism, their followers, leaders and the manifestations of fascism and totalitarianism in more depth. For the sake of focus, however, this essay will stick largely to the fourteen features identified by him in his famous essay, Hannah Arendt will make an occasional appearance in the essay too.

Why is fascism emerging in a country something to be feared? This would seem obvious to millions, but for the sake of clarity, Fascism by its very nature causes domestic or international conflict: it is destructive, corrosive, more often than not leading to war or militarism, civil unrest, civil war, revolutions and oppression of different groups within a society. Fascism is, also, very much an antidemocratic force, which places the institutions of democracy under attack and can destroy them outright to replace them with executive rule, authoritarianism, totalitarianism or dictatorship.

Eco saw fascism as being amorphous in terms of a name, for instance Nazism but its manifestations as an ideology or way of operating are the same,  he described it as a ‘fuzzy totalitarianism’ that was often contradictory, although, contradictions allow for a wider scope of control, manipulation and convenient ideological manoeuvre,  a lack of clarity or consistency allowing for the justification of anything, as anything can be justified as being righteous in serving a purpose towards ‘the cause’ no matter how tenuous or ridiculous it may appear.

So, this essay will look at how the actions, rhetoric and policies of Brexiters, Leave, Farage, the UK Government and Brexit measure up to The Fourteen Features of Fascism Eco identified and if it is a ‘cause’ to justify actions for. Yes, The Brexit Party are not in charge of our Parliament and Brexit has not happened yet, but both of those things could potentially happen or at least for The Brexit Party to have more influence on our political realm. With the 2019 election it would appear the influence of The Brexit Party on the policies and direction of The Conservative Party, its policies and future direction are profound. Brexit is their flagship policy and that No deal will be the reality as they have ruled out an extension of negotiation deadlines.

If mandated HM Government under the Conservatives will Brexit, so, it is important to evaluate, are people within Leave fascists, is fascism involved, are elements of The Conservative Party fascist, is this fascism or are there fascistic elements within Brexit? As this could have very damaging implications and consequences for our society if there are.

This essay will contend that there is fascism involved in Brexit and Leave and will explain how it marries up to the features listed by Eco.

This essay is not an exhaustive list of the features of fascism and links to Brexit but it will focus on certain things, speculate, comment and question on some of the wider implications and meanings of Brexit for the UK, because if the UK is about to be reborn, everyone should be questioning just what it is the UK is going to be reborn as and everyone should be asking what is their stake or position in this rebirth.

We all live here after all, we all should be asking questions and demanding answers. So, there will be critical thinking of the arguments and ideas carried within the Brexit debate, critical thinking often seems to be missing from the discourse about it, when if a country is about to choose a new path then critical thinking should be the most prominent function.

1. The cult of tradition “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic and occult elements.”

The cult of tradition is that there are acceptable traditions and those traditions are somehow sacrosanct or have been damaged or are being ignored, banished or eroded in some way. In returning to or promoting these traditions and having these acceptable and very proper traditions in operation, society will be repaired, it will be able to function properly.

An example of this in Brexit is the notion of a ‘British culture’ or ‘British Identity’ which is prevalent in the rhetoric of Leave and that this British Culture has been under attack, ignored or has been diminished, diluted and unless Brexit happens, it will be somehow lost forever. The details of what that identity or culture is are vague to say the least, but that is unimportant rhetorically, as what is important is to suggest this ‘culture’ is under attack, it is under attack by: globalists, foreign powers or forces, immigration, foreigners, other religions and multiculturalism. These forces or threats must be brought under control and the government or the powers that be are not protecting the victims of the destruction of British culture or identity.

The victims being the believers in a strangely undefined and amorphous British Culture and the acceptable British people, the main characteristic of this seems often to be: being white.

Nigel Farage said ‘in many parts of England, you don’t hear English spoken anymore (vague mostly as to where in England, ignorant that English was not the first language in Britain, Latin was here before more modern English or that English itself, has its roots in Germanic languages, French too or rather ignoring many Brits go abroad, even live abroad and speak in some places only English or ignores that English is not the only language spoken in the UK )…this is not the kind of community we want to leave to our children and grandchildren ( it being easily suggestible there will be other things communities desire ahead of everyone speaking English as a first language)’, Britain a century ago was far more internationalist as well, because of the empire.

Rhetorically what this does, instantly, is create a division, an us and them, it rather implies that grave action needs to be taken to deal with them. Them who are ignoring or destroying the tradition of British Culture, one of the most important aspects of which is, apparently, speaking English, even though our language was imported and although there are plentiful great aspects of British culture, our culture has more often than not been borrowed or appropriated or developed from elsewhere too; for example Shakespeare was influenced by Greek Theatre and The Beatles from American Rock and Roll and Blues music.  

There has been, also, a lot of talk of certain towns, districts or cities no longer being British. This division of us and them again and this demanding of action against those deemed separate or not part of the nation or who are damaging the culture in some way: these are all obvious features of fascism. The idea that through this cult of tradition, the return or promotion of ‘The British Culture’ or British people, through these traditions returning which in reality never really existed, through the reinstatement of them and the British ways or people, all will be resolved in our society in the future. The implications of this being that those considered outside this group should have fewer rights or representations, they should not be seen as equal and that action must be taken against them  to reduce or remove them. As they are attacking or are in defiance of our ‘traditions’, our British Culture, well, a British Culture that is defined by certain people for the purposes of politics and manipulation.

This us and them culture has become an official government policy since 2016 with ‘settled status’. Now many immigrants or people of immigrant heritage some of whom who have lived here their entire adult lives, consider themselves citizens, have children, businesses and careers here, their ability to remain in this country is now in confusion, under threat and may become impossible for some, their very citizenship. Yet, strangely our government is not demanding British people in other EU countries are treated in the same way, even though many of them are doing exactly the same things with their lives, which, is a very questionable set of standards.  

This is a policy or policies of acceptable and non-acceptable Britons. People who have contributed to our culture, who have learnt the language and who have broken no laws have to leave, this being for the benefit of the cult of tradition or for the reason of the British Culture, otherwise, why make citizenry so awkward and difficult for people, when they have done nothing wrong or committed no crime? Who would be pleased by the introduction of this policy, other than those who bear malice to foreigners or citizens originating from other countries?  

A clear definition of what a ‘True Brit’ is has been left vague in this debate, as to do so would be to create an exclusivity which would be politically damaging. Farage, UKIP and Leave have dismissed accusations of racism by saying there are people who voted Leave or who support them, who are from a different ethnicity.

There have, however, been countless instances of racism to people of all ethnic backgrounds and towards particularly Muslim Communities from Brexiters and the anti-Islam tirade speeches from Nigel Farage or the infamous poster of him standing in front of refugees from the Middle East, Boris Johnson too and the Conservative Party have been accused of Islamophobia. The exclusionary notions that not speaking English is not British or that parts of Britain ‘are like a foreign land’ something Farage said in 2014.

This rather suggests that those from different cultures or traditions outside a white, Christian heritage, may have to do more to prove their ‘Britishness’ in any final analysis of where Brexit may take our society. There has been a rise in hate crime, intolerance and racism of all kinds since 2016.        

This contradictory and loose definition of being British can, however, be very much used as a stick to beat people with, including anyone not signing up to Brexit, who have similarly been accused of not being British enough, aiding and abetting the foreign or globalist power or being a fifth columnist or being an enemy of the cult of tradition in British culture. The people making these accusations have been overwhelmingly very much white. The argument being that action needs to be taken against the Non British Brit, with demands that Remain voters and those not behind Brexit go and live on the continent or are made to live there by the new Brexit government.

This is a Britishness which is never really clearly defined beyond voting Leave, but certain Brexiters have the stamp of approval and can determine who is on the outside and who is on the inside. Being British, something which could amorphously and rhetorically change over time and people who thought they were British, they may suddenly find that they are no longer British anymore at a later time.

So, yes, on the first feature of Fascism, the cult of tradition, Farage, numerous Brexiters and Leavers meet this feature, the government too with settled status. Which, could have very serious consequences were the keys of power handed over to this line of thinking for a prolonged period, as many millions of people would be instantly considered not completely British citizens by the governing bodies.

This is further illustrated by The Brexit Party founder Catherine Blaiklock and her conspicuous links to far right organisations, including ones calling for forced repatriation and Neo Nazis is a case study. If you just look at her Twitter feed, you can gauge her attitudes and of those who support her, there is plenty of anti-immigration, minority, hostile, racist and bullying rhetoric coming from her, before she was abandoned or made to leave by the party and she protested on exit, that ‘The Brexit Party is not right wing enough’.

She curiously got very upset when the BBC made a documentary on The Rise of the Nazis, which, she seemed to think had been made deliberately as some sort of Remain conspiracy slight on The Brexit Party and called for the BBC to be banned, to quote Shakespeare ‘Methinks the lady protests to much’.  She has attacked all sorts of groups in society, which are mostly people with a non-white skin, immigrants, environmentalists, foreigners, gay people and anyone with a different political view. Alternative political views is something she seemingly argues should not be allowed, in of all places a democracy and if she is indicative of some of the attitudes behind Brexit, someone who is close to those at the head of the movement. Then those attitudes being given full licence is something to be very concerned about, there being clear links to fascistic ideologies here.  

Where does this mind set, ideology, policy making and thinking go if given free reign? The settled status and hostile immigration programme are bad enough but what are the levels above that exactly, should this be empowered, legitimised or endorsed further?

2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity, in this sense Ur- Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”

A perfect example of the rejection of modernism or more modern thought is the speech Farage gave about The Royal Family in Australia. Firstly, he praised The Queen for her more traditional role as a ‘traditional’ monarch figure, then he went on to criticise Prince Charles for his views on climate change and supporting measures to deal with that. Then he criticised Prince Harry and mixed race Meghan Markle, who is a hate figure by those on the right, Brexiters and many newspapers, for their progressive views. This is after praising Harry as a bachelor going to a fancy dress party, dressed as a Nazi, Farage preferring Harry then.

Farage has openly declared that he is a climate change denier,  as have many other Brexiters and those supporting Leave:  Jacob Rees Mogg (nicknamed Rees Smogg for his attitudes to air pollution), Arron Banks, Ann Widecombe, Claire Fox, Annunziata Rees-Mogg, George Farmer, Nathan Gill, Michael Heaver, Martin Daubney, Lance Forman, Richard Tice, all those at Tufton Street and John Longworth.  

The Conservative Party are deniers in action, they have disinvested in green technology, planning and have implemented mostly damaging or counterproductive green energy policies. The party taking the politically irresponsible and convenient rhetorical route of blaming or placing the responsibility on individuals in society or that ‘the market’ will somehow provide solutions. A policy chosen by other denying bodies, movements or authorities as it absolves them of blame or responsibility or worse still, having to take the necessary meaningful action, when creating convenient blame figures, reasons or excuses is so much easier.  

Not all Brexit advocates or Leave voters are deniers of course, but, the ones who have the most power and influence are. When the one hundred percent scientific consensus view is that manmade climate change is real., there is no doubt anymore, it is like claiming the Earth is flat, climate change denial is irrationality on a species ending and endangering scale. The Conservative Party has in government facilitated and endorsed fracking over renewables, their policy and attitudes are not in an evidence based or rational position towards this threat, they clearly endorse fossil fuels over a green transition.

‘People have had enough of experts’ the famous line of Michael Gove is a classic case of irrationality and a rejection of intellectualism. Yes, experts can be wrong and in many ways the true meaning of intellectualism is to challenge thinking, theory, evidence and learning, including your own views, ideas or beliefs to find meaning. Doubt, reassessment, re-evaluation, mistakes and being wrong are all part of the process to higher understanding.

The notion, however, experts are to be dismissed or ignored completely is absurd and dangerous; the pursuit of human knowledge, truth and meaning is a gradual process. An intellectual, professor or scientist may spend their whole career wrestling with an idea, concept or understanding to not conclusively deal with or understand it or to still have doubts or reservations but through their understanding, thoughts or actions: open the doors for others or open up new areas or fields of understanding, including in political, economic or societal thought. What experts have done is spend a lot of time, their whole careers: reading, thinking, evaluating, considering and trying to understand a subject or subjects. Expertise is not omniscience but it does mean a higher understanding or appreciation of a subject or sector.

If we are not going to allow those with knowledge, learning, experience and expertise to govern or lead our society using rationality, reasoning and evidence: then our society will surely be in trouble in the long term.

What will be the governing principles be instead, popularity, just popularity alone? If that is the case then our governing institutions will be wide open to demagoguery, charlatanism, charm, arbitrary power or irrationality as the governing levers. This cannot end well if those are in charge long term, any healthy society has to be guided by rational, virtuous intelligence. Not intelligence on its own, as other qualities will be necessary and intelligence can be used for immoral or amoral ends, but it can definitely not be ignored, if that society is to survive, sustain and thrive. 

There has been an attack on intellectuals, Academia in general as being pro Remain, attacks in rhetoric on students, professors, economic experts and historians. The best example being the MP Chris Heaton Harris McCarthyite like letter demanding information on those lecturers lecturing at university on Brexit or European political affairs and what they were teaching,  arguing or discussing.

A shocking attempted witch hunt by Heaton Harris against opposing views or perceived opposing views and a clear attempt to devise a list of professors for who knows what purpose. His laughable claims when he backed down in the light of criticism that he is a proponent of free speech in the aftermath, this can be dismissed with the rebuttal, why send the letter in the first place if you believe in free speech?

Just because a lecturer says something, it does not mean you have to agree with it after all. It, also, rather implies a warning or threat about anyone academically scrutinising Brexit, the implications or the consequences of it, when after all, that is what academics and students do, they evaluate, interpret and study phenomena in the world of all kinds.

Why the open letter though? When all of the information he required could easily be found on Google in an afternoon. What was going to be proposed or what would happen in the identification of an anti-Brexit intellectual or professor? Something Heaton Harris was a little unclear about and he has since not pursued his challenging of professors or intellectuals or lecturers in this field, this is remarkably odd. It would be almost as if he ran away from the challenge of putting forward his intellectual and rational counterarguments, rather than pursue this project as a way to engage in an intellectual rigour about Brexit and its implications, his intellectual challenge of academics has quietly gone away.  

Would that be because the counterarguments have no real merit? Sadly, we will never know.    

There are numerous other irrationalities in the arguments for Brexit, for example that people knew exactly what they voted for but simultaneously, no one will know what will happen. The UK will be able to negotiate a better deal with the EU than membership as an outsider, that Brexit is about being more international through ideas like ‘Global Britain’, whilst, it is at the same time removing itself from easily the biggest and most integrated international movement in the history of humanity thus far. That somehow shortfalls in our interactions with the EU will be made up in the Far East, with countries like China or India, but are they aware of this? Might not they have something to say about it? How is everyone in the UK with speaking Hindi or Mandarin Chinese?  That the UK took no active part as members and were endlessly having things imposed on them, when the evidence and historical facts confirm the opposite.

Brexit is riddled with irrationality. That a vote to Leave was argued by different Brexiters concurrently: to be a vote to destroy the communist or socialist superstate of The EU and by another, a vote to destroy the dark corporate forces of capitalism, it cannot be both. 

In that revolutionary struggle, the forces that would prevail would more than likely be those on the right. As generally they are the better resourced and serve the elites, but this strange contradictory revolution, with contradictory ideological forces working within it from left or right, it cannot be grounded in what is rational. Similar, opposing revolutionary forces have existed historically in societies and countries before, right before a fascist take over. So, Brexit rhetoric and action again, meets this feature of fascism, as being in the realm of the irrational and anti-intellectualism.   

3. The Cult of action for action’s sake “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation”.

Brexit now! No deal Brexit! WTO Brexit! Leave means Leave! Get Brexit Done, these are all statements and slogans seen over and over. As the action demanded when fleshed out with any detail are invariably riddled with inconsistencies, incompatibilities and totally unworkable proposals.

They are all demands for action, action for the sake of action.

Actions, however, have consequences and some of those can be very grave, serious and long lasting. Decisions about the directions a country or society go in require careful consideration, planning, forethought, review, evaluation and reflection. A desired destination needs to be identified that as a society you are trying to achieve, a set of principles by which you wish to be governed or a desired outcome for the population of the struggle ahead forging a new position in the world.

Surely the question, independent of the EU, just what is it the UK is trying to achieve or be through Brexit, should be paramount in the debate? Bizarrely the debate is mostly not about this, if you are not trying to build a new society or country, then why even bother to do it at all? Or, why are not Brexit advocates clearly stating their plans for our society? We all live here after all and we have a right to know.  

Lots of people seem to be demanding action but are not really asking properly, just what it is in the long run those actions are trying to achieve which would be beneficial to Britain. What it would mean for citizens and future generations in real, quantifiable evidence based terms and what are the designs for our future society.

For the sake of argument, let us say Brexit goes really badly. It is an absolute disaster and causes huge damage to our society because of taking action for the sake of action, a no deal Brexit for instance, it is a wrecking ball through our society, economy and nation.

How will those decisions be viewed then in the future? How might a total lack of circumspection or a considered plan in the cold light of day be seen by the analytical eyes of historians in the future? It is unlikely to be seen favourably. Why, would any sensible society, government or parliament take those actions without the proper thought? Why take an action for the sake of action? Surely any country should make the right choice, having considered all of its options? Choosing the evidence based, most thought through and well-reasoned option with clear and identifiable virtues of the courses of action to be taken.

Now it may seem bold, daring, courageous, exciting or noble to take such a forthright action with Brexit but it leaves a lot of questions that will require further actions or solutions. Well, what are those actions or solutions going to be? Things do not end with Brexit, if this is to be a new beginning for British society, then what is that new beginning going to be? Slogans are not going to serve as practicable in the light of what are bound to be nuanced and complex problems or difficulties for any nation seeking to redefine or reposition itself on the international stage.

A good example of that is the UK or British internal market or the bizarre lack of a proper debate about the kind of society or country Britain will be post Brexit. Leave, Brexiters, the opposition and our own government have been unclear about what kind of society or marketplace we want in the UK, Brexit is a real opportunity to do this.

How do we want employment rights to work for instance, what kinds of protections do we want to have for workers, how do we want employers or companies to conduct themselves in our society or marketplaces? How do we want to insure investment is happening in every part of our society? What is our policy to be for instance on energy, water, pollution, research and development? What are we trying to achieve through investment in terms of wage levels or opportunities for careers, education or training? What is the society, economy and politics we want to arrive at which benefits the whole nation, population and how are we going to achieve it?

There are actions that need to be taken going forward regarding these, yet there seems to be a huge paucity of debate about what those action or policies will be.  There seems to be a huge focus on certain types of actions as being worthwhile, when surely what these actions will mean is far more important? And, there seems to be a very narrow focus on a few quite extreme actions which leaves little room for debate about just what those actions could or will achieve. This seems extremely rash, immature and irresponsible, it seems rather exclusive too. As it is not really asking or proposing in a way that is clear, the kind of society the British want or demonstrating how Brexit will serve as many of the population as possible, saying it will be ‘great’, is a little short on detail.  

These fine words of greatness sound remarkably similar to something Hannah Arendt who wrote about fascism and totalitarianism noticed about the rhetoric of fascists and totalitarian movements ‘ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.” Promises of success in thirty years as Boris Johnson said in his maiden speech  or fifty years time are something she would recognise as framing the debate far into the future to avoid scrutiny, responsibility, sound actions or clear proposals now, a time when the people saying it, will either be retired or dead. Or, justifying any actions now as serving some mythical ‘golden future’ that they will never have to defend or be assessed against ‘There is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future will reveal its merits.’

‘Thinking is a form of emasculation’ is a feature clearly here too as through not taking action, there is ineffectiveness or impotence and things are not happening or moving forward quickly enough. Yet, surely anything which has the very livelihoods of the nation at stake, requires plenty of thought and consideration before any action is taken. Parliament is taking too much time debating, analysing and thinking about Brexit, when Brexit just needs to happen, somehow thinking about it is lacking the balls to just do it or take action.

The choice was popular, that is all that matters, just get on with it.

Here it is probably best to consider the ship example Socrates gave as a criticism against democracy. Imagine that metaphorically society is a ship in a storm, what kind of decisions or people would you want governing that ship, considering you are on that ship too? Wise people, making well thought through decisions about how to navigate the ship through those waters, who have experience, are considerate and knowledgeable in sailing, making wise and well thought through decisions? Or, would you want just the most popular person with the most Facebook likes or friends on board to make those decisions on action, no matter what their qualities at sailing are?

Which society or ship is more likely to survive, the one who has thought through their choices using acumen, intelligence, wisdom, reason, evidence and experience? Or, the one which is governed by charm, popularity or worse still the beguiling, where the most popular person on the ship just demands random actions to be taken because at least something is happening?

These questions are important about Brexit and for democracy in general, because popularity of personality or an idea does not necessarily confer the qualities or ability to lead automatically, especially, through a difficult or challenging situation; for that sound judgement, intelligence, wisdom, experience, evidence, practicality, pragmatism and planning are the more likely attributes to result in success.    

Another example of this in Brexit is leaving the Single market and Customs Union, this is an action for the sake of action. I doubt that many people will have ever heard of or understood what the Customs Union is or know how the Single market works or what it is for before 2016.  There are not many instances that readily come to mind of either of them killing anyone, but the urgency to take action to leave both would suggest this is somehow a regular occurrence. 

What they are both seemingly there to do as mechanisms is to facilitate trade, yet, if trade was a reason for leaving because that was causing problems in society, then how can more trade alone be a solution, to problems caused by trade? There is more irrationality here. The solutions on proposals for a post Brexit UK seemingly focus on trade deals elsewhere in the world, the US being one example, because there have been few solutions about how Brexit will improve society beyond trade, sovereignty or economics.  So, again, trade or new trade as an action in itself without any qualities or conditions attached would seem irrational and potentially very counterproductive for society, unless it is clear how trade alone improves things for society and that has not been made clear. There is no clarity, when the nation deserves clarity!

How will the new UK marketplace benefit citizens, their workplace, their rights, their communities and lives?  Brexit seems to inspire lots of questions but has few answers beyond bromide, magical thinking, platitudes, rhetoric, facile assertions or arguments and profoundly untested solutions. There certainly are not detailed actual proposals, evidence or plans which can be evaluated in any meaningful way.

Leaving the Single market and Customs Union assumes that something better can replace them, well is there definitely something better? How do people asking for this action definitely know? Why are they unable to explain their better alternative?

Yet, action for the sake of action is demanded by Brexiters and this includes those in government and Parliament overseeing Brexit saying things like ‘Get Brexit done’ so we can ‘get out now’, slogans which are entirely empty of meaning or actual policies but are all about action for the sake of action.   

Conversely, for the sake of argument let us now say that Brexit through its actions goes really well.

The UK becomes a very successful ‘independent nation’, which has served its citizens and future generations commendably, let us leave aside how this exactly can be done or how you can judge, measure or quantify that for one moment.

Would this not be a greatest gift that the UK is going to give to the world? How to be a fully functioning and brilliantly ran independent country, society or state?

So, these actions and choices take on a whole new meaning, not just for the UK but for every citizen and country in the world. These actions would be something that would be impossible to keep a secret, if the actions taken are so impactful in a way that it is difficult to dispute, then that would make these actions some of the most important actions and choices ever taken.

Can those be actions that happen with little to no proper thought through choices or without intelligent consideration, reflection or be decisions made which have no obvious or explainable merits and are just taken to do something?    

So, action for the sake of action it is, unless there is proper consideration, thought and reasoning to arrive at clear, realistic and actionable proposals, as taking the action to leave with no clear directions: is a cult of action for actions sake.

Brexit is fascism in this regard here, until it proves itself beyond doubt to be otherwise.

4. Disagreement is Treason. ‘The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.’

‘Traitor Remain voters…should be hung’ Padmini Nissanga, UKIP Councillor. Eleven Remain MP’s ‘betray their leader’, Judges are ‘Enemies of the People’ Daily Mail headline, ‘Corbyn’s Brexit Betrayal’ Yvette Cooper branded ‘Traitor by her constituents’ ‘Quislings, collaborators and traitors’ Gerrad Batten of UKIP talking about Remainers. Brexit Party candidate suggesting Remain MPs should be taken to The Tower, to be executed like traitors were in the past. Brexit betrayal, the language of traitors, betrayal and treason has been a regular feature of the debate of Brexit, there have been open calls for all Remain voters to be mass murdered on social media.  

Disagreement is treason has been a feature of the debate around Brexit, leaving aside the very questionable and illegal means by which the mandate was won. The mandate of 2016 has then been used to justify a whole series of actions, proposals, suggestions and policies, then rhetoric has emerged that anything which does not serve ‘Brexit’, is a betrayal of the mandate.

What has never been made very clear cut, however, is exactly what is meant by Brexit beyond very simplistic terms, with often conflicting views coming from those advocating for Brexit and Leave and from the different parties in Parliament too, as to just what Brexit is.   

One of the striking examples here of disagreement over betrayal is those advocating for a WTO (Word Trade Organisation) Brexit. Firstly, this was dismissed as ‘Project fear’ and never going to happen in the 2016 Referendum debate but has since then emerged after the debate in 2016 as a serious proposal and even the only true version of Brexit. Which, rather begs the question that if WTO Brexit is the only true Brexit, then why was that not what all the Leave advocates and Leave proposed in 2016?

They obviously and with overwhelming evidence to the contrary did not propose this ‘WTO Brexit’, if they did from the start, the result would have more than likely been very different in the referendum. As ”We intend to destroy completely all our economic, political, societal, legal, technical and logistical links and arrangements with our nearest neighbours as countries to operate on the worst trade terms possible in the world” as a political campaign, this would have been unlikely to have done as well as the sugar coated, jingoistic and facile notions presented in 2016 from Leave advocates about how everything with Brexit would be wonderful and extremely easy.   

WTO and No deal were dismissed as ‘the worst case scenario’ by Nigel Farage and nothing to be concerned about by Boris Johnson because we were going to get a ‘great deal’ which according to some was going to be sorted out over a cup of tea, done and dusted in an afternoon and a better deal than the one we have now.

To not want no deal now though is traitorous and those trying to prevent it are ‘surrendering’, no one is allowed to disagree with no deal according to many people or Brexit happening no matter what, to disagree with Brexit and no deal Brexit is traitorous.

It is clear now that the Conservative government is heading towards no deal or effective no deal, in its declarations and rhetoric over Brexit, so, this is or could become government policy next year.  

Move on three years from 2016 and Farage on his LBC radio show is going on about betrayal, collaborators, internal enemies, infiltration and fifth columnists (even though, when it comes to his role in the EU: he is conspicuously and very ironically all of those things). This is all the rhetoric of fascism: the enemies without, the enemies within and the imagined victimhood.  His position and that of The Brexit Party and what he is demanding of the Conservative Party is now no deal and WTO, something that he described as ‘the worst case scenario’ is now the thing that he demands as Brexit. The position he claims now is the one true Brexit, which, three years ago was the worst one and anything else is ‘betrayal’?

People with slightly longer memories will remember him endlessly proposing Norway as a way forward for Britain, a country which is in the Single market. Many other Leave advocates suggested we are staying in the Single market, including the now Prime Minister on the Leave campaign trial ‘I’d vote to stay in the Single market’. Farage is still given a huge media platform, including his own radio show and he is rarely if ever pulled up on this in interviews but is instead allowed to spout his next change of position and what is his latest inconsistent manipulation of what the mandate is. This convenient ideological and contradictory positioning in serving ‘the cause’ is a conspicuous feature of fascism.       

What is more remarkable is that the EU negotiators have offered us a deal, the WA to negotiate ‘a deal’, the EU negotiators have understandably been a little cool on what that deal could be for a few reasons. Firstly, the UK has not made its intentions and position clear, there have been conflicting and contradictory noises coming from the UK Parliament and parties within it, none of whom have a majority. So, it is difficult to commit to anything outright when the UK has not decided what its position is and figures within the EU are suspicious of the motivations and intentions of the UK Government or some within it and our Parliament, and with good reason.

What is clear, however, is that the EU is willing to make a deal to any UK government who is willing to clearly state its position and make compromises, compromises which can only be reached through negotiations, which at the moment has not happened, the UK has not meaningfully entered into negotiations on a future relationship.

So, no deal would be a choice of the UK, to personify, it would not be the EU being unreasonable in some way. The EU has to look after the integrity of the Union and its members and not being a member, we can hardly demand the EU do everything that we want as a non-member. If no deal were to happen, that would be a choice of the UK, as the EU has been as reasonable and diplomatic as possible and as far as the UK has been concerned, it is a good job they have been.

No deal, however, was very much not what was proposed in 2016,to argue this is what was really proposed, this WTO Brexit, is rather opposed to the verifiable truth, reality and empirical evidence of what was actually proposed. Unless someone can provide all the literature, interviews, clips and articles of all of the Leave advocates arguing and proposing exclusively for no deal in 2016? Which would be an impossible task as that did not happen, so, this would be a denial of the truth of the arguments made in the referendum debate and the critical spirit.

However, disagreeing with this assertion about no deal has now become treasonous, that any kind of exit is acceptable when it is clearly not.

What, an exit where we are put on a war footing with France or the EU is acceptable? One that causes long term civil unrest is acceptable? An exit that just has to be reversed because of the ham-fisted or damaging way it is implemented for the UK and EU? One which creates dangerous amounts of instability in Europe or in the UK where demagogues, populists and fascists have free reign? That worked out so well last time. One which damages the prosperity and livelihoods of citizens of the UK and EU in the long term or irreversibly?

There are surely doubts those are acceptable to the majority of population here and in the EU member countries.

The WTO Brexit offers more things where evidence or the critical spirit is being simply ignored or suppressed. Any WTO or hard Brexit would require the implementation of border controls and tariffs, this by the mathematics of the percentages to be applied would make business more expensive and difficult in the UK, and, what is more, the executives of the WTO have stated this too. The WTO themselves have openly stated that it would be a less favourable economic position than the one we have now. Through doing this the WTO have been dismissed as traitors and trying to somehow damage Brexit by Brexiters live on television, so, even the organisation Brexiters want us to join have Brexit traitors in their ranks.

Economics is not everything of course but that is not how the economic arguments of Brexit were sold in 2016 and again, there is a huge amount of verifiable evidence to prove this beyond doubt. Brexit was sold along the lines of there will be no economic downsides at all or on rights, only benefits.

It is the equivalent of arguing that you knew all along that the people you supported in the debate, their rhetoric, literature and so forth or who you were voting for were not telling the truth at all. You knew all the time it would be really damaging for business and would make everything in the country more expensive but voted for it anyway, this would seem a stretch of credibility and the truth, to suggest that all those voting Leave, that all of them thought this in 2016.

This mind-set and acceptance of contrasting rhetoric, lying and deception is something Hannah Arendt noticed about totalitarian and fascist ideologies, with the blatant inconsistencies of message, meaning and bending of the truth; combined with the willingness of people to accept this on mass.

‘In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. … Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

A totalitarian government we may not have, yet, but when it comes to the arguments and rhetoric for Brexit by its advocates, this kind of mind-set and ability to present entirely inconsistent arguments, tell lies, and dismiss reality, the truth or what was said earlier is demonstrable in the evidence provided in this section. The willingness of millions to accept this state of affairs too.

Politicians have argued in all seriousness that is effectively what people voted for, this WTO or No deal Brexit, pro Brexit commentators and plenty of voices elsewhere the same. Though, this is just against what is provable as true in terms of earlier rhetoric, where it was all sunlit uplands, problem free and easy deals.  Those pointing out these earlier claims on Brexit have been dismissed as traitors or traitorous or antidemocratic, the critical spirit, this sign of modernism denied.

As alluded to already, who can forget Ian Duncan Smith arguing that he knew more about how the WTO operates, than a former head of the WTO, who he implied was being traitorous to the cause of Brexit for disagreeing with him. This is a kind of anti-knowledge or against a more scientific or fact based approach, as it is against the easily found evidence, which refutes the arguments made now, as being consistent with those made earlier on in the debate, especially in the referendum debate 2016.

Rather than be dismissed as risible nonsense or that the same people are now arguing the opposite of what they argued earlier, this has been indulged as consistent and now an indisputable position of what Brexit was all along. Making it now far too permissible for Brexiters to argue that anything is true regarding Brexit, including easily disprovable lies and including the very verifiable factual truth. That any counterargument can be dismissed as traitorous in some fashion, shutting down rational and evidence based debate, please read and reflect again on the Arendt quotation again.

A WTO Brexit would make everything more expensive because tariffs would have to be applied, that is a mathematical certainty. Unless, you are not going to apply the rules of the WTO, which would mean the notion of a WTO Brexit is a misnomer but not agreeing to the conventions of the WTO, the EU or International Law would have all sorts of implications for the nation. As you would be through your actions as a country making it clear that international agreements, treaties and laws of any kind are something the UK no longer respects at all. Which, would rather put the UK at odds with every other nation to a greater or lesser degree and that just cannot be a healthy position for any country to take, other than a country who has taken leave of their senses.

The disagreement about WTO or ‘no deal’ Brexit has not led through the debate of it to a way to improve knowledge or agree on an acceptable compromise position or make clear a position which would maintain an acceptable amount of compromises for both sides. Yet, one side claims legitimacy or authenticity on everything, Leave, and dismisses that of the other, agreement will be impossible to find if one side refuses to compromise but still any disagreement with Brexit is treason, this is the argument that is frequently put forward.         

Then this argument, this is what people voted for, this very spurious and questionable ‘will of the people’ has then been used to attack: The Rule of Law, Parliament, Education, experts, The Civil Service, politicians, the press, journalism, the media and democratic, societal and economic institutions in general.

Brexit is a revolutionary force and anything which does not agree with it, impedes it, scrutinises or questions it is traitorous or is in the way of the cause. The more disturbing aspect of this rhetoric and policy is its implications going forward; that there is no room in this space for doubt, nuance, sophistication or argument on issues which are clearly open to conjecture.

What are the conclusions of a politics where one side is convinced it is always right? Even when the facts and evidence prove them emphatically wrong and they can take whatever position or action they like or implement anything they see as necessary, as they can justify it on the grounds that they won a vote in the past which legitimises anything?

That Brexiters know ‘the will of the people’, is a fascistic device, and as documents have revealed in the very suspicious Yellowhammer and Black Swan reports. As far as our own government goes, apparently ‘the will of the people’ means setting up internment camps if necessary and placing the army on streets, ‘We will be setting up internment camps’ or ‘The army will be on the streets’  are slogans which did not make it on to the side of bus or were not placed in the Leave proposals in 2016. It is a struggle to see why, it would have been such a vote winner.

If Brexit can move from being ‘the best deal’ to ‘a deal’ to ‘a deal but entirely on our terms’ to ‘no deal whatsoever’ ‘ to WTO Brexit’ to ‘ not respecting WTO’ to ‘outright aggression to our nearest neighbours as countries’ let us not forget the threats to Spain over Gibraltar or the very blunt talk to France over Calais; then to internment camps or the army on the streets, to what next?

Where does that go? As what Brexit is, who is a true believer and what is justifiable as an action because of it, keeps moving and it keeps moving in a more extreme direction.     

Brexit fits this feature of fascism. If this kind of thinking is endorsed or given more or worse full licence: then the UK will not only be a danger to itself but the rest of Europe too.

5. Fear of difference ‘The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition’.

Any movement where a country wishes to isolate itself as a nation or become more ‘independent’ has a problem of some kind with people from other countries or those other countries themselves, that is the reality of taking that position.

To say that the rhetoric from Leave, UKIP (BNP in blazers), The Brexit Party and Brexiters is not racist is to deny reality. There are countless examples of racism and xenophobia from Leave, you only have to go quickly look on Google or go on social media to find it easily, quickly and there has been a lot of it. If people wish to pretend this is not the case or delude themselves this is not the reality of what has happened or is happening, they can, but it will simply not be the truth. Not every Leave voter is racist but there has been plenty of racism from Leave and Brexiters, that is factual.

When it comes to Brexit, the truth is racism and xenophobia has run through the whole thing, a look at our newspapers now and historically there are again, numerous and plentiful examples of racism, xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment. To say that there has not been, is easily disproved again by the overwhelming amounts of evidence, proving the truth and reality about racism and xenophobia.  

The irony being, Britain has been formed, like every other nation by intruders. This idea that intruders are to be feared is made risible by the reality that Britons are the ancestors of intruders and anyone who follows their family line back will find that there are people in it from other countries, either in the UK or from Europe or elsewhere and many times from only a few generations ago.

Our Head of State is of Norman and German descent, some of the earliest fossils of humans found at Cheddar Gorge showed that early Britons had black skin. When the Romans conquered England and Wales they recruited soldiers for the garrison here from elsewhere in The Roman Empire, rather than locals to prevent rebellion, the garrison here situated in Chester, had many centurions coming from Northern Africa. The soldiers were here for at least twenty years, which, is a long time to keep it in your pants. So, that would mean there would be children fathered in Briton, half African children and Romans did marry locals too. Then there are the influxes of tribes from Europe, The Angles and the Saxons and more recent immigration from The Commonwealth.

Then there is Farage complaining about people in this country speaking in a foreign language, forgetting that when The British Empire was in operation, we respected the language of other countries so much, that we forced them to speak our main language. Making Modern English, a language spoken first in a relatively small island in the Atlantic, the second most popular language in the world. Almost a billion not even living in this country speak it, but, apparently foreigners coming here have a problem with not accepting the culture, language and traditions of other countries. 

Why is this anti-immigration and race rhetoric so effective?

One of the reasons is economics. Those likely to be more Eurosceptic are those who are made to feel insecure or feel threatened or undermined or are in insecure work or are in a jobs market competing with immigrant or foreign labour. So, it would seem that many people would like some protection against their income, their employment security, better wages and conditions or regulation in the jobs market.

These are hardly unreasonable things to want, everyone wants security, stability and good working conditions, career opportunities, a reasonably comfortable life and so forth. That Brexit is the vehicle to achieve that or that those advocating for Brexit are trying to achieve this for the people in the population who feel this way, is very questionable, for the very reasons that beyond demagogic cries of greatness and appeals to the flag, there have been few to no concrete or credible proposals to resolve these kinds of issues. 

How you achieve all of those desired things in the employment of people throughout the country or in communities throughout the land would not be an easy task. It is achievable, but would take considerable planning, regulation, investment and continuous reassessment. This would, also, suggest this is more of a domestic political, societal and economical issue than one imposed from abroad.

The relations between employer and employee, about the nature of what society is and its economic or societal relations has been an antagonistic field for political philosophers and economists since the beginning of those disciplines.

Can a better society be achieved through Brexit or for the nation? First of all people in society have to want a better society and work situation for everyone, before that can be achieved and not all actors or agents in society have this intention or desire. It is doubtful that one of Nigel Farage’s objectives with Brexit is to help a landscape gardeners marketplace from Cumbria for instance.         

Furthermore, these societal and economic tensions and dynamics are unlikely to just disappear once the UK has left the EU, as they are age old, as it is in many a society or country and would take far reaching reforms, a wide debate about what as a society, economy or political body you are trying to achieve, just trying to exclude foreigners or immigrants will not resolve this.

Democracy, as has proven to be throughout history being open to damaging or manipulative demagogues, charlatans, ideologues, elite figures and vested interests when not built upon solid principles or purposes: would make this task more problematic too. As the very nature of democracy would have to be confronted and its ability to provide complex and sophisticated solutions to benefit all stakeholders within society, it would need to be redesigned, maybe even with a new citizen focused constitution of the UK.

How democracy and society is designed, how it is implemented and how democracy serves the population best was a bone of contention for soldiers fighting in The New Model Army in The English Civil War, they were nicknamed The English Levellers.

They argued for the public good principle of democracy, that democracy should always serve the whole citizenry whoever was in power, with proof too. They argued for a democracy that served the whole population and future generations in the best ways possible with proper far reaching rule of law applying to all and with evidence based policies that could be tried in court if necessary, four hundred years ago at The Putney Debates 1647, almost three hundred years before full manhood suffrage arrived in the UK in 1918.

If democracy had achieved or was with clear evidence and justification achieving those ends of serving the whole population, all stakeholders in it and future generations in the best possible way, then there just not would be the division that there is in the country or other countries under democratic rule too and there would be no Brexit.  

As politicians by design would be made to serve the betterment of society and citizens, all of them, all of the demos, The Levellers argued for a people first democracy and saw the rule of law as a way to achieve this, not serve 17.4 million people but the whole population. Yes, that might be complex and difficult to accomplish but making society better through increments, reason, and rational argument with evidence which can be challenged, sounds a lot better than what a majority might be persuaded is right at one moment in time through demagoguery or the tyranny of the majority.   

The design or problems with democracy in how it best serves society was something argued about before The Levellers. It has been since The Ancient Greeks when democracy was born,  some philosophers then and others who lived in those first democracies argued about the shortcomings of democracy as a political system.

That in a democracy deceit, self-interest, facile ideas, manipulative rhetoric, sophistry, damaging policies, superficiality, irrationality, charm, the elites or corrosive policies in terms of the long term health of society or facile solutions or counterproductive proposals for the stability of it; they can win out at the ballot box over what is rational, evidence based or those arguments, which are supported by sound reasoning, having more noble, inclusive, long term or sustainable principles at their heart: with the welfare, stability, sustainability and health of all and future stakeholders in mind for society as the key determining guides of policy and action.

Which, is why still in many ways democracy can be dysfunctional, because it is open to corruption and manipulation, it always has been and will remain so unless it is designed to serve better and to no longer be prone to these shortcomings.

There is though little evidence Brexit will resolve these ancient problems or deal with these economic or societal relations around employment.  The Greek philosophers doubted the ability of democracy as a political system to deliver a better society and the first English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued the same too. They thought that authority should be found in wisdom and essentially those more suited or trained to lead and take decisions for a society, the ability of democracy to have the authority and facility to deliver on the challenges, economic, employment or otherwise societies face, is still in question today, as it was back then.

If democracy could so readily resolve issues in society, then why are so many people frustrated, angry and disappointed by it or feel constrained or disappointed by the society it has delivered, with the inaction on so many things for the health and long term or sustainability of society or communities and the country?    

That does not mean Democracy has not delivered on many beneficial and societally good things, it has and on a lot of things in spades, but the notion that corruption, the dysfunctional or manipulation will disappear post Brexit or in democracy in general without more serious reform, is naive. Or, that with Brexit everything in your line of work or community will magically be resolved, it will not be.

These problems are thousands of years old, not that these questions or problems do not have solutions or cannot be confronted for the best of society, they can, but the idea one vote in 2016 will resolve them, this is magical thinking of preposterously large proportions. This makes a nonsense of the idea, that through just excluding foreigners somehow society regarding employment and better conditions in that, will be fixed in a panacea moment called Brexit.

The debate, to make the point further on Brexit, has not really been about what is best for society or the economy in this regard. This is bizarre, because if you are to remove yourself from ‘the monolith’ of the EU, surely, there must be some more solid details, ideas, proposals or policies for how things will be improved for the whole population and society?

That would be the rational or logical reason for doing it and if it were then fewer would object. Detail or thorough proposals, have been mostly non-existent or vague from Leave, the Government and many others so far and from all colours in Parliament, this being the case, many people are left either suspicious or mystified.  

Still, the EU and foreigners have been blamed for these domestic societal, economic and political shortcomings, creating another us and them narrative,  blaming foreigners going forward will not provide the necessary solutions for society and employment either.

It fits the features of fascism here and again leaves you asking:  where does the blaming of foreigners or certain groups in the country for domestic problems narrative end? What are the conclusions of that line of thinking?

There are some pretty ugly suggestions that could easily be made of what that mind set could result in. There are plenty of ugly historical examples where a nation thought itself better than the rest and deserved special status or certain groups within a society were to blame for everything, or, another country or countries were blamed for the problems in your own country and used as justification for regrettable, vicious and malicious courses of action.       

6. Appeal to Social Frustration ‘One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups’.

Political humiliation has played a large part in the Brexit debate, this has been largely around the idea of sovereignty and laws. That sovereignty and power had been seceded to Brussels and we were being run from Brussels as a country and all of our laws were being made there.

At the extreme end of this argument is the idea that the EU is a dictatorship which was set up by Hitler, so that Germany could rule over Europe in some sort of Reich. Some claiming he made plans for the EU in his last days in the bunker, that effectively one person had made the EU a reality and designed everything and they are serious, people genuinely believe this and other paranoid fantasies such as the EU being a communist state or superstate which is controlling everything in Europe, including the budgets and politics of member states and through voting for Brexit we are going to extricate ourselves from this ‘dictatorship’, totalitarianism or tyranny.

Now, normally you cannot propose leaving a dictatorship by a letter, or, have a vote at all in one other than for one party or the regime. Nor do you vote to ask to be in one in the first place and there are no such things as oppositions in dictatorships and they tend to violently oppress their dissenting, dissident citizens and be in military conflict or stand offs with other military powers. It would seem unlikely the majority of the population would have not noticed that one person Hitler had been in control of the setting up of the EU all this time or that they had been under communist rule for four decades and these other key features of dictatorships, notably the violence and war, are conspicuously absent. Which would make these kinds of notions and arguments, even at the less extreme end of this kind of irrationality: unverifiable, delusional, fantastical and paranoid.

The humiliation of having law imposed on us from abroad is a curious one. Firstly, people do not seem to understand the principle of the law. The law is a way normally of protecting the liberty of people, individuals, their property, business, safety or how people operate in the world. It can be punitive, sometimes oppressive or biased but it is amorphous in that it can be repealed, adjusted and removed if it is an impediment but it is usually there to protect someone or something, for example food and health standards, the environment, physical safety or property. Possibly explaining why when Brexiters are quizzed, they cannot name a law passed by the EU which is damaging to their actual liberty or everyday life.

The rule of law enforced properly protects and serves against corruption, irregularities, criminal or fraudulent behaviour. It is an invisible but powerful shield to protect citizens and their lives and it really is not important who devises the law but the qualities and effectiveness of that law and how the law serves, if there were so many egregious laws imposed on the UK by Brussels then why cannot anyone name them?

Laws are, also, not as often as important as policy in determining your society. Policy will determine the kind of society you have more than laws and that is determined politically at a government level.

Fears of a risky economic future were, also, part of the Leave rhetoric and propaganda. That it was riskier to stay in the EU as this would damage the long term prospects of families and the next generations, as the EU was failing.

Average household incomes have been in decline in the UK for decades that is a statistical reality. Correlation, however, is not causation, just because we have been members of the EU in that time has not been the only cause of that. The UK has followed a similar path to other ‘Western’ countries in this regard, this may have fuelled discontent, but placing the EU on the hook for this is a distraction and is an obscuring of the other factors involved.

This has made this narrative an easy one to sell because it blames the EU for this economic and societal ill. It rather ignores the actions of domestic government policy regarding employment, economics and the marketplace, it ignores the actions and responsibilities of companies, shareholders, corporations, the regulations and policies influenced by them or that there are many influences on this reality, including technological advancement.

Brexit has been cast as some sort of saviour against these complex and difficult problems, Brexit will bestow economic freedoms that are now somehow prevented by membership of the EU. This is a bizarre argument, considering the first call after Brexit from a leading Brexit advocate Liam Fox after the result came in, was to ‘deregulate’ the employment market. This is code for stripping away worker rights, conditions and employment status protections: the very opposite of a better more secure economic future for the population.     

Another threat to jobs and security identified in Leave rhetoric has been the wage and conditions undercutting immigrants, coming over here to take away the prospects and livelihoods of ‘British’ people. Although, the reality of the situation with immigration is that our economy and society is dependent on immigration, in all sectors from top to bottom of the employment scale and in all areas of our society.

This is because of a number of factors: skills shortages, an ageing population, lower birth rates and the difficulty recruiting ‘British’ labour into certain jobs. Immigrants or a better term for them, human beings, provide essential services of all kinds to our country and if they decide to commit to this country, they should be considered full citizens. Unless, we are only going to value certain peoples contributions to society over others or wish to treat what is a large section of our society or citizens as some sort of servant class and not see them as equals.

There is no evidence that low skill immigrant labour lowers pay and conditions for domestic workers. There is plenty of evidence immigration benefits our society and there is little to no evidence immigration is the main determining factor in workplace conditions, pay or regulation.

There are more stringent measures the UK Government could take on immigration as a member of the EU and against non EU nationals but they have not and the reason why is that they know immigrant labour is essential for the success of our society and economy. Anyone telling you different is lying and if immigrant labour were removed, our society would quickly collapse.

The UK is not alone as a nation that requires immigrant labour to sustain itself, the USA, Germany and Italy require it too for similar reasons. This argument that immigrants arriving from other countries determine wages or the marketplace for employment, conditions or working rights on arrival into the country is simply not true, it is determined by a combination of the governments of the sovereign member nations themselves, private interests, corporations, enterprises and companies.

If you think it is the other way around and immigrants determine those wage levels and conditions. Then try going to another member state using freedom of movement and see how far you get as an immigrant worker demanding how the pay and conditions you want in entry level or lower to mid-level employment positions, should be exclusively on your terms.  

The middle classes were presented as being under threat in these ways, when the forces that are the biggest threat to the employment status of workers or marketplaces or are determining these things, are not the EU. In fact, the EU could well be a solution to ensuring an amount of protection and regulation for workers and citizens against the economic and political forces who are threatening and damaging them; with the potential ability of the EU to be able to determine the rules of employment within the Single market or better regulation for workers.

Or, do you think Amazon and the like would be better at deciding how employment works, what with all the votes you have for how they or similar powerful agencies or corporations in our society operate? 

This fear of a future where your community or your family was going to be disempowered and a faceless bureaucracy on the mainland was going to determine their future, was definitely part of the narrative of ‘taking back control’. This vote meant that somehow, through this one vote, you, your family and community would be represented and served better.

A future you were excluded from in the EU, and a future you were included in, after Brexit, a powerful emotive sell, as social exclusion is something no one wants to have happen to them, that Brexit will resolve this is facile and those selling that notion are being disingenuous.

It is not unfair to argue that many a politician make promises and pledges of golden futures, change and new beginnings. The challenge voters and politics in general faces are the dilemmas or problems of who is telling the truth and who is not, who or what is authentic in their proposals? Who really has the real and genuine interests of the society, future societies and the nation at heart and who does not? Who is legitimate and who is faking legitimacy to serve special or certain interests?  This has been a problem in democracies and politics since forever and is one that is unlikely to be resolved through Brexit alone.  

So, yes, the rhetoric of Leave meets this feature too, as the middle classes have been threatened, with the EU as the threat to their circumstances now and in the future, when that is simply not the whole truth, many Brexit advocates, very much know this too. 

This has formed a powerful aspect of the propaganda campaign for Brexit. Exaggerate or create a whole series of problems that are then attributed to the EU, then when the ballot emerges, Leave has a far better chance of winning, as ridding the country of the EU will resolve all of these menaces and problems in the minds of many of the electorate. Even though the overwhelming majority of them are entirely fake, spurious and exaggerated in order to create a bogeyman in the consciousness of people that needs to be dealt with. This is a very effective method of manipulation and propaganda but it is empty in terms of real solutions for our society or proposals to genuine concerns and totally ignores the other economic, societal and political forces causing this situation, which will still be there post Brexit.   

7. The Obsession with a plot, “the followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot of the appeal to xenophobia”.

The federalisation of Europe is an example of the obsession with a plot. There are clearly those in Europe who support federalisation but it is not a foregone conclusion. Winston Churchill proposed federalisation in his ‘United States of Europe’ speech and in the Treaty of Rome: the very first line proposes ever closer union. So, it would seem that if there is some sort of plot it is hardly hidden, it has been conspicuous as a proposal from the very start of what was always a political union.

The likelihood of federalisation is very slim at the moment as veto and domestic politics would more than likely prevent it from happening, as every member state would have to agree to it at once which is extremely unlikely. What seems to be missing from this debate is the discussion of the merits and demerits of federalisation or ever closer political union. There are reasons to suggest there would be fewer representations for the citizens of Europe but if it is formalised in the right way, it could be argued that it could be more representative and better at implementing far reaching and citizen enhancing reforms, services and policies.

A case could be made either way but that the case should be dismissed on the grounds of fear and not rational, meticulous, properly considered and well-argued proposals, that can hardly be considered the mature response.  

This was how it was presented in the debate though, as a great threat to freedoms and something to be feared. None more so than a piece of social media propaganda about The Lisbon Treaty listing a whole series of terrible things to be feared that will happen when the treaty comes into full effect and that is why we had to get out of the EU quick; the treaty has though been in full effect for years, ever since it was ratified in 2009, now a decade.

A key message in this piece of propaganda and elsewhere was that the power of member state veto was going to be removed. This rather ignores again the reality that every member state would have to agree to remove the power of veto at the same time. This is extremely unlikely, but it plays into this idea of a plot to remove controls from the UK government and by extension citizens and that laws dreamt up in Brussels would be imposed on the UK, there would be no say from citizens or the UK government whatsoever.

However, thinking these things through logically or critically, would not these laws devised in Brussels apply everywhere in the EU? What are the chances of the long term sustainability of the EU if it brings in endless oppressive, stifling and limiting laws on individual member states? Which are designed to hinder those societies or certain countries or benefit other countries? Rather quickly it would be easy to imagine the power of veto would be reinstalled at least, or those parties or governments would be voted out of power with repealing and reforming movements.

Why would an institution designed to serve citizens in the best way possible, do this huge disservice and injustice to the citizens of Europe or members? How could they expect the union to be stable or sustainable?  Also, if it became clear any one nation was dominating too much in any new set up, the majority of the rest of Europe in terms of numbers would act as a clear check on that power.

Other examples of this are the plot of Franco-German control or outright German control of the EU. That the EU is predominately run for the benefit of the French and the Germans; well that surely cannot be for all German and French citizens because like other countries and member states there are clear internal tensions and problems with dissenting political parties, protesting citizens and so forth. There is evidence to suggest France and Germany has had a lot of influence, especially earlier on, but so does or did the UK.

It is series of historical facts that the UK has been a key architect in terms of the current design and institutions of the EU, especially the Single market, Freedom of Movement, the trade negotiations and treaties, expanding membership, the laws and legalities framework of the EU. If there is a plot in the EU, then the UK has been a big part of it and a huge conspirator. There have been nationalist movements and protests against Maastricht for instance in other member states, yet the majority of member states have remained loyal and membership has grown, this rather suggests that it benefits those nations who join or who are members mostly, otherwise surely the organisation would have folded and collapsed by now?

Appeals to xenophobia, there have been many and numerous appeals to xenophobia, the obvious one again being immigration, which formed a huge part of The Referendum debate and rhetoric. So much so that many voters saw it as a referendum on immigration and not just immigrants from the European Union, with some people thinking a vote to Leave would stop immigration or make people leave and even make people in Muslim communities or originating from Islamic nations or elsewhere in the world including former Commonwealth nations, any foreigner or perceived foreigner whatsoever, to be dealt with somehow. That they would be made to leave the country, even though there is not an Islamic, African, American or Asian nation in the EU.

There is a rather laughable irony about Britain voting to keep foreigners out, to stop them from coming over here and making the place theirs, The British Empire?

Whatever you think of The British Empire and its achievements, one thing that can definitely not be said to be true about it is that the countries that formed the empire had a vote to decide that Britain should come and rule the country, take their resources, artefacts, make them speak our language and so forth. That definitely did not happen. The notion that it is an outrage that people from elsewhere in the world should come here to live, could easily be seen as joke by a great many people; roughly about a third of the world if you look at the old maps, who were once members of the empire.

Immigration was a major issue in the rhetoric, imagery and arguments of Leave, especially, this idea that immigration was out of control and there were no choices that could be made about it.  A lot of politicians in western countries are not being entirely honest about this, our societies and nations are dependent on immigration at all levels of the economy and society. Demagogues and populists will use anti-immigrant rhetoric but again the actual evidence and reality is that we are dependent on immigration. Many in the UK do not seem to have any issues with anyone in the UK wanting to live elsewhere in the world as well, which is part of the whole questionable double standards on immigration in this argument on Brexit.     

Then there was the propaganda that Turkey was about to join the EU and there was nothing that could be done about it. Turkey was about to join, with the infamous map showing the adjacent countries of Iraq, Iran and Syria, suggesting that millions of Turks and other refugees or immigrants would pour into the UK from The Middle East using up all the services, taking jobs from British people and the clear inference they would bring terrorism or violence with them or turn the UK into part of a caliphate within months.

This was obviously playing into the paranoid great replacement theory, which, seems to be a favourite among many right wing groups, that Muslims will replace everyone in Europe by stealth and through some conspiracy to do so.  Something you would not need to worry about if you were a westerner, got married, had plenty of children and provided for them, whilst simultaneously assisting in supporting and developing a flourishing citizenry, but no. More aggressive exclusionary tactics with more military and oppressive measures seem to be the more dominant proposals of how to confront this imagined problem from these right wing groups.   

There was a clear rhetoric of xenophobia and fear throughout the Brexit debate. That we would be governed by foreigners, speaking in languages we do not understand, imposing laws on us we have no say over and the doors to the country would be forced open to an invasion of foreigners that was completely unstoppable and out of control, especially people from the Middle East and that through voting Leave, this would all be stopped.

All of this is not true and it is a paranoid fantasy to believe it, but it is very effective as propaganda, even though immigration from other countries post Brexit will continue, that is the reality of the situation. Despite the appeals to xenophobia, insularity, fear and some sort of plot here, the rest of the world with all of its diversity will still be there post Brexit.  

This narrative inexplicably ignoring too that in recent history the UK invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in the Middle East, bombed Libya, alongside other Middle Eastern interference and meddling in The Yemen for instance. This would be called an unacceptable outrage were that interference and meddling to be the other way around, so, there are further standards issues here.   

The easy justification or attitude that it is okay for the UK to invade where it sees fit militarily, in more recent times and historically is fascistic, as is the xenophobia and obsession with plots from the continent or elsewhere around the world, it meets this feature easily.

8. The enemy is both strong and weak ‘By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak’

The enemy is too weak has been spun as a narrative throughout the Brexit saga regarding the EU. This has been largely about the EU’s imminent collapse, this would be caused by Brexit but other economic factors such as the Euro collapsing as a currency, this would lead to the collapse of the Eurozone because of an economic crash, as there would effectively be a run on the Euro, damaging the economy on the continent beyond repair.

This was spun and propagandized as a reason that people should vote Leave. As the UK would have to bailout the Eurozone because the whole of mainland Europe is really weak, they cannot survive without the UK and they will not survive anyway because they are pathetic and there is an inevitable crisis which will lead to the destruction of the EU. The UK will have to pay the bill for it, the whole EU, or sort it out, as the Eurozone is just an accident waiting to happen, it is a liability, the institution and member countries are fundamentally weak.  

Will there be a crisis? There are arguments and theories that have credence there will be a crisis because of the restrictive measures on deficits placed on Eurozone members by The Maastricht Treaty leading to the collapse of the Euro. There are, however, theories there will be a sovereign debt fund crisis with The Dollar, a debt crisis in China because of the Yuan, a whole range of currencies caused by a variety of reasons and fiat currencies in general will collapse.

Guess what, The Maastricht Treaty can be repealed, currencies and economies can crash or boom, regardless of membership. The notion that the UK would be unaffected by a crash of the Eurozone as a number of voices in Leave have suggested, or one in China or the USA is an absurd one, which, just does not stand up to any kind of evidence or rational analysis. In the three years, approaching four since the vote, there has been economic turmoil in member states but the Eurozone has not collapsed. There have been internal struggles inside member states but resolve and commitment to the EU and the Eurozone has prevailed. The Euro could go into crisis but so could other big economies and the damage in a very integrated world would be felt in other countries and including ours, this is a non-argument: of course there will be economic problems in the future.

The EU has been portrayed as weak in that it cannot resolve the crisis of individual nation member states or turmoil in the Eurozone, especially on matters like unemployment. Unemployment and underemployment is unacceptably high in many countries but to pin that on the EU is unfair and is just not true as the main cause or solution.  

There are all sorts of factors involved in causing unemployment, technological, economical, societal and political too. Less employment is encouraged and fostered in a lot of enterprises or agents in our society, as it either increases costs or decreases profits, so, there are powerful agents in our societies who have actively desired to create unemployment.

What you do about this employment, unemployment and underemployment problem is an antagonistic field in economic, political and philosophical theory and has been since the beginning of those subjects. How do we best employ people in society, what are the best roles for citizens in society, what should be the form and structure of society and the economy?  This is the very stuff of political theory, political philosophy and ideologies.

Resolving unemployment and underemployment would take a huge commitment as a society or societies to resolve them, some people however within society, do not wish that endeavour to happen. As there may be detrimental or perceived detrimental consequences for them, reactionary figures or movements and elite figures, many of whom are very powerful, rail against these notions of change, as they see those sorts of proposals, theories or arguments as a threat to their wealth, power or status.

A citizenry who are secure in employment, who know there will be enough economic security, opportunities and there are plans for investment to provide for society, that society would be far less malleable and controllable after all, far less open to irrational and evidence free proposals about brighter or golden futures. As they would effectively be in a good society already, in which they are largely provided for.

Are those things possible? A high investment, high opportunity, secure and stable society where everyone is provided for as best as possible with better freedoms, rights and protections with a sustainable economy or society?

Yes they are, but first of all as a society everyone has to want it and there are powerful and influential forces within all member states, who actively do not want that to happen and there are many citizens who can be persuaded they should be fearful of any change to the status quo too, or, any or certain reforms of society, economics or politics, because they can be convinced it will damage them as well: when that may not necessarily be the case.   

Could the EU assist in creating a different kind of employment, societal, political or economic model? Well it would not be democratic if that is what all of the member states wanted and they guided policy through The Council. Although, perhaps all member states could begin at looking a bit closer to home first about its designs and wishes regarding employment, economics and society.

The EU is too strong has been another narrative, it is a huge protectionist monolith which is crushing African countries and weaker member states such as the PIGS, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. There are truths in this narrative and the treatment of Greece in particular could not be considered to be the greatest moment in the history of the EU. What tends to be ignored, however, is that bailout money for Greece has not gone to The Greeks.  It has gone to North American and Northern European Banks, who lent recklessly throughout southern Europe or the Irish or other banks who did reckless things too. The EU does not set the regulations on financial activities of member states, if they did and regulations everywhere were the same, this may remove the clear fraud and dodgy banking practices which are and have been evident within that sector.

The strange issue with Brexiters and double standards emerges again with African countries. Many wishing us to be proud of The British Empire which involved the plunder of African countries; something arguably that is just as bad and in some cases worse in the postcolonial era, but at the same time they want us to protect and promote African nations and their economies, but do not see any hypocrisy or conflicting attitudes or are happy in the reality of their lives to accept this exploitation and even more bizarrely think Brexit will sort things out in Africa. Or, that the EU not allowing a favourable market for farm producers from Africa, which is not true, is somehow worse than something like The Slave Trade of earlier centuries.        

The argument about protection is a strange one too because that is the whole idea behind the EU: to join together to act as a strong unified force against the other larger nations and economic or political forces of the world.  Every country wants an amount of protection or are we expecting after Brexit, workers here to accept the same pay and conditions as employees in Bangladesh or India or China? Are UK citizens in a totally open market going to work mostly for the benefit and profits of people from other countries? This is a difficult mentality to understand or promote this removal of all protections, unless somehow you will be a beneficiary from it. Why would you not as a government want to protect your own citizens?

The UK has benefited from this protectionism as an economy and if the EU is some sort of economic monster, through its involvement in the design of The Single Market and its key role in trade deals, the UK and successive governments here have made this economic monster, a monster we asked to join and then through our very actions, made more ferocious.

Then there have been narratives about The Commission holding too much power. The Commission, however, is only acting at the behest of The Council and The Parliament, who are all elected. Should the working of The Council and Commission be more transparent with clearer directions and objectives or better at making itself more transparent of what it is trying to achieve? If it wishes to be a better and more authentic and honest organisation, how can it not want those things?

Members and citizens have to want that transparency too and demand just what it is they want from the EU but the EU like any Parliament suffers from competing ideas, ideologies, solutions and parties. The same sort of problems with democracy and society recognised by the first known political thinkers, throughout political thought and civilisation.

These paranoid arguments that the Commission which is unelected, like our own Civil Service, is making all the decisions in the EU, is just not provable in reality, this is against what is evidentially true. It is simply not real.

Another example of this kind of strong and weak rhetoric is The EU Army and NATO. On the weak side, the narrative has been that the EU has not kept peace amongst the major nations of Europe and on the European continent.  It has been NATO which has kept peace in Europe because the EU could not do that because it is too weak and ineffective to provide peace,  we have instead needed the protection of the USA.

People from within Leave like to credit NATO with keeping peace in Europe but this rather ignores that NATO was set up to deal with the threat of the Soviets, Soviet Russia and now Russia, not warring nations in Europe. It, also, ignores the reality that throughout the whole era of The Cold War, at no point was Russia about to invade Western Europe. As the USSR as it was then, not only did not have the capability: it did not have the desire, the threat Russia posed often being exaggerated to make big military cheques be signed in the USA and in the nations of Co-Signatories of NATO, similar to a protection racket.

The weaknesses of the Soviet states as a political, economic and military force were exposed in their collapse over thirty years ago, with many former soviet states becoming members of the EU and all the more prosperous and stable for it. Those countries entry into the EU championed by the likes of Margaret Thatcher, who, has strangely been appropriated to the side of Leave.

Although, far from being perfect as an organisation, the EU is somewhat of a beacon and success story for close international cooperation at a political, economic and societal level. Its remit was to create peace and stability on the continent, it has been successful, this is a clear reason why other powerful forces in the world wish to place it under attack.

A successful international organisation where there is cooperation, the rule of law, shared rights, power and values rather threatens the status quo of other nations, actors and agents within those nations and other powerful figures or organisations in the world. The EU has been far more successful and effective than the UN or NATO as an international organisation in terms of keeping peace, creating stability, prosperity and is a good example of where pooling resources and international cooperation could lead. With the threats and challenges facing humanity, the biosphere, and other species too, this would seem the rational and evidence based road for humanity to go down, more close cooperation to deal with global problems, with global governance and rule of law.

Considering the history of Europe, that the EU has prevented a war between major nations, even really a standoff or military mobilisation of any kind whatsoever for over seventy years is remarkable. To dismiss this achievement as solely down to NATO, an organisation whose whole raison d’etre was to deal with the threat, real or imagined of Russia and the soviets, is simply not true.

Especially, when the architects behind the EU and us joining were often veterans or victims of the Second World War and desired through its design and through integration and cooperation to prevent major conflicts happening ever again in Europe, any major conflict anywhere. This included Winston Churchill, another figure who has been misappropriated to Leave. To suggest it was all NATO is a huge insult to the legacy of those who set the EU up and those in the war generations who wished to see an end to war on the scale they experienced in Europe previously.         

Despite this weakness of supposedly needing NATO to provide peace, the EU is now, according to Brexiters, about to set up an EU Army. According to voices and propaganda in Leave, young people in this country will be conscripted into the EU Army and our military will be taken over by the EU because it is so strong, the EU will do as they see fit in terms of fighting wars with the young of our nation.

Our own high ranking military officials have dismissed this proposal as non-existent but it is absurd on all sorts of levels. The first being the EU is an organisation committed and designed to promote peaceful cooperation between nations. Then there is the reality that all nations have the power of veto and the idea that this would just easily pass though the parliaments of all member nations throughout Europe. That their citizens could be conscripted into an EU Army and have their military operations and command just handed over, this is very much at odds with reality.

Although, perhaps the most important thing is, just who are they going to fight? And, why on Earth do people in the UK think that everyone else in all of the other member state countries would be just fine and absolutely support their children being conscripted into an EU Army or fighting force to be blown to pieces? Of course they would not but few in Leave have asked themselves that question and assume people on the continent would absolutely, totally and unconditionally accept and encourage that their children be smashed to bits for the EU, there are serious reality issues with this assumption.

There is a case to suggest that with an increasingly unstable USA and Russia, fraught relations with China and the USA. That Europe needs to look at options other than NATO which is clearly dominated by the USA, who are not cooperating as a nation on the international stage and are taking more of a confrontational and adversarial foreign policy approach or one that is mystifying, manipulative or contradictory. With both Russia and the USA taking too much of an overbearing influence in politics in the EU and other nations around the world, there is a case to say that relying on previous alliances, organisations and allies is perhaps not sound strategical thinking and geopolitical positioning. 

The EU and NATO members reviewing their options here diplomatically or in terms of the geopolitical realpolitik, is something that should at least be considered and which may actually lead to a better situation for all stakeholders, as countries reappraise their position on the world stage.   

The idea, however, that the EU is about to create a military force to begin some sort of military campaign or war to directly confront and challenge  powers in a military sense:  is like in all seriousness arguing that the EU wants to begin World War Three, with the military weaponry and technology available, not only would this be suicidal for Europe but the rest of the world too.

Though the most risible ridiculous notion is people thinking that the EU would be able to keep a proposal, desire or design to do this a secret, this is a delusional and paranoid fantasy, worthy only of the world of fiction.  That the EU has that power or the will to become an aggressive and confrontational military force is just made up nonsense, this is a fantasy world. The EU is an organisation designed for peaceful cooperation.  

To return to Arendt again, this is the kind of rhetoric she noticed about fascist regimes “The most striking difference between ancient and modern sophists is that the ancients were satisfied with a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth, whereas the moderns want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality”, which fits this creation of fantasy narratives about threats well, the possible achievements of Brexit and the many untruths or fantasies surrounding it too.

The rhetoric of the EU being strong and weak is there and so Brexit fits this feature too.  

9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. ‘For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle’

Nigel Farage before the result of the 2016 Referendum described the fight to Leave the EU as ‘a war’, he, also, pledged to pick up a rifle to fight the EU. He has made references to World War Two, wanting to be part of D- DAY landings and The Allied effort against Germany he has used on US television as a justification for Brexit and a US trade deal.

There has been endless rhetoric from Leave about the World Wars, which were rather ironically, where The Allies fought against fascism; there has been the rhetoric of war ‘a war cabinet’, ‘collaborators’ ,‘infiltrators’, ‘enemies’ and so forth. The EU has been described as The Fourth Reich ‘Junker in his bunker’ from Mark Francois, another person who has referenced the Second World War and the military. There have been calls from within Leave for an increase in militarization in the country by Government ministers like Gavin Williamson and being in the EU has been seen as being pacifist and trafficking with the enemy, the Germans.

Even though we have had a German or German descent Head of State for hundreds of years, a lot of the population are descended from Germanic tribes and elements of our language are German.

There has been much jingoism about the war, references and disputes over whether Churchill would support Leave or Remain. Leave claiming that a man who made one of his most famous speeches about ‘We need to build a United States of Europe’ would definitely be one hundred percent for Brexit, which is an isolationist and increasingly antagonistic nationalistic move, this is a credibility stretch of a remarkable distance. There has though, been plenty of the lexicon of war and referencing of war in this whole debate, as if this whole EU thing is trafficking with the enemy and pacifist and through being part of it, the Germans have won some sort of war by stealth or through selling cars.  

The rhetoric of war and lingering on divisions of long gone regrettable historical events is potentially very dangerous and the rhetoric of it often is revisionist historically, dealing in myths and shameless propaganda, rather than what really happened.

What is one bewildering aspect of it, it is gone, why the desire to linger on the war? The wars have been fought and a prosperous and healthy protected peace is far more agreeable. Anyone preferring, hankering or nostalgic for war is a danger to our society and other societies too, could the protracted peace we enjoy now be better for more people? Of course it could be, but taking an aggressive stance or dwelling on or wishing to celebrate war is an irresponsible, perilous and shameful position to take.

Although, using the lexicon of warfare does somewhat begin the process of people, psychologically speaking, accepting that there will have to be casualties.  

It is especially irresponsible to celebrate The Second World War, which has obtained a sort of glamour or mystique since it ended. That the deaths of tens of millions in the biggest human conflict of all time should be thought of in this way is to forget the key lessons of The Second World War.

The most important lessons being that ordinary men from villages, towns and cities from different parts of the world, in a relatively short amount of time through the promotion of myths, propaganda and nationalism: could be turned into mass murdering, raping and torturing machines. Through the dehumanisation of others, racism and most dangerously, through being given the sheer licence, indulgence and consent to commit acts of extreme violence, then the world witnessed the slaughter and suffering of tens of millions.   

Violence, which a frighteningly large amount of servicemen enjoyed carrying out, soldiers and servicemen on all sides of the conflict and this is what terrified world leaders and many citizens the world over. These are the forgotten lessons, hidden in post war propaganda, dramatizations, fictions and this dangerous mystique that has created a kind of soft glow or focus on what really happened.

Now, some may like or fantasise about the idea of fighting in a war and the conditions where extreme violence are acceptable, that would be right up until it is visited on them or their family, community or country. When the mass murderers, rapists and torturers turn up on their doorstep; that is when their thoughts on outright violence will change and they will want protections.

In many ways that is what the EU is protecting against, our worst natures and the violence of man. That is why people crave, create and desire peace and stability, as the biggest threat to civilisation is always barbarism and all of the worst aspects of human behaviour which civil society and its institutions protect against. That is why we build political, civil and societal institutions governed by the rule of law because humans need to curb the excesses of what they are capable of in order for decent societies to survive and sustain, we build them to protect and to prevent wanton terrible violence, malice and excessive cruelty.

As The Second World War proved beyond doubt, men and women can be made monsters in short order, including extremely intelligent engineers and scientists: all societies need protection against those looking to exploit or solicit this viciousness.

It is extreme to suggest that war or conflict or the extremities of World War Two is the intentional design of Leave and Brexit but Brexit would bring us into conflict with the EU on trade. That will happen if Brexit happens, not just members of the EU but other countries too, are Leave or figures within it effectively beginning a confrontation on trade with the EU? Or, trying to manipulate one between Britain with notably one of our Allies, who have powerful figures within the country making very open declarations of support for Britain, who were involved with the Brexit campaigning too, the USA?

There are many links between Brexit advocates and the US, especially corporate and oligarchical figures and power. From The Atlantic Bridge with Liam Fox, Danial Hannan and US think tanks including ones run by The Koch Brothers in the Cato Institute; to Farage, Bannon, Mercer and Trump. Are Brexiters trying to cause open antagonism between Britain and the EU or other nations in Europe with some powerful elite figures in the US, To cause a trade conflict with the EU, disturbing the peace and security of Europe? Russian elites too?

Reading Machiavelli, Brexit does seem to be about power. Largely economic power in this regard, but the history books show many examples of trade wars developing into full scale wars. Is it ridiculous to think war could break out in Europe again? That should never be a ridiculous question to ask. Of course things can always get worse and of course things can slip into awfulness, nations should never be complacent and guard against all kinds of demagoguery and fascism, other threats too, if those nations wish to maintain peace, security and stability, no one should be complacent.

No matter what happens with Brexit it is going to and already has caused instability, insecurity and is attacking the peace of the UK and why would anyone want those things to happen? Why would anyone desire that as a state of affairs, yet that is what has happened, why would anyone want an unnecessary struggle in Europe or between the UK and other nations? That is what Leave and Brexit has done. It has created internal struggles between the nations within the union of the UK and between the UK and the EU, and, with the government and those in Brexit choosing to no deal or effectively no deal and fly in the face of the EU. The UK is the one initiating and causing that struggle, not the EU.  

The proposed positioning of the UK on trade and economics would be at least mildly aggressive. Leaving the customs union would mean a customs barrier between the UK and the EU, similarly a divergence on regulatory standards would mean further checks and hostility or at the very least antagonisms and difficulties between the UK and the EU. At the thin end of the wedge it is going to mean constant spats or renegotiations, at the fat end of the wedge a complete regulatory and trade aggression. As the UK looks to set up entirely different regulatory standards, divergence and position itself with the USA, with the USA and the UK taking a more openly confrontational stance against the EU as an economic, legal and political force: with a supporting role from Russia.

Both Russia and the USA would benefit in terms of geopolitical power from a destabilised and diminished EU, which explains the clear involvement in it from powerful figures in both of those nations.

In simple terms if we are not part of the union, then to one degree or another we are in competition, conflict or opposed to it in some way. It may not exactly be a war but the country is positioning itself to be at odds with the EU at the very least.

This is a fascistic position to take and one where you are creating a new struggle, with many unanswered questions as to why.

10. Contempt for the weak ‘Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology’

The Elites have clearly backed Brexit, both foreign and domestic. Some of the propaganda about Brexit is that it is an anti-establishment and anti-elite project, but any closer analysis very quickly reveals this to be absurd.

The starting point to that evaluation is to look at who the figures within Leave identify as their enemies. They are largely the Labour Party and other progressive parties such as The Green Party, regulations to do with employment, the environment or those proposing green reform and their main enemy, the European Union itself.

The EU, although, clearly a friend to capitalists, business and corporations. It is a creeping, slow progressive force in a number of ways or has tendencies in that direction.  It is changing the political and social landscape or has certainly changed its dynamics.  It enshrines human rights, promotes regional investment, environmental standards, promotes regulation, the rule of law, standards and as an institution is open to a more progressive and sustainable green transition to a new economy. It has sought to regulate against corporate power and against corporate excess, especially on matters like the environment, data, suspect accountancy and tax.

Every political body has plenty more to do on these and it is very far from being an outright progressive force and there are many powerful reactionary forces within it and influencing it, but it is making slow but definite progress on certain things.

What it has the potential of becoming as a conscious political body acting in the interests of citizens, the environment, workers, rights, future generations, energy, regulations and the rule of law, all sorts of things: is more of a threat to elite power both domestic within the UK, elites across member states, USA, Russian and the elites of other countries too. An ever growing unified and cooperating political body, governed by proper rule of law, protecting rights and acting on the behalf of citizens is a threat to elite and multinational corporate power everywhere.   

Brexit, however, is a definite reactionary movement and it is led by the Elites and for their benefit. It is against regulations, rights, standards and the rule of law, it is outright hostile to the rule of law as reactions to The Supreme Court ruling demonstrates and our country is currently in dispute with the EU over Chinese goods and VAT. Leave advocates are hostile in their attitude to the ECJ and The Sun newspaper owned by Leave backing Rupert Murdoch infamously championed the removal of The Work Directive, so, that people could joyously work more hours and have no restrictions on the amount of hours they work, not something most workers would be really happy about.

A clear example of Brexit being for the elites, are characters like the hedge fund owner Crispin Odey, who made a lot of money in 2016 in currency speculation with the value of the pound (Jacob Rees Mogg’s fund is connected to his too), Odey funded the Leave campaigns too. Leave campaigns who have been involved in illegal practices and using weapons grade psychological manipulation techniques online, with very dodgy sourcing of personal data. There have been interviews with him where he was all excited quoting Italian proverbs about having gold in his mouth, when the reality for most people after his huge cash bonanza, is that now they have in real terms less money in their pocket and their wages are no longer of the same value, pensions too. For businesses, everything they import becomes more expensive, the performance of the pound and economy has consequences for public services too, the ability of how businesses and government can operate.  

Yet, he is filmed, a clear elite figure, brazenly congratulating himself, excitedly grinning like an utterly and disgustingly spoiled child about how he made a load of money off a worse situation for the vast majority of people in the nation.  How a figure like Odey is anti the establishment and elites with the best interests of the ordinary Briton at the heart of his dealings and thoughts. This is a completely laughable suggestion for anyone other than a peer or the deluded self-deceiver, ignorant, the dishonest or the hopelessly naïve.

Then there is the first real figurehead of the Brexit movement, the plutocrat James Goldsmith., who set up The Referendum Party which ran candidates in nearly all of the seats in the 1997 General Election. David Mellor the Conservative MP famously described it as an attempt to ‘buy British politics’, Goldsmith was one of the infamous asset stripers of the 1960’s onwards. Who, like his contemporaries, sold off much of British manufacturing and industry for a quick buck on the share price, facilitating off shoring, decimating communities and undermining the strength of workers and unions: shifting the power in the economy to shareholders and the boardrooms. Shares which were largely bought and sold by British people, shares which are now overwhelmingly in the hands of elite figures, pension funds and other asset funds beyond democratic control.

An economy concentrated in the hands of the elites.

The stock exchange and its failure being one of the factors behind the start of World War Two and it was considered in the immediate post war years as a monster which needed to be controlled. It was not long before that was forgotten or ignored by the likes of Goldsmith. Goldsmith then was part of a group of asset stripping figures who did the same in the USA too, he made himself fabulously wealthy and powerful in the process, so much so, that he was able to spend more on campaign funding than The Conservative Party and Labour Party combined in the 1997 General Election.

It was not the EU who facilitated or allowed the sale of British manufacturing and industry, it was a combination of plutocrats like James Goldsmith, British share owners and Westminster policy allowing it to happen. So, one of the founding fathers of Euroscepticism and Brexit was a conspicuous Elite reactionary figure, he was a key figure in decimating manufacturing and industry in the UK, who did this for the main reason of rapaciousness.

The decimation of manufacturing and industry was blamed on the EU in propaganda from Leave in 2016. When all along it was domestic figures like Goldsmith and domestic economic policy that did it and not the EU, this is another easily disprovable lie, falsehood and myth.

There are plenty of other conspicuous domestic elite figures such as Jacob Rees Mogg, the ERG and the right wing of The Conservative Party who are clear elite figures. There is Lord Lawson, The Tufton Street right wing elite led think tanks such as The Taxpayers Alliance, The Policy Exchange; the currency speculators Jeremy Hoskings and Chris Harborne who have connections to The Cayman Islands and British tax havens; Jim Ratcliffe the richest man in the UK and The Barclay Brothers. The domestic elite figures attached to Brexit and funding The Brexit and Tory Party is clear and obvious.

This is not some sort of anti-establishment or elite attacking progressive movement. This is a reactionary elite ran project for the benefit of the elites to avoid regulation, to dominate or subvert the rule of law and Parliament, especially regulation of The City of London and British tax havens. To empower elite control over the political, economic and societal institutions of the country because there is little evidence their involvement is for the benefit of your average citizen and they are funding Leave or supporting Brexit out of the goodness of their heart.

Parliament is sovereign is pretty much our only constitutional convention, which, if Boris Johnson were to obtain a majority, he could then use to change all of our domestic institutions, our constitutional positions and foreign allegiances too, the abilities or powers of Westminster and democracy in general in this country. Brexit is a revolutionary force after all, which is using the mandate of 2016 as a battering ram against the flimsy constitutional framework of the UK Parliament. A constitutional arrangement that entrusted that all those in Government and Parliament would definitely act in the national interest and not in a very narrow set of interests within the nation and some interests from outside of it.           

Then there are the foreign elites behind Brexit, British tax havens are where much of the loot from elite figures, corporations, plutocrats, oligarchs, dodgy regimes and outright criminals around the world is stashed away. Estimates suggesting there is twenty trillion pounds at least within them. So, not only are elite figures in this country supportive and beneficial of Brexit, so are elite figures the world over, as EU directives have looked to curb suspect accountancy practices and tax avoidance.

Then there are the US elite figures who have backed, supported and facilitated Brexit, Rupert Murdoch now classed as a US Citizen or dual national with Australian citizenship. The infamous quote of how he approved of Brexit as he had leverage over Westminster with his press and media influence but no impact over Brussels. Robert Mercer, Mark Zuckerburg through Facebook and figures in Silicon Valley who clearly facilitated and supported the propaganda campaign to manipulate the result for Leave.

Then there are the US think tanks with clear links to the Koch Brothers and UK think tanks, there are also the links between Farage and Bannon, Bannon being an operative of Robert Mercer. The Koch Brothers who bought The Republican Party, who are now making overtures to the UK about a US trade deal, Mercer who has been funding anti EU propaganda all over Europe.

The Koch brothers whose main think tank is called The Cato Institute, who are behind constitutional changes in the USA to emasculate and dominate the political realm as exposed by Nancy Mclean in Democracy in Chains and place power completely in elite and corporate hands. The Kochs and other US elites like Mercer, who clearly wish to promote antidemocratic, fascistic and white supremacist movements to promote a lawless capitalism with elite control, where democracy has no influence in terms of the public good principle and the wider population.

Then there is Vladimir Putin, one of the richest men in the world, who funded propaganda and the Russian Oligarchs connected to him who have been funding The Conservative Party and there are now indications of effectively Russian state interference in British Politics all the way to The Executive, in what has been termed the unreleased Russia Report.

This is Putin who as Timothy Snyder exposed is a follower of the philosophies of the Russian fascist and aristocrat, Ilyan,  Ilyan who was an open supporter of Hitler even after the horrors of The Holocaust were revealed, it is difficult to get more fascistic than a post war open fan of Hitler. Now, open fans of Hitler are connected to the highest political office in the UK. Putin obviously benefits from a weakened or destabilised EU as it cements his power, these foreign elite powers all backed Brexit.

That the Russian government could influence the Executive, rig elections in their favour and produce favourable electoral outcomes for themselves in the Soviet Era would have been seen as a huge national emergency then, but is curiously very permissible now that Russians are funding The Conservative Party. There is nothing wrong curiously with Russian interference in destabilising the country, changing our position diplomatically and internationally, and breaking UK laws or attacking our constitution, our societal and political institutions today.

There is little doubt Brexit is an elite project but what makes it all the more clear it is an elite project, is the main answer coming out of Leave for the post Brexit future, they are all about trade. The Brexit Party and Conservative Party are anti public sector investment, unless it is for a corporate bail out or is managed with a corporate focus and they wish to undermine or defund public services. Farage wishes to privatise the NHS, so they do not see government or democratic institutions as the answer, Brexit advocates see the market, global trade, the Elites and corporations as the answer, but a more extreme deregulated version of this with effectively two rules of law, one for the haves, the other for the have nots.

That would be the market and globalism which has hammered all sorts of communities in the UK by Brexiters like James Goldsmith, many of whom have been hoodwinked into believing this was all the fault of the EU and that Brexit will resolve this situation.

The world of international commerce and corporations are by their very design antidemocratic forces or agents in societies and countries. Corporations, for all the public goods and benefits they may have brought, are often beyond the realms of democratic control or they look to subvert, corrupt or dominate elected governments.  Corporations, whose societal value is rarely discussed in terms of our communities, are more often than not dictatorships, fiefdoms, authoritarian organisations or are akin to aristocracies or kingdoms, they are not democracies or democratic or desire to be influenced by democratically elected bodies.

Farage declared on his radio show that the country should be run like a business, they are not democracies and ran his party as one, so he believes that democracy should not apply in the running of his party. This would suggest that is how he sees the country should be run, a self-appointed or appointed leader, to do as they see fit and appoint who they want.

This is a very socially Darwinist or Hobbesian world Brexit advocates and the elites backing it and elites everywhere evidently believe in, where the belief that economic or social power equates to authority and a contempt for the weak of those lower in status. Where economic strength, power and might rule over democracy, rights, environmental, community or national concerns. This is a world envisaged where the elites have complete control in a lawless capitalism, a world or a UK where democratic controls or structures, in terms of the public good principle or serving the whole national interest have been removed or are at the very least emasculated so they can rule and democracy is just an ineffectual mostly one state pantomime.  

This is exemplified in the repeated attacks by Brexiters and those advocating for Brexit against the rule of law, the judiciary and law making powers or any other bodies, figures or institutions who look to hold the executive or government to account.  Or, who stop them from acting how they see fit, the constant calls for deregulation from those within the Brexit movement too, as those deregulations would suit them.

This is another way of saying: remove laws, lawmakers and law enforcement if they are inconvenient. Or, remove the rule of law when it applies to certain people or organisations, and more crucially remove anyone holding power to account or criticizing it or any body or groups from the citizenry trying to use the law against their power.

Anyone, government or party criticizing, legislating against or damaging Elite power. 

It meets this feature of fascism in spades.

11. Everybody is educated to become a hero ‘In Ur-fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death’.

Brexit is clearly a death cult. There are several ways in which it is heroism linked with a death cult. For instance the desire to accept from Leavers the hardships, privations and shortages brought about no deal, where people have claimed they would sooner die of medicine shortages than not leave the EU, others who have claimed they would rather eat grass than be in the EU and many desiring or making favourable and desiring comparisons to rationing and ‘The Blitz Spirit’ of The Second World War, the WA described as ‘the surrender bill’.

Psychologically speaking why in peacetime would you wish any of these things on yourself or the wider population, unless you wanted to prove yourself as some sort of hero or would be willing to die or see others die to achieve those ends? That is a clear and obvious death cult.

Brexit is about creating an unnecessary struggle, it is about picking a fight otherwise why all of the rhetoric and language of war?  It is about stirring up trouble in Europe to create a conflict through which ‘heroic victories’ can be claimed. Where you can claim heroic status and individuals or groups can become heroes fighting against an imagined, perceived or created enemy, which until recently did not exist, a fight with an institution which in reality was an institution largely created, designed and forged by the UK with the UK’s interests at heart, which served it well and has served peaceful prosperity.

The ‘no deal’ culture is not a realistic, sustainable long term solution: that there will be no legal, technical, administrative, logistical, political, societal or economic links between yourself and your nearest neighbours as countries. Any country cutting itself off in this manner can only harm itself and cause damage to its population, this is wishing death, or at least the death of the stability of the country on the population, it is placing the country into an unnecessary conflict with other countries.

Conflict can always escalate and if Farage is willing to call Euroscepticism ‘a war’ with the EU, then a real war could be the tragic conclusion of that trade war or rhetoric, to ignore or dismiss that possibility is to ignore the strange mentality behind it.

Farage, openly talking about The Second World War when the war ended over seventy years ago, before he was born. Why should what happened in the war still matter so much to Brexiters? Why still consider countries we have been at peace with and working together with since the war ended as a military threat or somehow a military or diplomatic enemy?  It is clear that many in Leave view them that way.   

The obsession with World War Two itself from Leave is a death cult and a desire for denied hero status. Why constantly refer to the war if it is not fulfilling something which is missing or has lodged itself perversely in your psyche? Why obsess about easily one of the darkest episodes of human history, which on closer inspection no country comes out of with particular credit or honour, a war that was a deeply disturbing mass slaughter of human life? Obsession with that war is another indication of a death cult, why consider war glorious or heroic?

This is deeply offensive to the victims and the ancestors of victims in that war and to foster rhetoric and warlike attitudes can only be playing with fire and a very dangerous thing to do. This point was made earlier but is worth repeating, as this is a risk that must always be warned and protected against.      

The rhetoric of traitors, traitors being hung, Remainers being killed, death threats against MPs and public figures who are deemed to be standing in the way of Brexit are further indications of a death cult and a call to heroism. Those trying to ‘defeat’, ‘the traitors’ in any way shape or form are celebrated or viewed as heroes. If they oppose the traitors, threaten them, insult or ridicule them or call them fifth columnists, they are heroes, there are postings and mock ups of gallows to hang ‘the traitors’, there have been calls for mass killings of Remainers on social media, for Remainers to be forced out of the country like that would not lead to conflict involving death. This is the rhetoric of a death cult.   

Then there is ‘Make Britain Great Again’, a call to heroism. That through Brexit a heroic achievement will be accomplished, no one has stated the exact year or decades when Britain was great but that is unimportant rhetorically, there have been references made to The British Empire, an obsession with The Commonwealth and former colonial countries.

Well, no matter how much you sugar coat The British Empire with ‘White man’s burden’ nonsense, it was still the British turning up uninvited to lands all over the world, killing locals in the tens of millions, causing suffering and stealing resources, it was armed robbery and established at the point of a gun. Whilst simultaneously, there was no democracy in the UK beyond the privileged few, political dissidents were oppressed here, transported to Australia, killed and full manhood suffrage only arrived pretty much after the empire was over, or was in terminal decline post World War One.

So, an obsession with a time that was very authoritarian, oligarchical, plutocratic, arguably fascistic and when there was lots of killing of foreigners and the outright killing, quashing, undermining and removal of dissenting political voices domestically, with limited to no democracy, that was a great time? What for everyone? Charles Dickens had no grounding in the reality of this society and everyone loved it, it was unreservedly or unquestionably great? We should return to that somehow?

This is more evidence of a death cult in Leave.

Another way Brexit is a death cult, its proponents are largely climate change deniers. Manmade climate change is a 100% scientifically proven reality. Anyone wishing to deny it, delay the green transition is in a death cult to some degree or has strange suicidal desires for the human race. Climate change being just one of the man-made environmental challenges and threats facing humanity,  anyone now standing in the way of a worldwide effort to tackle these issues and facilitate a greener more sustainable future through the green transition:  is a death cultist!

How can you not be? It seems almost an impossible task but governments not engaging with it, are woefully irresponsible and selfish.  It is still not beyond the wit of man to do something proper and fundamental about these problems and Brexit does appear to be a very large nationalist distraction from doing this.

The famously penned dichotomy by Shakespeare in Hamlet on life is pertinent here but on a species scale ‘to be or not to be, that is the question’, societies all around the world are choosing, are being manipulated to or having it enforced upon them: towards the decision of not to be.

Brexit is a death cult for another more immediate danger. As sociologists and anyone observing big economic, societal and political transitions or shocks will clearly demonstrate, that during these immensely stressful times or periods, death rates go up of all kinds, including suicides. No deal or some sudden complete and radical change in the UK society will lead to deaths, this is a certainty.

Many Brexiters ,also, wish for the EU as an organisation to die and the economies of the EU to fail, which, is wishing death upon them and as the statistics prove, economic crashes, that would mean actual death, as severe economic collapse would bring untimely death with it as well.

A significant number of Brexiters wish death on various British institutions: The BBC, Westminster itself, the Political Parties, the House of Lords, the list goes on.

Brexit is a death cult. Where people can become ‘heroes’, heroes of a particular fashion, attacking its enemies; with a wish to create heroic moments for attacking the targets, real or imaginary, of Brexit.

This is Fascistic.

12. Machismo and weaponry ‘Machismo implies both disdain for women and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality’

There are a number of examples of disdain for women in Brexit, firstly, the treatment of the journalist Carole Cadwalladr, she has been harassed, threatened and bullied online for her exposition of Cambridge Analytica and their involvement in the Leave campaign. She has been dismissed by Andrew Neil of the so called impartial BBC as a ‘mad cat woman’ and despite the overwhelming evidence of the involvement of Cambridge Analytica in the Leave campaign using psychological propaganda and manipulation techniques. She has been cast as a crank, crazy and a mentally unstable woman, she has been harassed that much, especially by Arron Banks, that it has resulted in the involvement of lawyers.

She has been threatened with legal action over the claims of the involvement of Cambridge Analytica, even after whistle-blower ex-employees from the company have admitted the involvement of the company in Brexit campaigning. She like many other women suspected of supporting Remain or stopping Brexit have received rape or death threats.

There has been the sustained sexist and racist abuse of Gina Miller who ensured the constitutional integrity of Parliament, preventing the Executive triggering Article 50 through bypassing Parliament and further preventing the Executive implementing laws without Parliamentary scrutiny and approval. She has been the victim of sustained vile calls for her to be deported when she is now a full citizen, she has endured racist abuse and sexist abuse for ensuring that Parliament is sovereign, the very thing Brexit was supposedly all about for many Brexiters in 2016. She ensured that sovereignty was respected and for doing that, rather than be praised by Brexiters for cementing Parliamentary sovereignty in the courts, she became a hate figure.

Whatever you think of her record as Minister or Prime Minister, there has been the sexist treatment of Theresa May. The Metro ran the headline ‘Tell her Phil’ and The Express ran similar stories on her husband, as if she needed to know her place and be informed or told so by her husband or male figures, the clear inference being, the woman has lost it and her husband needs to remind her of her place in the household and society, affirming a patriarchal world view, that he should have the final say on her political views or career, when she had made it to be The Prime Minister!

The respect levels were almost non-existent. Then there has been the discussion of her role in domestic duties, Christmas dinners and then the discussion of her clothes, rather than a discussion of her as doing the job of Prime Minister. The outfits of David Cameron and his ability to knock up a good lunch were never discussed when he was Prime Minister, the same with any other male Prime Minister.

Even on International Women Day she was asked about what she does with her girlfriends to ‘let her hair down’ than to look at her role and career as a prominent and senior politician. Regardless of what you think of her politics, this was possibly more of an opportunity to inspire young women to the prospect of being able to take a leadership role in the country. To champion the very authentic and serious role women can take in any field or career, rather than reduce it to frivolous matters perhaps better suited to another occasion.

Then there was the sexism from across the pond in the shape of Donald Trump and how he told May ‘how to do Brexit’ but she wrecked it, like he, a man, could have resolved it easily, which, is an absurdity of course: even more so when that man is Donald Trump. Tragically, however, there has been the willingness of May to openly accept a clearly sexist figure like Trump, just for the purposes of a post Brexit trade deal with the US.

Then there has been the treatment of Greta Thunberg, not directly related to Brexit but she seems to be a figure of hatred for Brexiters who have repeatedly attacked her on social media. Arron Banks infamously wished death upon her, on her voyage on a yacht to the USA in ‘an accident’ with an iceberg. Even though she is only really a child, she is an inspirational figure to many and is only pointing out what is verifiably true, so, an attack on Thunberg is simultaneously an attack on the truth and what is rational, see 2.

As uncomfortable and as difficult to countenance, accept or react to as the truth about man-made climate change and the environment is, or to know what to do about it, that does not stop man-made climate change or these other problems being the truth. Or, that her response to it and those desiring of the green transition as being rational and those opposing the green transition being irrational: though she has been cast regularly as the irrational girl who is talking nonsense by Brexiters.  

Then there has been the open hostility from Arron Banks who funded the Leave campaign to homosexuals, suggesting that it was a choice. Jacob Rees Mogg has similarly opposed same sex marriage and homosexuality as a sin against God in his catholic views, others in the Tory party opposed same sex marriage and there has been open homophobia from Boris Johnson: The Prime Minister!

One of the Leave campaign whistle-blowers Shahmir Sanni was deliberately outed to leave him exposed to homophobic hatred, abuse and threats. Brexit party candidates have declared open war on the LGBT community, whatever that means, then there are the views expressed online, it will not take you long to find homophobia on there from Brexiters.

Although, the biggest indications that Brexiters are homophobic is that voices in the Bexit movement wish to abolish The Human Rights Act. An act which protects the rights of people against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and freedom of thought, freedom of expression, the right to freedom from degrading treatment, no punishment without the law, the right to marry, the right to peaceful enjoyment of your property and a respect to your private life, a right to liberty and security.

Who are going to be the most vulnerable to abuses if those rights were to be completely taken away?

It would be those on the margins of societies who would definitely suffer the most and one of those groups would be homosexuals. People may point to advances in marriage, representation and rights in society for homosexuals but they would rather be ignoring the reality that legislation like The Human Rights Act underpins those advances and protects individuals and communities against abuses.

What other agenda could there be for removing those rights than you wish to make all marginal groups more vulnerable and people in general? What other reason could there be than undermining the status of currently more protected groups in society? Surely, it cannot be to improve their rights, otherwise you would be proposing new or improved rights, when that is not what is being proposed: outright abolition is being proposed.     

Who else are likely to suffer in that scenario? Women and children are, especially, women and children who are in a difficult circumstance of some kind, something which can happen to any woman. Even more so if respect or rights to your home, family life, rights to your property, rights to your education and your rights to other present societal norms are removed with the abolition of The Human Rights Act. Rights are generally there to protect the vulnerable, removing them would leave them exposed to discrimination and abuse, to pretend or argue that would not be the case, ignores just why those rights were installed or had to be fought for in the first place.

Then there has been the threats made to women MP’s, the mass exodus of female MP’s from The Conservative party. Sadly, there are many, many examples to draw upon confirming that Brexit fits this feature of fascism.

13. Selective Populism ‘There is in our future a TV or internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People’.

‘The will of the people’ is a phrase that is often heard and when certain people speak about Brexit, they are apparently representing the ‘will of the people’. They are the Voice of the people, they speak for them. They know what they definitely voted for and wanted, like some sort of religious leader or TV Evangelist who has God on speed dial.

Even though it is an impossibility to have a consistency of views in a room of five people, that 17.4 million always concurs about at times seemingly contradictory and inconsistent things or that this morphs on occasions into the whole electorate or the whole population, this should be dismissed as absurd. This has, however, been a regular occurrence in the rhetoric of Leave advocates and voices discussing Brexit. This idea that actions can be justified as ‘the will or the voice of the people’ should be preposterous but it is often entertained or posited as factual and everyone definitely agrees with them.

This selective populism, this ‘will of the people’ narrative has then been used to attack our democratic institutions. There has been an attack on Civil Servants, Ollie Robbins, being an obvious prominent example, as he has been part of the negotiations team with the EU, Farage said he would ‘put the knife’ in civil servants. The Civil Service have been criticized as obstructive, when their function is to implement plans, directives and policies issued by Government, they cannot act independently of those instructions. They have to operate in the world of political and practical reality, they have to provide detail, mechanisms, technicalities, and legalities, they cannot repeat slogans to their foreign counterparts and expect things to be taken seriously or for those slogans to magically resolve the minutiae or complex practicalities of issues.

Nigel Farage demanded that all Civil Servants believe in Brexit, which, shows a startling ignorance of the nonpartisan role of The Civil Service and its remit to serve Parliament, citizens and the national interest as best it can. It is, also, a demand of obedience from all to Brexit. That everyone within the political and democratic institutions of the country ‘believe in Brexit’ which is kind of hard to believe in if no one can clearly define what it is and even if they do, it would be like asking us to believe unquestioningly in our new relationship with other countries, not the country itself.

So, it would not be so much to ask people to believe in Britain but to ask them to believe in Britain’s new relationships with other countries, as that is what the Brexit process would establish, but, we do not know what that international relationship would be yet because it has not been determined. Though, apparently, we have to unquestioningly support the thing that we do not know what it is yet?

The only real country emerging as a new partner is the USA. So, we are supposed to believe in the USA? Is that what Brexit is supposed to mean?

This unquestioning demand for loyalty and obedience, even before power is achieved, this is the rhetoric of a totalitarian regime, as Arendt identified in The Origins of Totalitarianism the demand for ‘total, unrestricted, unconditional and unalterable loyalty’ begins before power is achieved and there have been open demands for this from the population towards Brexit from Brexit advocates. 

The Judiciary has been attacked as being against ‘the will of the people’ more than once, the highest court in the land, The Supreme Court, they have been referred to as ‘The enemy of the people’, that they have been ‘infiltrated’ by the EU. The Judiciary have been ridiculed for their sexuality (see 12) and for their taste in music. The Judge was a Jazz fan, which is a clear and obvious indication of terrible corruption and traitorous Europhile ways, this rather begging the question what is the acceptable Brexit music to listen to? The approved kinds or lists of acceptable music were inexplicably missing from the criticism by The Daily Mail. 

The bizarre part being that The Supreme Court  when asked to judge on the lawfulness around Brexit, despite all the howls of protest from Brexiters about parliamentary sovereignty in 2016, ruled that Parliament was sovereign and that it is the law-making body in our democracy, twice. That the executive could not do as it saw fit, as that would no longer be a parliamentary democracy where decision-making could be held to account by democratically elected parliamentarians.

The sovereignty of Parliament at Westminster being such a bone of contention during the 2016 debate by Brexiters, as something which had apparently been lost to the EU and which needed to be reclaimed. Although, it did not take long for Parliament to be traitorous and a ‘Remainer Parliament’ and now Parliament being proven to be sovereign is an outrage. According to Nigel Farage the Supreme Court ruling was the ‘Worst political decision ever’, that the courts should rule Parliament as sovereign is now the worst decision ever, what?   

This has then lead to serious calls for the removal of the separation of powers and to install ‘elected’ judges, when the whole purpose or operation of an authentic judiciary and for the proper rule of law, is for the judiciary to be separate from political or external control,  with no one, not even the Government or The Head of State as being above the law or its ruling. Political bias should not be allowed in the judiciary and the courts did not make a political decision on Brexit, they concluded that Parliament is the decision and law-making body, asking Parliament to make a decision on Brexit on both occasions it was asked to rule on it.

Brexiters have called for the abolition of The Supreme Court and the ability of the judiciary to hold the Government or Executive to the rule of law. If that is not fascism, that The Executive should be able to do what it sees fit, including ignoring the rule of law or having the judiciary under its direct influence, then it is difficult to argue what is.

Proposals to do this have made it into The Conservative Manifesto.   

Leave have attacked Parliament itself with this Will of the People rhetoric. Parliament, our sovereign law-making body, which is full of elected MPs has been described as ‘a disgrace’ and ‘undemocratic’. There have been calls by newspapers for Parliament to ‘get out of the way’, which is a call for an executive rule, a dictatorship or an ochlocracy with all the inherent demagogic dangers of that for the nation. There have been demands that the Prime Minister has complete power to do as they see fit and bypass being held to account by Parliament, this has been presented somehow as ‘the voice of the people’ or the voice of the 17.4 million, which is still a minority and by a distance in terms of the population.  There have even been polls to determine the public mood for a dictator type figure ‘strong man’ who does not have to be held to account by Parliament.

It is entirely constitutional for MPs to vote in what they view as in the national interest, a culture of intimidation and an encouragement of threat and violence to opposition MP’s has, however, been fostered. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself, dismissing real threats of violence as ‘humbug’ and those opposing the government position from Conservative MPs as ‘fifth columnists’. When we are very much are not at war with the EU, implying our nearest mainland neighbours are the enemy, that the EU, which we are still a member of, is an enemy that is attacking us, a diplomatic or military enemy is dangerous rhetoric.  

Then we can return to the calls to abolish The Human Rights Act by Brexit advocates. This would remove all sorts of rights which are currently afforded to citizens as mentioned earlier but more crucially the act is only enshrined in law in this country, through our membership of the EU. There have been no clear proposals to enshrine these rights in UK law and open calls for abolition from Brexiters, even the Prime Minister in Theresa May proposed abolishing it, as have other Ministers in Michael Gove and Dominic Raab for instance.

Further rights that would be removed by abolition include: freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, freedom from slavery or forced labour, rights to a fair trial, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, rights to vote and to remove the abolition of the death penalty.

Any political movement wishing to attack and outright remove those rights is unlikely to be a utopian, open and democratic one. It is very likely to a fascist movement with demented designs on a future society in the UK.

This kind of talk and proposals on human rights has fitted under the heading of ‘The Will of the People’, abolishing human rights was not a policy proposal presented by Leave in 2016.

This is more mandate manipulation and rhetoric of fascism from Brexiters.

14. Ur- Fascism speaks Newspeak ‘All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.

There has been plenty of this involved in the Leave campaign and Brexit, mainly taking the form of meaningless slogans and arguments. The locutions and slogans employed have been used to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning and arguments. There have been many, so, this will not be an exhaustive review but a focus on some specific ones.

Firstly, from the campaign for Leave itself ‘Let’s take back control’, which was praised as a powerful slogan because it suggested that essentially foreigners were in control of the country. It played into fears, xenophobia and the general sense of powerlessness people feel about many things in the world and in their lives, it is psychologically very effective. It, also, implies this measure will be taken to protect the country from things threatening it.

This slogan, however, rather obscures just what The EU are in control of, who will this new control be handed to and what is intended to be done with that control for the betterment of society. It, also, ignores the reality that the UK is part of the EU and has control within it, it had a lot of influence due to its key contributions on growth, trade and law. The UK in the EU has control, outside of it, it will have none over the EU but the idea that the EU will bend to the will of a former and increasingly hostile member, is not really worthy of serious consideration. The extent, to which the UK diverges from the EU, will only create a bigger trade, cooperation and logistical barrier. This would essentially mean that the UK will have far less control and will be treated as a rogue state and not only by the EU members.

It, also, ignores the reality that any emasculation of political controls in our society happened in Westminster and because of governments and policies there or domestic positioning. That institutions of our society have been enclosed beyond the political realm through deliberate constitutional or political positioning like the economy, land, infrastructure or public use facilities like energy or water for example through privatization, was due to domestic occurrences or lack of occurrences here. Then there has been the marketisation of natural monopolies of what should be democratically and politically controlled or at the very least heavily regulated by robust governmental bodies, all of these have happened through domestic politics and mainly to serve the interests of the elites, the rich and powerful.  

‘Take back control’ or slogans like this remove history. They erase or obscure historical context, alternative explanations or factors and play instead to primal emotions of fear or a lack of control, which is effective as a marketing and propaganda strategy, but countries cannot operate effectively for sustained periods on the language of marketing and propaganda, if people really want authentic control and clear evidence that their Parliament is serving its citizens primarily to make them secure, prosperous or healthy with generous amounts of liberty, rights, freedom and so forth: more is needed.

Why has there not been a concerted and obvious demand for some constitutional reform to demand that Parliament in a more conspicuous, evidence based and rational or reasoned way is constitutionally obliged to serve citizens? As that is far more likely to produce results for ‘control’, constitutional reform with clear designs within it to improve the lot of all in society, as a constitutional duty. That will be far more effective than some wishy washy slogan about control which could mean anything and control for only certain groups in our society.

Which has you returning to the strangely unanswered question to the ‘Take back control’ slogan, who or what is the control for and just what is that ‘control’ trying to achieve?

‘Brexit means Brexit’ a slogan introduced post the result as a kind of rallying call after the endorsement of the narrow Leave victory, is another slogan which removes critical reasoning, as it obscures the meaning of what Brexit is. Brexit could mean something small, non-intrusive, it could mean some huge monumental shift, change or epoch for the country.

What is it? What does it mean in real terms? Where is the detail? Customs Union, Single market and ECJ or EU laws aside, what does Brexit actually mean in real terms? As there is still to this day, no clear indication what that will mean, no clear real proposal or agreement with the EU as to what our relationship will be. What Brexit will mean for citizens, workers or communities and people cannot live off slogans or thrive on those. We need details, certainty, stability and a clear direction. There is no clear direction, other than vague talk of a US Trade deal. 

‘The undemocratic backstop’ referring to the Northern Ireland border concern on the Ireland of Ireland is another slogan, which ignores a number of things. Firstly, Northern Ireland voted to Remain by a ten percent margin. Remaining in the EU is a majority position in the country where a border may just be about to be installed, The Republic of Ireland is now very much pro EU and pro membership, so, the clear majority of the population on that island would effectively want the backstop, more than that. They want to Remain in the EU but that is undemocratic? Being in the EU is the majority opinion of the electorate voting on the island of Ireland. So, it would not be undemocratic for the Irish and British living there.

This would rather suggest that democracy in England and Wales, holds primacy over democracy elsewhere, more so than the democratic will of entire countries, Scotland too, within the union of The United Kingdom and a nearest neighbour country, that is a strange kind of ‘democracy’.

Secondly, the UK Government proposed the backstop and they are all elected. They proposed it as it would simply be necessary in one form or another for any transition period to a new relationship between the UK and the EU and the countries which form its members, the governments of which are all democratically elected.

Thirdly, and most importantly, calling it undemocratic is not a solution. It is not a practical solution to the problems on the island of Ireland which has deep and serious historical significance for the population living there and here. This is something those living in England may not have a full or meaningful appreciation of but for those people living there it means their lives and communities, it is very serious for them and that should matter to all in the union of the UK, if the UK is to remain a union, it should matter to all members of that union.

‘Leave means Leave’ is another slogan used to try to manipulate the mandate towards no deal by insisting that 2016 was a mandate to Leave the EU under any circumstances. This is clearly not true for reasons already outlined but what this slogan hides beneath is the clear ulterior motive this was always the real position for figures within Leave. That there was no real intention on behalf of a number of Brexit advocates to make ‘a deal’, the deal, all Leave advocates in 2016 proposed would happen.

Then there is the government response to The Benn Act, dubbed ‘ the surrender bill’ familiar war rhetoric but the reaction has been to state in a weird kind of doublespeak that government ministers would respect the law but will still leave on the 31^st October through ‘no deal’ if necessary because that was the law ‘The Brexit Bill’. When it was not the law, as the law has changed, ruling out no deal in this instance. How can the government say that it will respect the law, even write to the courts saying they will respect the law and then in the same breath say they will not respect the law? This is just an absurd and contradictory position, which does not stand up to any amount of critical thought or reasoning see 2, 3, 4 and 10.

Then there is the latest slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’ which is meaningless and ridiculous. It inspires again the question ‘done for what’? It, also, comes with no detail as Brexit is not defined and it cannot be completely defined by the UK Government alone. It is a fantasy and not based in reality at all, to suggest that there will be a date when Brexit or our relations with the EU will be done, they will be ongoing. The future relationship would take the best part of a decade to negotiate but that relationship would be constantly being negotiated and renegotiated forever, this is not going to stop at any point.

To present the idea that it will be is a gross oversimplification of the future relationship but what is more concerning is that the people repeating that slogan must know that too. There is just no way a half way intelligent person cannot know this, this is disingenuous. Slogans cannot resolve complex and multifaceted relationships between nations and this is a reduction of the debate to an infantile level, the slogans are instead just repeated to remove any critical or complex reasoning or debate.

Get Brexit Done, the real meaning of that slogan increasingly is becoming apparent in one respect as, privatize the NHS. Which, considering the use of the NHS in Leave propaganda should be deeply shameful and an abomination in its duplicity but is just accepted by millions, especially when the NHS is a popular institution among Tory Voters and the entire nation, many more than who voted Leave.

Then when it comes to Education there was Lance Forman demanding on Twitter that the ‘leftist culture from our schools, universities, civil service and media’ is rooted out. This is a policy remarkably similar to Gleichshaltung of the Nazis to make the country a totalitarian state, through removing any other opinions, criticisms or voices: other than ones which are deemed acceptable.

This does not stand up to the critical reasoning. That if the ‘leftist culture’ in education and society was so pervasive and influential, would there not be a left wing government permanently in Westminster? When there has been a more right leaning or right wing government of one kind of another in power since the 1970’s in the UK, arguably there has never been a substantially left wing government in the UK.

So, this seems to be a concern which is exaggerated to say the least and just how could this policy be implemented without huge changes in the rights of citizens or without new bodies set up to enforce it? Political bodies which would have to be along the lines of the Stasi or the Gestapo to identify and then sack people or worse, for having a different political view. Then what happens to those people after that? In a society where you are only allowed approved political views or you are not allowed to share your views with others or people are silenced in terms of what they think?  

This is fascism.

Conclusion

Is this really fascism? Are some of the thoughts and ideas expressed on this unnecessarily alarmist, hyperbolic or hysterical? That this is not fascism or emergent fascism? Are these unfounded concerns?

There is here a body of evidence which proves that it is or could become fascism, people can decide for themselves.

Brexit could be dismissed as a nationalist spasm, a misplaced, projecting reaction of a country or politics that is devoid of clear directions or solutions for society going forward or is having a crisis of what to do. A society or politics which is struggling to identify a new path and with ones chosen in the past.  A society who is mired in a generational division and conflict over what society should be, an electorate who looked for facile answers in what was dressed up as a panacea to the ills of society and as political solutions to just about everything. It was sold as a pill which would resolve issues in a refreshingly easy and convenient way, with no real complications to a new heroic chapter of independence.

Those notions of ease are superficial, that Brexit was even allowed to be discussed in these terms has shown how vulnerable our politics has become to demagoguery, populism and charlatanism. That within a very short time the EU became the cause of, and leaving it the solution to most of the problems of the UK, points to sophisticated propaganda, alongside, more traditional propaganda methods, that all of a sudden the EU became such big news, when it was hardly mentioned or never regarded as a cause of problems in UK political discourse, is scapegoating at the very least, outright manipulation of the electorate at the most. That the electorate can be manipulated in this way should be a real cause for concern. 

It could be argued that Brexit is more plainly and undramatic, a movement away from a closer political integration with the continent and what is perceived as an opaque and domineering political force.  A desire for the relationship to be more an economic one but this simply does not explain the current positioning on the economy from the current Government of leaving the Customs Union and the Single market; as there just is not a sound or unproblematic economic case for leaving those.

That this is an argument within the Conservative party of which UKIP and The Brexit Party are just an element, a Eurosceptic movement born out of a reaction to The Maastricht Treaty. Where Thatcher who was opposed to Maastricht is the rallying figure because after spending so much of her time in office dismantling, privatizing and emasculating the political realm, through following the policies of James Buchannan, who influenced President Reagan in the US, that she was concerned politics and democracy might re-establish at a European level, rather than the control in politics and the power in economics being mostly in private authoritarian hands, in the undemocratic corporate, business and economic elite realm. Thatcher was rather hoping Thatcherism would reign throughout Europe which may have had something more to do with her personality, ego, ideology and those who supported her, than with what was right to do constitutionally in domestic terms and internationally with the EU. Although, she is not the only major or minor political figure within the history of the EU or Europe who wanted things more on their terms or to serve them. 

That Nigel Farage, UKIP and the Brexit Party have no chance whatsoever of forming a Government in Westminster. He personally would never be Prime Minister, even though he has expressed the desire to be so, as he would simply never get the required support in the electorate and so, this is simply impossible, the sceptics up until recently, having low numbers in Parliament.

That if Brexit happens, The Conservative Party if it were to gain a majority, would in the negotiation process cave in on a hard no deal Brexit and will adopt a more Norwegian style arrangement with the EU to protect the economy because it could no longer be considered the party of sound economics and sensible government if it did not. That Brexit would just be a compromise, a political fudge would emerge and things would largely continue as normal and the political landscape would return pretty much back to what it was and Brexit and EU membership would continue as a debate and an issue but that would be mostly it.

No extreme government would emerge.

There has been talk from some of the UK as having a Weimar Republic 1930’s Germany moment right now: that the ground for a fascist takeover is being laid. This has been dismissed by others by counterarguments of that in Germany there were approximately four million armed Nazi paramilitaries on the streets of Germany in the SA, Mussolini had paramilitaries too. The economic, societal and political situations, domestic and worldwide, with fledgling democracies, were more extreme and entirely different.

Then there was the very ambitious, sociopathic and in many ways fortunate Hitler. Who had an effective supporting cast of elite support and figures operating within the political and state body in Himmler and Goering, so, the comparison is moot at the very least and could easily be argued to be incomparable or dismissed entirely.

To dismiss, however, that there is emergent fascism or fascism in this country is to not take that threat seriously and it should always be taken seriously or the emergence of extreme nationalism or politics as it tends to end badly or at the very least have terrible and very regrettable moments, as the history books prove undoubtedly. There is not a time when any country or society should not take these kinds of threats seriously.

People in the UK seem to think it could not happen here, the emergence of demagogues and fascists into the governing institutions of power and that democracy would never be removed in this country, this is something that happens to countries in Europe but not in Blighty.

Is Farage a fascist or others within the ERG or Tory Party, are people supporting Brexit fascists? People can draw their own conclusions. It is clear that the ERG would prefer a deal with the USA and a US style society, where there is more Elite and corporate control and a severely weakened or ineffectual democracy. 

There are definitely, in my opinion, elements of fascism within Brexit. The emergence of demagogues and the demagoguery in Brexit is dangerous, in that when the door is opened to demagogues and fascism you have no idea who or what might come through that door. Especially, if events take a turn for the worst, as people do not tend to act sensibly in those circumstances and can be easily persuaded into the hands of demagogues, fascists and dangerous types claiming to be strong men, who have very extreme proposals or solutions for dealing with those problems.  

Our constitutional conventions are fragile, the mains ones being that Parliament is sovereign as the law making body and MP’s are to act in ‘The national interest’. The national interest being a dubious thing because all sorts of things that have been voted in as ‘the national interest’ it could be argued with evidence, are against the interests of the nation or the citizens within it and future generations too. It is vulnerable to those who can claim they are serving the national interest, when in reality they are serving a narrower set of interests or a specific or ideological set of interests. Especially, if a burden of proof or evidence based approach is taken or an approach of assessing what is truly valuable or beneficial to citizens on a range of indices, not just questionable economic ones.

It could be argued to be in ‘the national interest’ to disenfranchise votes from the population or certain parts of the population, to militarize, to gerrymander and reduce the chances of serious political opposition. To remove constitutionally all sorts of things from being influenced by political and democratic institutions, a whole new constitution that favours certain groups, agents or movements within a society, for rights to be taken away or new restrictions to be imposed.

It may be argued that some leader coming into rule the UK in a fascist way would need an army and a military presence on the street, where is this military presence and millions of soldiers? Well, with modern weaponry a leader would not need an army. Relatively inexpensive flocks of drones can substitute that, they can heat seek in buildings, identify specific people or groups and eliminate them. There is technology in development for land robot soldiers too, there are chemical weapons, where a thimbleful of poison could wipe out hundreds of thousands, then there are of course nuclear weapons.

People might argue that no one would use any of these weapons or do these extreme things! They have in the past. If people can be manipulated through propaganda to support or consent to damaging and even violent things, including highly intelligent people, as they have been in the past. Then why will they not be manipulated to such extreme ends in the future, again, especially if things go awry? Why build these devastating robot armies if you are not intending to use them at some point?

Arguably with the total inaction on climate change and the very serious threats to human existence facing our societies we are in a dystopia now, where the threats which could consume humanity are being roundly ignored, people are being diverted or distracted from these threats and voices raising concerns are dismissed in a variety of ways and a selfish myopia is encouraged and fostered which serves sections of our society far better than others: whilst doing little to nothing about the destruction and the damage that is occurring. The dangerous myths that nothing can be done, it is too late or that there are other explanations or that most people do not care or are made not to care are encouraged and fostered too.

This is most dangerous element of Brexit and Fascism is what people can be persuaded of as an acceptable course of action, largely, through the employment of myths and myth making.

Since 2008, people have been persuaded in enough numbers that a gigantic fraud on subprime mortgages and other deeply fraudulent financial products in the USA or originating there was not the cause of the economic crash then, when with overwhelming evidence that is exactly what it is that caused it.

That not only should the taxpayers of the UK and Europe pay the institutions who were conspirators in this fraud, trillions of pounds to effectively make good the payment on those fraudulent activities but that the blame for this fraud should be placed on government spending and the public services that the overwhelming majority of the population use and they should be defunded as a result or blamed on immigrants or the poor. These austerity policies have led tragically to actual preventable and untimely deaths in the hundreds of thousands across the UK and Europe.

Many people have largely accepted this entirely false and evidence free myth of government spending causing this economic crisis and that the taxpayer should foot the bill for financial sector fraud as totally acceptable and there should be no proper investigation or prosecutions of those involved. 

People have then been persuaded that somehow leaving the EU will resolve things for the nation going forward and that the EU is the cause of all sorts of ills in our society, again, a large number of people have totally accepted this myth as a reality.

There have been a whole range of myths and lies accepted as real, to the point of alternative realities.

Where does this myth making with Brexit take the UK, where will it end? Myth making is the very stuff of fascist and totalitarian regimes. Some of the most terrible chapters of human history have been justified on the back of misleading and dangerous myths. What is the conclusion of a society that bases its policies in myths not evidence? It is not that everyone has to agree with them; just enough people do, as the last decade has proven. The population of the UK has been willing enough to believe in myths over the last ten years over evidence in very large numbers and as a direct consequence people have suffered and died.

What myths could enough people be convinced of in the future?

So, in my opinion, this threat of fascism is very real. The threat to our democracy is clear. Brexit and the dismantling of our democratic and societal institutions has to be stopped.   

I fear it might be too late as myths, falsehoods, propaganda, demagogues and elite manipulation will win out, as they often have before in a society on the road to collapse.