Bad Moon Rising

The political events of the last week have been among the most depressing, heart-rending and indeed bone-chilling I can recall in my lifetime. The sublimely ridiculous Brexit flotilla up the Thames, complete with fascist Farage having the audacity to claim he was an anti-establishment crusader, was supplanted firstly by the hideous, billboard homage to Nazi propaganda that the UKIP fuhrer unveiled the day after, and then the terrible murder of Jo Cox by an ultra-right wing terrorist. The tragic loss of a fine campaigning MP, who was a devoted friend to and advocate for refugees, as well as a mother to 2 young children is a national disaster, not just a personal one for her loved ones. Make no mistake about it, Thomas Mair may be mentally ill (rather like Michael Adebowale who was one of the murderers of Lee Rigby), but that does not excuse or explain his actions.  Nor does it excuse the right wing press who have shamefully ignored his political preferences and activities, preferring instead to paint him as a lone wolf psychopath, instead of the inevitable result of the pervasive atmosphere of race hate in this country. The actions of this neo Nazi activist were undoubtedly inspired by the rhetoric and attitudes of Farage and his ilk, who have turned the EU Referendum from an arcane ideological skirmish in the Tory Party into an Islamophobic, xenophobic crusade against immigrants and Asylum Seekers, like a social media Kristallnacht with Facebook and Twitter acting as on-line equivalents of the Völkischer Beobachter. 

However, the familial and national tragedy of poor Jo Cox’s murder could yet be extended to the realms of an entire continent’s tragedy of far reaching, reactionary consequences, if the British electorate doesn’t reflect on the probable aftermath of Vote Leave winning the day. I do still believe Vote Remain will win, but by the slimmest of margins. As a subscriber to the democratic process, like all who wish to remain in the EU, I will unquestioning accept the verdict of the British people. I have grave misgivings that those in the Vote Leave camp will be so uniformly gracious. If they lose, I see an increase in civil disorder prompted by the pisspot Oswald Mosley and funded by the bouffanted buffoon. If they win, society may well fall apart. Whatever the result, I see trouble on the way…

Without being alarmist, and I sincerely hope I’m wrong, I can honestly say I am fearful that a Brexit verdict will mean England metamorphosing into a reimagined, contemporary version of Nazi Germany, whereby execution style murders by rampant gangs of feral right wing thugs, such as those of Jo Cox, or Stephen Lawrence, will become commonplace events that are both tolerated legally and openly celebrated in certain quarters. We must Vote Remain if we are to save civilised society and not degenerate into a vicious Fascist dictatorship that will combine the hysteria and bloodlust of the McCarthy and Salem witch trials.

I remember the last referendum on membership of the European Union, or the Common Market as we called it back then. It was June 1975. I was 10 going on 11 in my last term at Falla Park Juniors and already a burgeoning political animal (my first conscious political act was me and Paul “Sten” Stonehouse chanting Heath is a **** outside Windy Nook polling station during the February 74 election). I was, then and now, a Socialist and a Labour Party supporter. Back then, I would state that I was 100% in favour of leaving, as were the entire left of the Labour Party who called out the Common Market for being a gentlemen’s club of the capitalist elite. On the day of the referendum, as our school was used as a polling station, I spent an entire coach trip to Brimham Rocks in North Yorkshire and back, fervently discussing this issue with fellow top class members and those teachers who were prepared to listen. I was in a minority that day and in the vote itself; I sincerely hope this will not be the case when I wake to the result on Friday 24^th June.

To state the blindingly obvious, 41 years is a long time and things have changed immeasurably in the intervening period.  Leaving the EU is a complex process; a fraught leap into the heart of an unimaginable darkness of vulgar Nationalism and economic disaster. Perhaps the single biggest error in the intervening period, when open borders and free movement have become the marvellously normal state of affairs, is that Britain didn’t adopt the Euro, which would have seen the diminution of one of the last tokens of pro Imperialist rhetoric.

You see, I am passionately convinced of the need to Vote Remain and fear exactly what could happen, not just in Europe, not only in Britain as a whole, but in England specifically if the Vote Leave campaign have their way. Let’s not delude ourselves; the European Union, as it currently operates, is an inefficient, bureaucratic, spendthrift capitalist cartel, bedevilled by arcane regulations and operated in the main by anonymous, autocratic financiers with personal, professional and territorial interests at the heart of all their decisions. That said, it provides stability, order and codified human rights in an era whereby such things ought not to be taken for granted. While Brexit fans point towards some idealistic notion of racial purity and patriotic independence, I am unconvinced by such illusory banalities. I would much rather be inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in, when it comes to future reforms or reshaping of our continent’s future.

So why exactly am I voting remain? I’ve identified three main reasons; one idealistic, one practical and one politically possible. Primarily I’m voting to remain in Europe, because I class myself as European.   Throughout my entire life I have felt no affection for, loyalty towards or belief in the questionable anachronism that is the United Kingdom. I despise the Little Englander mentality, the obsequious fawning over the Royal Family and the intolerant, socially conservative attitudes that are only a scintilla removed from legitimised racism that seem to characterise the middle English world view. I have much more of a sense of being a citizen of Europe than a British subject. This is why I believe in open borders; anyone should be able to live anywhere they want.  I am an unequivocal supporter of the abolition of any immigration control or legislation.  I do believe in national identity, but not in chauvinistic nationalism; I believe Ireland should be a 32 county republic and Scotland an independent nation, but in the context of being constituent parts of a European super state where every citizen is directly involved in the election of politicians to serve us on a pan-continental level.  We need one constitution, one set of laws and one economic model. When that happens, national identity and tired, outmoded notions of patriotism will be utterly irrelevant, except as a form of cultural nostalgia. Currently, this may be a utopian vision, but it’s got to be better in the long run than a dystopian future involving of a whole load of right-wing nation states living in a kind of a tense, brooding, semi-permanent ceasefire, where territorial disputes and border squabbles are always on the horizon, which I believe to be the likely default diplomatic position in many parts of the continent if Brexit comes to pass.

Secondly, on a purely practical level, as a trade unionist, I am aware that most of the beneficial, socially progressive legislation related to workers’ rights and working conditions that apply in our continent today have been introduced because of EU directives. Therefore, as a Socialist, I must consider what state of affairs would best protect the material conditions of all workers at the present time and for the foreseeable future. Undoubtedly, the only credible answer is to Vote Remain.

The final, and sadly most compelling, reason to remain is to allow continued membership of the EU to act as a brake on the unfettered, potentially excesses of any post Brexit ultra-right wing government. This is the point where I despair of and despise the vile tactics and mendacious logic of the so-called #Lexit Leninist loonies.  For a start they seek to constantly remind us Jeremy Corbyn used to be an advocate of leaving the EU; as I said at the start of this piece, so was I once upon a time. Situations change, time moves on and opinions alter. In response to this, the brainwashed social inadequate lickspittles who slavishly disport themselves in front of the Kim il Taaffe Militant dynasty, including a dangerously mentally ill potential terrorist in Vitoria-Gasteiz, point out Corbyn isn’t particularly enthusiastic about the EU. Presumably they’ve forgotten the concept of critical support. Yes the EU is far from ideal. Yes the EU needs reforming. However leaving the EU will not accelerate any process of reform or amelioration; it will lead to a fractured, disorganised continent.

Left Exit advocates claim they want out of the EU because the whole organisation is institutionally corrupt; this claim may be largely true, but their espousal of such a view is a despicable canard. They actually want out, regardless of the immediate and medium term consequences for ordinary workers, because they believe, or have been told to believe, that Brexit will result in the destabilisation of capitalist society; a situation that could supposedly provide the Trotskyist Manson Family with an opportunity to engage with “the advanced sections of the working class” (in other words, people who agree with them) to recruit them to Pete and Nancy’s elite fundraising vanguard.  In actual fact, Left Exit supporters have less dignity and honesty to their campaign than our real class enemies, such as Johnson and Farage, whose cause they directly and explicitly support by their actions.

Rather than the Left Exit argument leading to increased levels of consciousness, it has simply been subsumed by the antics and tactics of the ruling elite. In all honesty, the Tory Party internal spat about the EU has been hijacked more times than the mail coach in a Gary Cooper western. Initially Cameron saw the referendum as a way of shutting up the Eurosceptic wing of his party, but that craven opportunist and wannabe populist demagogue Boris Johnson had a tactical auto da fe, converting to the Vote Out cause at the eleventh hour, presumably as it presented him with an easy passage to Number 10 by facing off with Cameron. This meant that the unthinkable became thinkable; five years ago the idea of Britain leaving the EU would have been ludicrous. Unfortunately, the agenda for the debate is no longer the preserve of the ruling class, as extra parliamentary zealots have stolen the political elite’s thunder.  Obviously if one lies down with dogs, then one gets fleas, as has been shown by the supplanting of Johnson, Gove, Grayling, Duncan Smith and all the other nauseating, patronising semi-mainstream Tories who imagined their involvement in the Brexit campaign was a good grounding for serving in Johnson’s future cabinet. Instead, the vile, repulsive Farage has become even more of a figurehead for Brexit than he is for his own vanity vehicle UKIP.  You thought that was as bad as it could get? Wrong.

Currently the authentic voice of the ordinary Vote Leave supporter is no longer the fruity, braying fake bonhomie of the mega rich, nor is it the mean, tobacco-tinged, nouveau riche, nasal tones of the pettiest of the petit bourgeois garagiste tendency, it is the sound of pissed, economically and socially marginalised boneheads in Stone Island jumpers and Sports Direct joggers  and their crushed, tattooed, jittery spouses, belting out No Surrender to the IRA in a Wetherspoons or at a lager-soaked, front garden barbecue on a poverty stricken estate. These are the very people who “didn’t do politics” just a few short years ago; now, their ignorance and barely literate bigotry legitimised, incubated and encouraged by the Brexit campaign, they are setting an ever more reactionary agenda.

The European Union has become almost irrelevant to the debate surrounding the referendum; this is a xenophobic crusade of cretinism, whose aim is the complete eradication of Islam from the United Kingdom. The phrases “immigrant,” “foreigner” and “Asylum Seeker” are seen as synonyms for “terrorist;” like the Jews in 1930s Germany, the focus of all society’s ills has shifted to a particular target demographic and that is an outrage.  Bad housing, bad schools, bad health care, high unemployment, reduction in state benefits; the fault for all these ills is not global capitalism, but “foreigners” who ought to “get back to where they come from” and leave “England for the English.” Without a doubt, unchecked and unapologetic racism is now packaged as patriotism by the popular press; Farage whips up masses with ever more splenetic tirades against “anti-British values,” while the likes of Gove simper and wring their hands as they are no longer able to set the tone of the campaign.  A hideous, fascistic genie is out of the two-litre cider bottle and there’s no way mainstream Vote Out politicians can get the screw top back on.

And this is where it gets really frightening; this is where I desperately hope I’m wrong, but have you ever thought just exactly what will happen to British society if Brexit comes about? If you haven’t, perhaps you’d best stop reading now. If you have, I’d be pleased to compare notes with you. This is the way I see things panning out…

Immediately after the referendum Cameron will resign and Osborne will put forward his vaunted emergency austerity budget with indecent haste; it will be defeated because Labour won’t support it and neither will half the Tories. This creates a power vacuum which is a fair way up the scale of constitutional crises.  Instead of a leadership contest, Johnson gets the gig on a nod and a wink, causing the Tories to split, possibly Labour as well. By the end of the summer there’s a General Election, probably triggered by the mass resignations of Anti EU Tory backwoodsmen, not to mention to unilateral departure from the UK of Scotland, who are desperate remain in the EU.

This Caledonian UDI isn’t contested at ministerial level, as the New Tories  will only get a majority with Scotland out the equation. Sure it’ll mean the Billy Boys take up arms against the Holyrood elite, but with armed troops patrolling from Berwick to Carlisle, what happens in Perthshire stays in Perthshire.  No doubt the election results would see a narrow but decisive victory for a Nationalist Alliance pact led by Johnson (PM) and Farage (Home Secretary), producing a coalition of Little Englanders, not to mention half a dozen former Men of Violence waving Red Hand flags in the Glens of Antrim, bulked out by a few dozen fascist fucktards in Kent, Essex and possibly some of the northern Mill Towns; all spewing racist bile in the guise of “Britain’s fresh start.”  

Within weeks a Nationality Bill would be introduced, removing the right to British Citizenship from everyone who wasn’t born in Britain and from those born here who refuse to make an oath of allegiance to Britain and the Monarchy, which will require an acceptance of the Church of England as the only state-approved religion. Public celebrations of other religions, specifically Islam, will be regarded as acts of terrorism and adherents of said religion branded as traitors.  All mosques will be closed. Previously issued passports will become invalid; the right to free healthcare and education, any form of benefits and the opportunity to apply for social housing will end. Immigration will be halted immediately. All border guards at Channel Ports will be armed.  A limited form of residency will be granted to those immigrants who sign the oath of allegiance; those refusing to sign the oath of allegiance will be deported, along with their families and dependents, regardless of their prior national status, place of birth, employment situation or personal skills. Those non-white Anglo Saxons left will be forced to live in urban ghettoes or rural accommodation camps, work for minimum wages, wear some kind of emblem on their clothing to identify their status, observe dusk to dawn curfews and carry identity cards that must be produced on demand.

Who will police our grave new world? Well, obviously the current law enforcement agencies will be engaged in more radical crime prevention duties, following the introduction of shoot on sight policies regarding fugitives and other wanted criminals, as well as the reintroduction of capital punishment. This means Johnson and Farage will require their own Sturmabteilung to maintain order. Considering that Farage and Johnson have managed to garner support by persuading the thick and disenfranchised that all the problems in Britain are the fault of immigrants and Asylum Seekers, not evil rapacious bankers and billionaire shysters like Sir Phillip Green, it will very easy to placate and buy off the lumpen elements of the white working class with cheap social housing, refurbished schools and hospitals denuded of brown and black faces. Put simply, those shaven headed thugs in the Stone Island jumpers and Sports Direct trackies, who pledge allegiance to the EDL or Britain First and no doubt toasted the death of Jo Cox with a slab of Carling, will be Boris and Nigel’s Brown Shirts.

And the post Brexit vision of New England won’t stop with the eradication of immigrants and liquidation of Asylum Seekers; gays, lefties, the disabled will all be in the cross hairs of England’s fascist future, if Vote Leave wins. The future, as I see it, will be truly dystopian if Thursday’s vote is to quit the EU.

For goodness sake, for the future of our families and our society, stand up against racism, intolerance and Islamophobia. Save our continent from the politics of hatred and prejudice; VOTE REMAIN.