What divides Brexiters and Remainers?
Gloria Moss
The Brexit roller-coaster
The Brexit roller-coaster ploughs on unpredictably with moves by the House of Commons to block the ‘no deal’ Brexit that most Brexiters voted for. The media often brand this a ‘hardline’ position but this is misleading since this is the only option that delivers a clean exit from the EU, one of the two referendum options available. Anyone taking the temperature of views in Britain could be forgiven for thinking that Remainers and Brexiters inhabit different planets but why might this be the case?
Factors underpinning Remain or Brexit attitudes
You could think of a plethora of factors. Personality could play a role, with Remainers perhaps having a predisposition for the status quo; differing levels of knowledge could be another with some more aware than others of the full implications of remaining in the EU. Then again, personal agendas may play a part with resolute globalists eager to pursue a Remain option in order to further moves to a globalised world.
However, there is one factor that might be overlooked.
This relates to people’s life experience of the armed forces, something that under the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 becomes subsumed in EU Foreign and security policy. The reality of this, little discussed in the mainstream media, is that aspects of British Defence will be merged with European Defence, something explored in brilliant detail by Will Podmore (https://www.brugesgroup.com/blog/the-european-army). So, in June 2017, at a meeting of the European Council, Theresa May approved the European Defence Fund, the European Defence Industrial Development Programme and PESCO. The Council also agreed that the deployment of EU Battlegroups should be borne as a common cost on a permanent basis, something that the Prime Minister put her signature to as well.
Signing away Britains’ Defence
Signing away Britain’s defence is tantamount to signing away sovereignty and one might ask not just how this could happen following a Referendum decision to leave the EU, but also how individuals can feel comfortable doing this. I balk at this since I am aware of the cost in effort and in lives that allowed British sovereignty to persist and am aware of this at a both a national and also a personal level. For, I was brought up realising that no fewer than four members of my immediate family had served in the Second World War – my father in the Desert Rats, my uncle who was Judge Advocate in the RAF, my concert pianist mother who entertained the munitions workers and troops across Britain and her late brother, Arthur Walford, who tragically lost his young life in a training accident in the RAF in Canada shortly after enlisting.
We all know how early childhood experiences can leave their imprint and a recent study by Jean Decety and Jason Cowell of the University of Chicago found that one-year old children’s propensity to particular moral behaviours were influenced by their parents’ sensitivity to justice (see https://www.pnas.org/content/112/41/12657.abstract). Could it be that children’s exposure to families that have fought in armed conflict influences their attitude to the EU and their stance on Brexit? Some serious research could be conducted on this topic but meanwhile, let us look at the familiar experiences of the four political leaders Britain has had since 2009 when the country was signed up to the Lisbon Treaty. We take this as our starting point since this Treaty planned the merger of the armed forces of individual sovereign states with the European Community.
Familiar experiences of political leaders since 2009
The leader responsible for the Lisbon Treaty was Gordon Brown. His father, the Reverend John Ebenezer Brown, was born in 1914, graduated with an MA from St Andrews in 1935 and then obtained a Bachelor in Divinity in 1939, the same year that he was ordained. His position in the church meant that he was not on active duty, leaving his son without the familial experiences referred to earlier.
David Cameron followed as Prime Minister, having been leader of the Conservatives since 2005. His father, Ian Donald Cameron, was born with physical disabilities in both legs and so was unable to undertake National Service. This left his son, David Cameron, a politician with Remainer beliefs, likewise someone without familial experiences of Britain’s armed forces.
Following the Brexit referendum in June 2016, he was succeeded by the current Prime Minister, Theresa May, whose father trained for the priesthood in 1940. This left May as another leader without familial experience of Britain’s armed forces. Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, was in a similar position since his father, born in 1915, had trained as an Engineering Apprentice, then becoming an electrical engineer, a ‘reserved’ occupation for which conscription did not apply. When war came, therefore, he was in the home guard rather than on active duty.
Beliefs are deeply rooted
A person’s worldview is a fundamental cognitive orientation with roots in many sources. As the Brexit roller-coaster continues to be steered off-course by Remainers, it is worth seeking the roots of people’s beliefs. Are they in independently formed opinion? Or family experiences or rather secret agendas? While we might wish for the first, we might be surprised to learn in fact how many fall into the last two categories.
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Most Brits decidedly did NOT vote for no deal, and this is reflected by a Parliament which in majority rejects leaving without a deal. That makes the whole article basically clueless. People were not thinking about the terms or consequences of leaving, and now nobody wants to take responsibility for the fall out. Contrary to what people keep saying, there was only a slim majority for leaving, so there is no overwhelming democratic mandate. For many, the migration issue was uppermost in mind, an issue which is playing out in many other EU member states as well, and is not in first instance about EU membership. On top of migration, Brits have been subjected to BS about Brussels dictating how bent the bananas should be (all fake news) for 3 decades, and long for the old days of empire and glory. In the end, the centripetal forces unleashed within the… Read more »
The invention and interjection of a ‘no deal’ brexit came after a majority decision to leave the EU. The insistence that this was the will of the people in democratic power to which parliament must honour and align is part of the mindset of pretending to effect such an outcome. Before the referendum brexit was cast as disaster – by fear-porn media that had no intention or likely freedom to honestly open or engage in real debate. After the referendum the same tactic coined the no deal’ brexit (with disaster) which at the very least undermined any leverage that the possibility of such event may have brought to the ‘negotiations’ IF in face there are actually negotiations – rather than a presentation a process of negotiations for mainstream consumption. The smug and ‘untouchable arrogance of the power behind the actors and of the actors backed by such power is to… Read more »
” block the ‘no deal’ Brexit that most Brexiters voted for”
Sorry to say, but that’s completely nonsense. We voted to leave the EU, but it was never determined at the time as to HOW we would leave nor WHEN we would leave.
Moreover, many, including Farage himself, were advocating during the campaign that Britian could be like Norway or Switzerland; the former being a member of the EEA and the latter EFTA.
Ergo, it’s utter bollocks that “most Brexiters” and their leaders voted for “no deal”.
The terms were in or out – there were no conditions attached. So while the fear mongering concept of a ‘no deal brexit’ hadn’t been created yet – the absence of any specific ‘deal’ to the decision was simply the case. Language is contrived to propagandistic intent. ‘Brexit’ ‘deal’ and the ‘no-deal disaster’. Almost everything has been about money and nothing of any vision as to other ways we might organised or predicate our lives and little critique of the corporate bureaucracy or indeed technocracy that in any case operates the structure in which a diminishing quality of freedom operates under a managed existence. Likewise the idea that relationship only exists through deals of legally defined contractual controls – as if EU = Europe and thus withdrawing from EU regulatory bonds means anti European and xenophobic hate – when what I want is the idea of relating from a unique… Read more »
As a free people under the Common Law (1215), we make our own laws and rule ourselves through Trial by Jury.
This is the single most important reason Brexiters want out of the EU.
European Law is made by Commissioners who appoint the judges.
Commissioners are not answerable to the electorate.
More fake news by those who say the UK is not involved in EU Government!
Who appoint the commissioners? Answer: our governments who are elected by us!
Who elects the MEPS? Answer: our electorates!
Where do the bureaucrats come from? Answer: EU member states!
Truth is we are a major part of the EU Government!
Benefits: we share the common benefits of working and living together without Nationalist barriers
In a world of lies – which do you prefer? Hopefully none of them – but this alignment with honesty of being puts you at odds with the narrative identities of the world – and of your own past learnings. Persecution doesn’t have to be ‘inter personal’ – it can simply operate through the thought-framing of of our own unwatched mind. The way it works is to have agents in effecting both sides of (sometimes psEUdo) conflicts in order to direct an outcome that no one in their right mind would want. People can be induced to want anything given the right framing. It is this recognition perhaps that induces such brazen and open manipulation in derision and neglect. But then we become simply a means to an end – and this way of seeing – or rather not seeing others as living beings – as sharing the same Life… Read more »
As the facts of EU Military Unification, or ‘Defence Union’ leach into the public awareness: no one has yet asked “Why?”. Why does the EU need its own autonomous – yet inter-operable with NATO – Defence Union? The military boondoggle angle has been countered – that common security and defence specifications – universalised across NATO – will be a cost saving exercise. I feel better knowing that the EU has wasteful military expenditure and duplication as a fiscal priority. Then there is the communist, sorry, Russian Federation threat. Or credible lack of it. It’s invention is certainly part of it …but not all. No one has mentioned the EU’s avowed expansionist agenda: increasing its sphere of influence through Turkey and the western Balkans into Central Asia …and through Libya into the G5 Sahel and Central Africa. Checkout the “EU Enlargement Policy”; “credible accession process”; and “European Neighbourhood Policy”. This “holistic… Read more »
The question you want answers to is which of your leaders is on statins.?
Statins alter personality. Statins alter mood.
Statin users have yellow skin.
They are mordlin in outlook and should not be allowed to exercise power. Our leaders take drugs that have them view the world through undertaker lace.
When the EU was formed, I was very pleased and excited that at last we would have a bulwark against American power….Something to counteract America’s disastrous and aggressive military policy….But alas, the EU simply became America’s lackey in this and all other respects…So much for the EU!
At the time I did not have anything against American power. I had not yet run into the abuse. Having grown up in West Berlin we had rose-coloured glasses. We knew how they lived across the Wall, no thx. “”We all know how early childhood experiences can leave their imprint …” he writes. I had been born in a German town which was 80% destroyed during the raids in April 1945. Three years followed which allowed survival on potato starch powder before the family returned to Berlin. When I see the ads for ‘toddler nutrition’ I laugh. War is evil, we don’t need more wars, more damaged people, more devastated settlements. My spouse spent the years from 4 to 6 on the road and in cattle trains after they had been kicked out from Wroclaw/Breslau by Stalin’s lackeys. Wars lead to situations like that. Early childhood education for two years… Read more »
You are very mistaken. The UK has never fitted into the EU because it has a radically different culture and history. You may loath and dispise the UK, most Continental Europeans seem to do, but that is a fact. We have a different political system and we have a radically different Legal System. The EU has never respected these differences and has sought to create, by lies and subterfuge one has to say, a ‘United States of Europe’. I see no popular consent for this daft idea just as there was no popular consent for the creation of the Euro, and look where that has got you. I wish the UK had never joined the (as it was) EEC but remained in EFTA. Had our political leaders had had more sense this is what they would have done and Europe would be a radically different place, and that would be… Read more »
To appreciate just how pivotal the US is to the EU, how the EU was and is a CIA construct, subservient to Washington, this interview with Paul Craig Roberts, who worked in the US government under Reagan is a massive eye opener. The interview took place before the Brexit vote and it’s like he had a crystal ball……”you won’t be allowed to leave”, he says. How right he is proving to be. Amazing interview:
BREXIT : Dr. Paul Craig Roberts 2016 :
(I have read that Kissinger once said that the global power of the US is based on Europe. If the US did not have Europe, they would not be a global force.)
I have put that in brackets because I cannot remember where I read it, if that was factual or fake news, context or what. The wording is also from memory.
It would be a sad day indeed if our tribalist positions/political opinions were formed purely by what our fathers did in the war. Then as now, the propaganda was of tsunamic intensity and honest opinions cannot be formed on lies. Thanks to the sterling work of a very few brave authors (I am currently reading Ian Cobain’s “History Thieves”) the curtain has been pulled back just a little. We now know far more than our parents ever did about the skulduggery of the system and are getting wiser to their tricks. The EU is indeed a monstrous monolith with its own agendas, but non-aligned countries are anathema to the power blocs. The UK has had 2 giant feet across its neck. As Bevin has suggested above, we would also have to leave NATO and the 5 Eyes, and exile all of MI6 and MI5 and probably the 1922 committee and… Read more »
Ruminating over porridge, this article is a hearkening back to a nostalgic age of British Sovereignty and Empire, when the wealth divide was just as bleak and children had to climb chimneys. My grandfather worked in the mines from age 13, and his forefathers illiterate miners, such is the lot of the poor working class irrespective of their talents. So the question is when did Britain lose her sovereignty? Was it when Julius Caesar came, the Jutes, Angles and Saxons, was it the Norman Conquest which brought feudalism and the French language, castles and serfs, heraldry etc. Was it the Reformation, when commons were stolen for private property? Was it when Elizabeth Tudor was crowned, despite the stronger claim by Mary Stuart? Was it Cromwell? Was it the Glorious Revolution when The Restoration Stewarts were replaced by the Dutch House of Orange? Was it the German Hanoverians? Was it the… Read more »
Well, one question might be: is Sovereignty (whatever the hell it is) a good idea anyway? And, btw, why do we still have a sovereign??
I’m sorry! Since WW11 Britain has been occupied by troops of all shapes and sizes from the United States of America. They have a multitude of bases all over the UK servicing their army, navy, airforce and security personnel.
GCHQ is known to be totally subservient to the NSA and CIA.
We have no independent defence force and if we join the Europeans military set up we will only do so if Uncle Sam agrees and we remain under his domination.
Sorry!
Agreed.
You can go into psychoanalysis all you like the EU Army will be under the jurisdiction of NATO ( read the US) and thereby contribute more to the US perceived over funding.
Oh and I forgot – turning the screw on Russia making the Third World War inevitable rather than potential.
Meanwhile various EU countries are signing up to The Belt Road Initiative.
Aah……………..now it all makes sense.
If anyone doubts this, they should listen to the speech by former Tory leader William Hague, real nauseating, lickspittle toadying to the Exceptional and Indispensable People.
Anyone remember that US forces – along with innumerable combatants from the Empire and the rest of Europe – fought with Britain to defeat Hitler? Good thing we didn’t have to depend on our ‘independent defence force’ then, eh?
@carmpat,
Not forgetting that the US came in at the end to tidy up, exactly as they had done in WWI, so Hollyweird could rewrite history as you would prefer?
After the USSR had done the heavy lifting & lost 27 million people?
After Brit, European & US Banksters had financed Hitler?
After Brit, European & US Banksters had financed the Bolshevik Revolution, the French Revolution, the Spanish Civil War & the English Civil War?
Spot the deliberate mistake?
John Doran.
They weren’t doing us any favours. They never do anybody any favours (except Israel.) They were just looking after their own interests – picking plums for US corporate interests.
In response to the theme : The war narrative is the gift that just keeps giving. I now see ww2 (among other things) as a pivot to the West – bringing Europe as an effectively controlled asset. The shifting forms of multiple hosts allows a parasitic intent to entrain and maintain the mind that is legion (divided). Giving hate as an act of self love or protection is always directed by hate. The tail that wags the dog is hate presenting itself as exceptional, special, exclusive, elite, power and protection to a victim manipulation. If malware was openly knocking before entering who would invite it into their mind? Hate is malware and in a sense already in, a love of true is compromised from within by defences that give power to fear and embody fear in hate. How to sweep malware from the Template? Bring hate to truth instead of… Read more »
The whole point of the EU is establishing and organising level playing fields and also like in football common rules so we can all play together!
This takes administration but the result was that we individually could move around Europe so that Liverpool, Lisbon or Luxembourg would be equally accessible and with comparable services available!
Each one of us could move around and would be equally protected by various EU local authorities and services like education, health and legal enforcement!
This is why we want to remain after all the problems of the past. Our real enemy is MSM which is why I am here
Money is what divides us.
The haves and have-nots.
Take free movement. What good is it when you haven’t the money to be able to use it, but it brings more and more competition, making your life harder and less able to use free movement?
Who cares what colour the passport is when you can’t afford one?
For the record, ex Army.
The MSM is the enemy that’s true but remaining is not an option the EU is a huge reason why we have austerity
‘Level playing fields’ Yes like Greece and Latvia have a level playing field with Germany. Or a bit like Dagenham and Redbridge have a level playing field with Manchester City. When states in the Eurozone use the same currency, those with higher productivity and low cost advantages in the northern bloc have an inbuilt competitive advantage compared with those states in the eastern and southern periphery. This result in a current account deficit for Portugal, Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland and so forth, and a current account surplus for Germany and the rest of the northern bloc – in perpetuity. And, in order to correct their trade imbalances the peripheral economies are required to implement what is become known as ‘internal devaluation’ (austerity) quite simply because they don’t have their own currencies and cannot devalue This means cutbacks in social spending on health, education, wages and so forth. The object is… Read more »
The EU is all about globalism and corporate interests.
What do we need an EU Army for?
We’ve got Gavin Williamson and his agricultural tractors with missiles on them to protect us!
One thing that has been made clear over the past twenty or so years is that the EU does not take referenda seriously. We have seen, on several occasions, key EU decisions rejected by voters in France, Ireland and their views being treated with contempt. The Irish were told to “Try again and get it right next time!” with a barely suppressed ‘Or Else’ added. In fact over the years the gradual transformation of a Common Market into a new Hapsburg Empire has taken place with a minimum of discussion and debate and no reference to the electorate. Enormous changes have been made in the way of protecting corporations and the wealthy from democracy and in neutralising radicals by making their policies incompatible with EU membership. And now, as the author points out, without any reference to the peoples of Europe the armies of twenty seven member states are being… Read more »
That’s twenty eight ‘member’ states, Bevin. Even according tot the EU’s own internal reports: there is no EU Military Unification or ‘Defence Union’ without UK forces. They simply do not have the functionality and inter-operable capability without us. Besides which, this seems to be a British project. I should add, a British Labour project – initiated by Nye Bevin in 1948: as a Western Union against the rising communist threat. The modern iteration stems from Blair in 1998: as confirmed at this years Munich Security Conference – at which Mogherini declared the Defence Union a ‘fait accomplis’ …”no longer the impossible dream of our founders”. There is also a web of bi-lateral treaties – such as the Lancaster House Treaties with France – that tie UK forces into the Defence Union. There can be no Defence Union without us. [All articles available on UK Column website. Mogherinis’s speech at EEAS… Read more »
Ernie nor Nye.
Nye Bevan was kicked out of the PLP for protesting against German re-armament and NATO. Despite your continual efforts to deny it, there is an honourable tradition in the Labour Party of opposition to NATO and US imperialism. Motions to leave NATO almost invariably secured the majority support of Constituency parties and were, until 1959, defeated by the TU block votes.
Not Nye, Ernie. Nye was sacked by Attlee for opposing the NATO-German rearmament scheme.
Until 1959, when it passed, Labour party members were always opposed to NATO, though outvoted by TU block votes.
The biggest thing dividing leave and remain seems to be outright hatred – and I can’t see Britain being united again in my lifetime at the very least (I’m 61). Everything is based on ‘belief’ and the ‘beliefs’ on both sides are verging on the evangelical. The only ‘fact’ is that ‘leave’ won the referendum. As a remainer, I fully accept that and we should have left within about 6 months of the referendum – giving us ample time to prepare. It is painfully clear that March 2019 was only selected as the ‘leave’ date in the hope that Brexit could be stopped over a couple of years or more. Disgracefully undemocratic. However, if you suggest that to many remainers all you will receive is abuse. As a remain voter, admittedly a somewhat skeptical one, I am disgusted and appalled at the behavior and attitude of many remainers, not least… Read more »
My father served in WW2, (a Major in Royal Artillery!) My grandfather too, alas he was killed! My father like other servicemen stayed on to help rebuild ruined countries! He believed in UK in Europe working together and would be devastated to see the renewed intolerant nationalism that is undoing the progress made in the 40 years of EU! You omitted to note that the greatest advocate for the EU was Ted Heath, a Captain in the war.. Also Denis Healey, and the majority of that generation! Anyway Vicars like medics served bravely on the frontline, if you think about it! I respect my forefathers who united and fought to improve society by common cause. I am desolate at it all being undone
I do understand your sentiments but, to me, the people of Europe being united in peace is a whole different matter to a huge political monolith called The EU. I actually believe that, ultimately, The EU will achieve anything but peace if it succeeds in slowly reducing member countries sovereignty’s as it clearly desires – and never more openly than now. There may come a day when humanity can accept such a thing – I doubt it, knowing humanity, but you never know eh? – but that day is many many decades away at best. As European people, wishing to live in peace, the British will continue to want a national identity separate to the amorphous mass called Europe, as indeed, will the Germans, the Italians, the French etc etc. Even The UK is not fully united in terms of pride. Many say “I am Scottish / English / Welsh… Read more »
You have the nub of it. The EU is busy building itself into an ‘Empire’ just as Barosso said. The problem is to do so it is riding roughshod over the individual member states ever increasing its power at the expense of theirs. All this does is suck the life out of National democracy which some might not care about, but there is no democratic control over the EU. And now this undemocratic monolith wants an Army. Such an arrangement has been the executioner of Liberty down the ages, and this will be no different.
There are separate states within Europe and it’s a folkloric thing, which is good. We Citizens of this region called Europe want the freedom, sharing and participation that we strive for naturally without barriers or Nationalistic separatism. The EU is the administration needed to work together towards achieving level playing fields and fair play! As opposed to jingoism, elitism and aggressiveness leading to conflict Like most British I don’t want to give up our Freedoms of being British European with mutual access to all the benefits of working together with adjoining Europeans! (eventually to be shared with our Commonwealth ) We have 73 MEPS and government appointed representatives! The administration is equally open to GB civil servants and apparently is no bigger than Birmingham Council? The resulting joint rights and freedoms worked for the overall benefits of various countries! Not perfect but miles bettet than separatism! I want to be… Read more »
No, it’s not hatred, although the MSM would be perfectly happy to foment that for its “news” value…
My sister is not as informed as I am politically, and still trusts the “establishment” far more than I ever will, but we will never hate each other.
She may think me obsessive about political information, and I may think her in denial about it, but that has nothing to do with human ties. She’s still a wonderful sister.
Here’s hoping the “hatred” you rightly recognise turns out to have a creative function. Both sides imagine that they are on the side of virtue. Those who buy into the Culturally Marxist faux-ethicism of our globalist rulers refuse to see that they (like all submissives to Communist/Collectivist propaganda) are being deceived and that their centrist/moderate stance really represents support for the ongoing murderous bankers’ world-government project. It is difficult and terrifying to realise such a thing. I know because, like most people I was once there.
The tide is moving only one way … whatever coups obedience-monkeys like May, Tusk and Barnier think they are pulling off.
what we have to worry about are the plans their masters have waiting in the wings.
There are far more important differences I think. Reading a few articles by Varoufakis and Monbiot it is clear that there is a deep dissatisfaction within even the centralish left with the neoliberal undemocratic functioning of the EU. However they dismiss populism and populists in general as being extreme right wing because that is how the establishment went out of their way to paint EU opposition in the run-up to the referendum and ever since in unending project fear and smear. This disguised the fact that there were millions of working class left wing and centre voters who wanted to leave the EU and who voted for Brexit although they found it difficult to admit it as it implied they had some how become right wing. Perhaps the only difference between the neoliberal globalists and everyone else – is whether people think that it can be reformed from within or… Read more »
It’s not just a case of the EU being incapable of reforming itself – though that is true.
What is the response of the EU Politburo to Brexit, and populist opposition in France, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia?
Just business as usual and double down – go hell for leather for an EU Superstate and EU Army.
That is what we were trying to escape from.
LEAVE means LEAVE – The Government cannot undermine existing Law that is part of the Withdrawal Agreement – Theresa May was not qualified to negotiate with the EU and she should be ‘Sectioned’ under the Mental Health Act in my opinion.
It is interesting when that statutory instrument or whatever it’s called did not pass through the House of Lords. Theresa May’s extension of Article 50 was probably unlawful and we likely in fact Brexited the European Union on the 29th of March 2019. It will be instructive to watch the courts wriggling out of this one.
Correction that is wrong. It seems Theresa May held the prerogative power to pass her extension. All the same it seems there is a legal challenge ongoing presumably on the grounds that Michael Cromer has identified.
Governments. and govermental organizations can and do, with or without due notice, ignore, re-interpret, temporarily abrogate or invent, strike off, instate and generally fuck around with law for immediate political expedience all the time. Get real, look around you. If the law is anything other than a high level guessing and wool-pulling game, why does the US President’s sole power to nominate US Supreme Court judges matter a damn? For “little people” The Law is not some kind of floodlight that illuminates the arena of social, political and commercial discourse and its limits for the mythical everyone is equal, it’s a searchlight that, for the most partpart, they don’t get to aim, but for the high-rollers it’s an irrelevance at best, an inconvenience or nuisance in general and an actual hindrance at its extremely rare worst. “Qu’on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j’y… Read more »
Interesting angle.
My soldier father had a very strong sense of justice and a deep mistrust of politians. He was German.
Justice is equally important to me and I share his mistrust.
It’s a nice idea that this transcends the tribes.