Tag Archive for: Leave Campaign

Untold damage to the quality of our democracy

Perhaps the biggest reason why many in the Remain/Rejoin community challenge the legitimacy of Brexit are the lies told by the Leave Campaign in 2016, and indeed continue to tell to this day. Earlier this last week I caught an elected official of the local Tory party and vocal Leaver lying on the social media feed of my local paper about a Brexit related issue.

The local paper involved was the very same one that Swindon North MP and Minister for the Disabled, Justin Tomlinson, has a column in that he used to make two outrageous claims concerning the EU last September, specifically that the EU was trying to break up the UK and that the EU was trying to prevent food being sent from the mainland to Northern Ireland. Despite repeated requests from myself and others, Tomlinson has still failed to provide any evidence whatsoever to support his claims.

Frankly that failure to provide that evidence doesn’t surprise either myself or the members of Swindon For Europe as we never believed his claims in the first place. In fact, we were of the opinion that Tomlinson was misleading his constituents and the wider public and we therefore wrote to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to formally complain about that.

Perhaps unsurprisingly we didn’t get very far. A few days later we received a very polite response to our complaint informing us that it was unlikely the Commissioner would conduct an inquiry into Tomlinson’s actions as the ‘Commissioner may not generally investigate complaints about the expression of a M.P.s views and opinions’. Effectively the Commissioner sidestepped the issue.

Whilst myself and the members of Swindon For Europe kept the pressure on Tomlinson over the issue for a few weeks, the political agenda changed as we grew closer to the deadline for a Deal, and we moved on.

But I did not forget and have always intended to return to the issue and indeed the entire subject of Leavers and their lies as and when the opportunity arose. Joel Baccus, with his recent petition calling for it to be made a criminal offence for an MP to mislead the public has provided me with that opportunity.

Joel’s petition has been very successful, and at the time of writing has around 104,000 signatures.I await the outcome of the debate that M.P.s just now hold on the matter with considerable interest.

Whilst we must wait for that debate, as the petition passed the 10,000 threshold several weeks ago, the Government has had to respond to the petition. In fact, the Government has actually responded twice as the Petitions Committee was not satisfied with the Government’s original response. Hardly surprising given the track record of the current Prime Minister on the issue of honesty.

Sadly, even after that intervention, the Government’s response to Joel’s petition is far from satisfactory as the lead paragraph sends us into a revolving door.

The lead paragraph states ‘The Government does not intend to introduce legislation. MPs must abide by the Code of Conduct and allegations of misconduct are investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards’.

In other words, the Government are saying that the responsibility for maintaining standards of honesty amongst MPs falls upon the very person who had point blank refused to investigate our complaint that Tomlinson may have deliberately misled his constituents and the wider public a few months earlier. This is not an acceptable situation. Indeed, the wider situation since 2016 is actually far worse.

In the past, a Minister or Shadow Minister who lied was expected to resign. Indeed, a certain Shadow Minister who refused to resign in 2004 when caught lying about an affair was sacked by party leader Michael Howard. That same individual however continued with his career and subsequently repeatedly lied during the 2016 referendum campaign over the cost of our EU membership leading to an unprecedented intervention of the head of the UK Statistics Authority.
Rather than side line that individual, or even remove them altogether, they were initially appointed them to the post of Foreign Secretary and then elected Party Leader and Prime Minster.

It seems that honesty is of no importance in certain political circles in Westminster.

This is of grave concern as it effectively undermines our democracy, not least because around 15% of the UK population are functionally illiterate, meaning that around 5 million UK voters do not have the skills or capacity to determine if a politician is lying by means of conducting their own research.

When you go on to consider that the Leave majority in 2016 was just under 1.3 million you begin to understand just how important the issue of honesty amongst politicians really is.

Not only is this high rate of adult illiteracy in the UK a terrible indictment of our education system, it is also the reason why we must ensure that our MPs and politicians tell the truth and do not deliberately set out to achieve their political goals by deceiving large parts of the electorate as happened in 2016.

This means that we must find a way of ensuring that politicians are honest if we are going to maintain the quality of our democracy as the only alternative would be to place some form of limitation on those who can vote based upon intellectual capability or educational attainment. I am sure you will read that with the same discomfort that I have just experienced writing it. That would be a very, very dangerous route to follow.

We must therefore continue with our efforts to eradicate dishonesty as an acceptable part of political life and should continue to pursue the criminal prosecution of MPs, and other politicians, who lie and mislead the public, either under a new law or under existing laws such as Misconduct in Public Office.

We should remember the words of Professor Michael Dougan when referring to the dishonesty of the Leave Campaign in 2016:

‘I’m afraid that Leave have inflicted quite untold damage on the quality of our democracy.’

I’m not racist but…

In September 2012 I met with a new found friend from Eastern Europe. Our conversation over drinks was wide ranging and eventually turned to how she was finding life in the UK. I was horrified when she informed me that she was struggling with racism and that racism was endemic in the UK. In fact I refused to believe her.

Up to point in time, aged 47, I had only ever witnessed one overtly racist incident. Over two decades previously a senior NCO has sent away a potential Asian recruit from our Territorial Army unit and explained it to us with the words ‘we don’t want his type’.

Looking back on that conversation with my friend on that September afternoon I now realise that at the time I was very wrong and very naive to say the least.

Less than 4 years later my naivety had certainly gone, not least because in the week following June 23rd 2016 I had witnessed three overtly racist ‘incidents.’

Sadly, one of those involved my friend from 2012 who had her phone ripped out of her hand whilst speaking to a family member in their native Eastern European language as she was walking through the centre of a major UK city. She was asked rather impolitely when she leaving, and informed that ‘we voted for you to f*ck off back home.’

Given the words used by her assailant, together with the fact that the victims of both of the other incidents I witnessed that week were Eastern Europeans, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that all three incidents happened as a direct consequence of the referendum, and in particular, the poisonous nature of the Leave Campaign.

For many reading this article this will come as no surprise. There is widespread agreement in the Remain/Rejoin community that the Leave Campaign was racist. Indeed, in early July 2016, my local MP, Robert Buckland, a qualified criminal barrister and former Crown Court judge, sat in my office and stated quite clearly that in his opinion Farage had been treading a very fine line just inside the laws relating to incitement to racial hatred during the campaign over the subjects of Syrian refugees and the potential for Turkish accession. That was actually the last time I agreed with Buckland about anything to do with Brexit!

Whilst there is more or less a consensus within the Remain/Rejoin community that the Leave Campaign itself was racist, there is far less agreement, if not outright disagreement, when it comes to the subject of individual Leave campaigners, supporters and voters being racist. Indeed, one comment I often see in Rejoin circles is “How do you expect to win over Leave voters if you are constantly calling them racist?”

Many of the accusations of racism derive from the actions or statements of Leavers themselves. Indeed, in a BBC poll shortly after the referendum, 34% of Leave voters openly admitted racism had played a part in their decision to vote Leave. I know from my work researching socially sensitive issues that if 34% of people are prepared to openly admit something as sensitive and potentially embarrassing as being racist, then the real figure will be higher. Much much higher.

I’m sure most Remainers/Rejoiners have come across ‘I’m not racist but…’ statements made by individual Leave voters where that individual usually goes on to make the most incredibly racist remarks.

Many Leavers also make claims about immigrants stealing jobs, causing income levels to fall, overwhelming public services such as the NHS and so on, without so much as a single a shred of supporting evidence. Indeed, they often fly in the face of evidence and rely on their infamous ‘it’s common sense’ defence in such circumstances.

The reality is they are blaming immigrants not because they are responsible, but because they are immigrants. That is racist. I have even seen Leave voters blame traffic congestion on the M4 in South Wales on extra traffic caused by immigration. A claim that totally ignores the decades old and infamous congestion blackspot of the Bryn Glas tunnels.

Some Leave voters also seem to lack any understanding of what racism is, often thinking that racism amounts to using certain words to describe non-whites and nothing more. They appear to have no concept of institutional racism, or that constantly portraying people of a particular ethnic background in a negative way or stereotyping certain nationalities is racist. Indeed, one UKIP activist once informed me that ‘you cannot be racist to Germans because they are white’.

Other Leave voters cannot even identify the contradictions and inconsistencies in their own arguments relating to immigrants and immigration, which also point towards racism.

Probably the most infamous example of this is Schrődinger’s immigrant simultaneously claiming benefits whilst working. But there is a more blatant, and in my opinion, far worse example of this type of racist attitude amongst Leave supporters. They often articulate support for free movement amongst CANZUK nations but remain totally opposed to free movement from anywhere else, particularly the EU. Indeed, our current Government has put forward such a plan in the recent past whilst boasting about ending free movement from the EU.
Ask yourself why is free movement acceptable from those specific CANZUK countries and no others?
This inconsistency towards EU freedom of movement is also exemplified by Theresa May’s queue-jumping speech in 2018 which ignored the fact that at the time more British citizens had taken advantage of EU freedom of movement than any other EU nationality. Why is it queue jumping for Europeans in the UK but not for British people in the EU?

This queue-jumping claim effectively amounted to institutional racism on the part of the Tory party given she was Tory party leader and PM at the time. This institutional racism was subsequently reinforced and emphasised with the election of her successor as party leader and PM of an individual who has condemned himself as a racist with his own words, Boris Johnson.

Despite this racism, one of Johnson’s most ardent supporters in his leadership election campaign was my MP, Robert Buckland. Buckland has always claimed to be a ‘One Nation Tory’ and firmly against racism. Indeed, following the tragedy of George Floyd’s death last year, Buckland issued a statement condemning what had happened and, in a subsequent interview with the local paper, stated that racism should be challenged wherever it was found.

Whilst this double standard on Buckland’s part relating to his support for Johnson in his party leadership bid presented me with an open goal, this was the first and only time I have agreed with anything Buckland had said since that meeting with him in July 2016.

Buckland is correct to say that racism must be challenged wherever it is found and we must play our part in that and challenge racism whenever we encounter it.

When encountering such racism many Remainers/Rejoiners offer the defence that many individual Leave voters do not understand the issues and have been misled and that education is the key.

In many way I agree as I am sure many Leavers were misled by the likes of Johnson or Farage or the right-wing press, I am sure many are ignorant and do not understand the issues, and yes I am sure many of them are just repeating what they have heard or read with little if any thought

But racism is racism. If, after repeated challenges, particularly when the challenge is supported by evidence or efforts to educate, an individual Leave activist, supporter or voter persists in making statements that are racist in nature, then one can rightly conclude that the individual concerned is indeed racist.

That we have such overt racism in our society is of course extremely concerning and needs to be addressed by our society as a matter of some urgency, particularly as it appears to have become more and more entrenched since the referendum. Indeed, this is a major part of the reason why I directed so much criticism at Starmer for chasing Red Wall votes in my article three weeks ago given that much if not most Red Wall support for Brexit is based upon false and racist claims about EU immigrants and immigration. Like it or not, by chasing those Red Wall votes Starmer is effectively condoning the racism that lies behind those false claims.

As a movement we must continue to stand up and be counted on this issue no matter how uncomfortable for us or those that we challenge.

Racism is unacceptable. Racism is wrong.

Don’t Legitimise Lies and Law Breaking

Leavers often accuse Remainers of being undemocratic as we have started to campaign for Rejoining the EU. One of the counter arguments to that accusation and perhaps the one that I most often hear is that democracy is an ongoing process and we have every right to campaign to Rejoin.


Whilst I agree with this argument, there is a serious flaw in using that argument, which is why I rarely, if ever, use it myself – It gives democratic legitimacy to the 2016 result.


The 2016 referendum was anything but democratic, indeed a few weeks ago I wrote a substantial response to the Governments rejection of our petition for a public inquiry into the referendum detailing exactly why Brexit has no legitimacy, but why was the vote in 2016 itself not democratic?


The story starts with Cambridge Analytica who stole data from Facebook which resulted in the Information Commissioner’s Office fining Facebook half a million pounds – the maximum amount allowed in pre GDPR days.


This data was then used by the Leave Campaign to psychologically manipulate voters and target them with misleading and false advertisements. The deceit and dishonesty of the Leave Campaign is perhaps best summarised by Professor Michael Dougan who described the Leave Campaign as “dishonesty on an industrial scale” and “one of the most dishonest campaigns this country has ever seen”.


In addition to this dishonesty and the illegal actions of Cambridge Analytica, the Leave Campaign itself broke the law. The Leave Campaign was fined £50,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office for sending millions of text messages without consent and £120,000 for other offences relating to unlawful use of data. The Leave Campaign was also fined £61,000 by the Electoral Commission for breaching electoral law.


Democracy does not include wholescale deceit and dishonesty designed to mislead people into voting in a particular way or driving a coach and horses through both electoral law and data protection laws as the Leave Campaign has done.


We need to stop the use of any argument that legitimises the 2016 result.


It was not legitimate. It was not democratic.


Brexit is not legitimate. Brexit is not democratic.

Remain turned up to a Knife Fight with a Spoon

For many people my age I suspect that one of the most defining events of our early adult lives was the Miner’s Strike which still colours the political views of many of those involved over three decades later, and caused a significant divide in the country in much the same way that the 2016 EU membership referendum has done.


Looking behind the dramatic TV pictures and stripping away the rhetoric and spin that surrounded the strike, what we essentially witnessed in 1984 and 1985 was a battle between two opposing political views on how an industry, specifically the coal industry, should be run.


On one side you had Scargill and the Labour movement arguing in favour of nationalised industries to provide employment before profit, and on the other side, Thatcher and the Tories arguing in favour of privately industry driven by profit.


Whatever your position on that argument, it was essentially an opinion on what was best, either nationalised industry providing jobs or private industry providing profits, and with a little thought, the opposing point of view could be easily recognised and understood, even if you did not agree with it.


Contrast that with the situation in 2016 and you immediately see the difference.


In the words of Professor Michael Dougan, the Leave Campaign of 2016 was “dishonesty on an industrial scale”. In other words, it wasn’t about a difference in opinion as in the Miner’s Strike, it was about what was right and what was wrong, what was true and what was a lie.


The Leave Campaign very deliberately set out to deceive the British electorate.


The Remain Campaign struggled to cope with countering those lies and as a consequence largely failed in its attempts to get its own message across. The leaders of Remain had no answer to the disingenuous conduct of the Leave Campaign. Indeed, not only did the Leave Campaign lie on an industrial scale, we subsequently found out that they drove the proverbial coach and horses through both electoral law and data protection laws in pursuit of their goals. It was this failure by the Remain leadership to adequately respond to the tactics of the Leave Campaign that led to Peter Mandelson coining the phrase “Remain took a spoon to a knife fight.’


Sadly, many in the Remain movement, or Rejoin as it has now become, even now often fail to recognise that the Leave Campaign does not care about rules or even democracy itself, and that they will go to any lengths to achieve their goals.


This is why it is so important to tackle misleading or groundless statements about the EU made by politicians such as Justin Tomlinson MP back in September when he claimed that the EU were trying to stop the supply of food to Northern Ireland and to break up the UK.


I do not believe there is any substance to those claims which is why I challenged Mr Tomlinson to produce evidence. He has not done so and that failure can only point to one conclusion.


If we are to prevail, we need to recognise that leavers do not care about rules, laws, or even democracy, and that they will and continue to go to any lengths to achieve their goals. Above all we need to stand up to people who make false claims about the EU and call them out for what they are.


We need to call them out as liars!