“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – George Orwell
Attention spans, huh? They last all of…
…where were we? Oh yeah. Attention. We need to pay attention. Listen. Pay attention. NO! Not to THAT, THIS. Pay attention to THIS.
By the way did you see that dog and cat story on the socials? Yeah that one where the dog and cat…
NO! Hold on. That’s not what we’re here to talk about. There’s something important to say. The problem is…
…that the cat (or maybe it was the dog) took the dog’s (or maybe the cat’s) thing away and it was funny and then there were these memes made of it which might or might not have been AI but we can all spot that – right? Anyway it got fifty thousand likes so it was good. At least on this we can all agree.
But that’s not important right now. I think. We were going to say something else but can’t for the life of us remember what it was.
Oh yeah – bear with. The most important thing to happen in the last ten or twenty years. That thing. Y’know – that thing. Erm…
Oh – hang on. Of course. Yes. remember that time when the country committed economic, cultural and political suicide? When we took our eye off the ball and all of a sudden we’d exiled ourselves from any meaningful relationship from our friends, neighbours, partners, brothers and sisters. How did that happen?
It happened like this:
After a period of hope, after a period of despair, after a period of hope and some previous despair, the country couldn’t make up its mind on what it wanted. Everything was sold off and everybody had been told to ‘do one’ and stop moaning. Everybody said “Oi, we’re not sure about that” and elected a bloke who looked more promising but turned out to be a nutcase so the country had a think and then couldn’t make its mind up properly. So a posh bloke got into to bed with another posh bloke (who claimed not to be posh but was in fact posh – but with a conscience). Yes – the Tories and the Whigs got into a cosy and politically expedient relationship and we had a coalition government.
The Tory, being awfully posh, decided that the problem lay with the common folk. He decided that it was they that should pay the price of his and his predecessor’s ineptitude, so he set about a programme of austerity. Obviously he wanted to protect his kindred folk so he usefully reminded everyone that we were all in it together whilst keeping quiet about the fact that some were in ‘it’ more than others. The Whig went along with this because his party hadn’t had a sniff of power since their ‘glory’ days many, many years before and he was drunk on the notion of not being irrelevant.
And the upshot was that life became very much poorer for lots and lots of people – poorer in the sense that there was less money to pay for things that really should be considered necessities and poorer in the sense that everything looked sort of grey and bleak with no sensible way to make it better. Obviously not everybody suffered equally, but then that’s the nature of inequality – the wealth hoarders were ok with their property portfolios and offshore accounts. The bus drivers, bricklayers, sales assistants and pretty much anyone short of a few million quid – well, not so much. There was, of course, an obvious solution. At least obvious to the twisted minds of the ‘posh boys’ mentioned above. No not the obvious solution that you’re thinking of – fairer taxation, redistribution of resources, everybody contributing and everybody benefitting, that kind of thing. No their obvious solution was to find someone else to blame. An “Other”. No better candidate(s) for that, thought the ‘posh boys’, than those pesky folk a short hop over La Manche in Europe. They had a Union. They had a Club. They had an understanding that if you just try a little bit most people are better off working together. “Yes” trumpeted the ‘posh boys’ “Those people over there – it’s their fault.” They didn’t actually think that. They realised that, although imperfect in many, many respects, we had a decent position within the club with all sorts of benefits, opt-outs and vetoes. We were sitting pretty. They could be used as a scapegoat however in order to disguise the failings of the ‘posh boys’ which was incredibly useful since all of the problems we faced were of their making. “Othering” was the order of the day. People with a penchant for garlic in sausages and bread – yeah, them. They’re not like us so it must be their fault.
So, high on a sense invunerablilty and infallibility, they decided to have a vote on the situation. A vote that they were obviously going to win so no worries there. The outcome was assured and then the finger could be pointed right back at the plebeians. “Well” went the thinking “Life for you people is shit but you voted for it so it’s your own fault. We are now free to continue in our complete and utter incompetence in doing the best for you whilst simultaneously making life better for a small cadre of our friends (and backers). AND we get to still receive the benefits of being in The Club.
And then they lost.
You remember what we were saying about incompetence? Yeah – that.
The ‘posh boys’ foregone conclusion wasn’t that after all. Reasons? Well that’s for another time but what we do know is that telling the biggest and most outrageous of lies is good box-office and a handy way to get what you want.
And now here we are. A ‘sovereign’ nation free to plough its own furrow in the world. Free to do as it pleases on the world stage as if it we were under the reign of Victoria and the sun is never going to set on that.
Obviously the fly in the ointment is that we still have the same problems, issues, social and cultural emergencies, financial misconduct and inequality that existed before. The current solution – get this – is the suggestion that we need to find another “Other”. That’ll sort it. Blame someone else (again) but this time we’ll pick on, not just those who favour garlic in their food, but have brown skin. YES – brown folk whose homelands we have been complicit in destroying through our interventions and meddling. “What? Our arms trade and direct interventions in war and slaughter have made it impossible for you to live at home and now you want to come here? The very nerve of you (sub)people!” And then: “We clearly need to be more right wing. More fascism is absolutely the answer. More xenophobia, less tolerance, more hate, less understanding”. That’ll do it. “And by the way the problem lies over there and not here in my five million quid bung. Stop looking at that, peasants”.
And the irony here? The absolute solid gold joke which makes me laugh until I’m vomiting? If we were still in that club with its ‘return’ agreements, we could simply send people back to whence they came. I’m not advocating that I’m just pointing out that if we were still in the EU we would be able to return any potential migrant who pitched up here back to the country from which they embarked. They have agreements about that sort of thing. That would kinda solve the problem which you have manufactured, eh fascists?
