Catastrophisation

Brexit Catastrophisation Watch, Part 2

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

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Suffer and roar

The other day, while in an uncharacteristically high-minded mood, I wrote:

During the EU referendum, I genuinely wanted the Leave campaign to win more than I wanted to defeat the Remain campaign. Despite immense provocation from the political establishment and many on the Remain side, I was generally motivated more by a desire to secure a better and more democratic future for my country than to make Remainers sad or to wipe the smug smile off George Osborne’s face.

Well, today I take it all back.

Ordinarily I would feel bad about sharing what is basically an hour’s worthy of weepy young ignoramuses whose mourning for their lost “European identity” is matched only by their ignorance about what the European Union actually is and how it works – but many high-profile Remainers have been so insufferably tedious and ungracious in defeat that any reserves of goodwill I possessed on 24 June have long since been exhausted.

One can only take hearing one’s perfectly legitimate and non-extreme political views (i.e. believing that Britain should be like every country in the world outside the EU and not outsource swathes of our governance to an unaccountable supranational government) described as the first step toward the return of fascism before feeling tempted to hit back, hard.

So enjoy: sixty glorious minutes of morons who who think that painting the EU flag on their faces and singing hymns of praise to Brussels makes them Virtuous People and Enlightened Citizens, weeping bitter tears because the Evil Old People and their nasty racist views have set in motion our foolish secession from the greatest and most noble organisation in human history, the European Union.

Money quotes:

1.30 – pinch-faced, morally righteous young woman on the verge of tears

“I feel like we are watching the stirrings of fascism in Europe again, and I genuinely never thought it would by my country that did that”

Yep, vote for freedom from supranational political union one day and we’ll all be polishing our jackboots the next.

And:

2.17 – a hipster girl wearing an outfit seemingly made entirely of feathers:

“London is like a little bubble, and the outside world, especially like regional places, is quite right wing. And it’s really really scary for our generation?”

And yes, her statement does end with a question mark.

And:

2.26 – the pinch-faced, morally righteous young woman, again

“The majority of these people are over 75 – they don’t have a future in this country.”

Children, respect your elders.

And finally:

23.18 – MP / industrial vacuum cleaner salesman Keith Vaz, crying to the BBC

“This is a crushing, crushing decision. It’s a terrible day for Britain, and a terrible day for Europe with, you know, immense consequences [..] Frankly, in a thousand years I would never have believed that the British people would have voted in this way, and they have done so and I think they have voted emotionally rather than looking at the facts, and it’ll be catastrophic for our country, for the rest of Europe and indeed the world.”

Ah, the arrogant Remainer head vs heart explanation again. Sorry to let you down, Jim.

To be fair, though, I myself was a rabid euro-federalist from the beginning of my student days until my early twenties. Had the EU referendum happened back in the early 2000s, I could easily have been one of those people having a weepy nervous breakdown into any passing TV camera.

Hopefully, like me, some of these petulant voices will come to recant their pro-European views as they grow in age and wisdom – and as the realisation slowly dawns that Brexit, however badly managed by politicians, has not ushered in the apocalypse.

 

People hold banners during a demonstration against Britain's decision to leave the European Union, in central London

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Bottom Image: Huffington Post, REUTERS/Neil Hall

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Brexit Catastrophisation Watch, Part 1

Samuel Hooper9 Comments

Since there seems to be no imminent end to the petulant, childish rage of disappointed Remain supporters at the prospect of being forcibly ripped away from their beloved European Union, we may as well start cataloguing some of the most hyperbolic and far-fetched tales of woe and prophesies of doom.

The inaugural submission comes, naturally, from the Guardian:

Social services for older and disabled people face crisis because post-Brexit migration restrictions could cause a massive shortage of care workers, leading care organisations have said.

The 1.4-million-strong UK care sector’s reliance on European migrant workers means it is vital they are given the right to remain in any future migration arrangements, the charities Independent Age and the International Longevity Centre UK (ILC-UK) said.

Currently about 84,000 care workers – equivalent to one in 20 of England’s growing care workforce – are from European Economic Area countries. About 90% do not have British citizenship and their future immigration status remains uncertain.

The charities said failure to tackle workforce shortages would mean thousands of older people would lose out on support, meaning they could be left housebound, struggle to recover properly from a stroke or fall, or fail to get assistance in getting up and dressed in the morning.

Translation: overturn the EU referendum result, or granny gets it.

(Note too the hyperbolic doomsday assumption of “a scenario which closed off all migration”, something which no serious person expects to happen).

The counterargument to this mini-tantrum, of course, is that cheap, young foreign labour from the EU and elsewhere has helped to ensure that care workers in Britain are paid an absolute pittance – often hovering around minimum wage – for performing a physically and mentally taxing job requiring skill, tact, empathy, good humour and great emotional intelligence in order to look after our loved ones in their final years.

The surly Guardianista charities moaning about the potential impact of Brexit on their sector clearly have no qualms or concerns that a worker can often make more money flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant than caring for our elderly and infirm senior citizens. This is just fine, apparently. But the mere possibility that free movement of labour restrictions might force employers to pay less desultory sums of money to frontline staff sends these “charities” into paroxysms of terror and rage. Whose side are they on? Not that of the patients or the care workers, that’s for sure.

Want to stop the endless drip-drip of care home abuse scandals? Try getting outraged that care is a borderline minimum wage occupation in this country, understand that people who might just as easily be flipping burgers for a living won’t always display the same dedication as Florence Nightingale – and be inordinately grateful for those care workers who do possess these criminally undervalued qualities. And in the meantime, forgive me for questioning the calibration of these charities’ moral compasses.

But why should we be surprised by their intervention? Everything about modern leftism and pro-Europeanism revolves around signalling virtue and ostentatiously displaying the “right” progressive beliefs to the right people.

And right now, it is far more important to be seen opposing those awful racist Brexiteers than it is to question the moral sustainability of an industry which hits its profit margin targets by providing our oldest and most vulnerable citizens with a Tesco Value standard of care.

 

nursing-care-home-abuse

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This Nauseating Self-Pity From Disappointed Remainers Should Be Treated With The Scorn It Deserves

Samuel Hooper8 Comments

EU Referendum - Brexit - Despair

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Disappointed Remainers may be anxious and upset at having their European identity “ripped away from them”, but Brexiteers have been voiceless and disenfranchised for their entire lives. The collective middle class hissy fit from sore loser Remain supporters is nothing more than their privileged reaction to not getting their own way for once

Melissa Kite tells an anecdote in The Spectator which will be immediately familiar to any Brexiteer stuck behind “enemy lines” with a social circle consisting primarily of disappointed Remain supporters:

‘Of course, there will be no air quality now,’ said a friend, shaking her head over my support for Brexit.

‘You what?’

‘Air quality,’ she said. ‘Or green belt. Or Sites of Special Scientific Interest, preserving the countryside and wildlife… All those really good EU regulations have all gone now.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ I started to feel exasperated, inwardly thinking, ‘Uh-oh, here goes another friendship…’

‘All those EU regulations safeguarding everything. All gone. No more air-quality rules. No more SSSIs.’

‘So you’re saying Brexiteers have ruined the air now, are you? That’s where we are up to with the scaremongering? No more air now we’re out of the EU.’

‘Well, I’m just saying…’

The air of surly resentment against Brexiteers – ranging from generalised “woe is me” laments to very specific lists of the many plagues of Egypt which will now befall them in an independent Britain – is getting tiresome in the extreme.

And it gets worse:

‘Oh my god! The scaremongering!’ I moaned. ‘I’ve had it up to here with it!’

‘Fine. We won’t talk about it,’ said my friend, who is a science teacher and ought to know her stuff when it comes to SSSIs and all that malarkey.‘I’m just saying, they’ll probably build all over the green belt now. And big business will take over the world…’

‘Stop it! I can’t take any more! There’s nothing you can say that will make me regret backing Brexit. Even if you tell me they’re going to build a million houses on every last inch of the green belt, and turn all the air into carbon monoxide, I still want to be able to elect the people who make the laws that govern me!’

‘Fine. We won’t talk about it. Although you could elect them if you bothered, but no one does…’

‘Not the MEPs! They don’t make the laws! The commissioners make the laws and they’re unelected… Oh my god, I’m turning back…’

‘Fine, let’s just not talk about it at all. My son just got a job and he’s bought two new suits…’

I assumed she was going to say, ‘…that were made out of toxic, poisonous wool because all the safety laws have been scrapped so he ended up in A&E…’ but she didn’t.

Of course Brexiteers would be equally grumpy if the result had gone the other way (as many of us expected it to), but it is hardly comparable. Remainers at least got to enjoy the European Union for all this time. Brexiteers had to suffer it.

But certainly, this blog would certainly have been apoplectic in the event of a Remain vote, and with good reason. Remainers love to whinge that the Leave campaign won based on lies and distortions, while conveniently overlooking the fact that the prime minister and chancellor debased their high offices by using the full machinery of government and Whitehall to work incessantly for a Remain vote.

Whether it’s the £9m government propaganda mailshot, the Obama intervention, Cameron’s violation of purdah rules or the way in which the Remain campaign shrank the debate to focus purely on the economy and then wheeled out expert after expert to suggest that the avoidance of short-term economic disruption should be our sole concern (while utterly ignoring the democratic question), the Remain campaign is just as guilty of lies and obfuscation as Vote Leave.

More to the point, Remain had a massive advantage in the status quo factor which makes it prohibitively difficult for the radical option to prevail in a referendum. Not only did they have the 24/7 support of the British government propelling them onward, they had a built-in advantage of thousands of wavering voters who would ultimately vote for continuity. And still they could not triumph. Without these aids, the margin of victory for Leave would likely have been even greater.

So while Remain supporters may be disappointed now, it is worth remembering that nothing will change for them until Britain actually leaves the EU (whenever that may be), and that many of the things which they treasure to the extent that they were willing to bargain away our democracy may still be available to them. Certainly if Britain pursues an interim EFTA/EEA access solution (as this blog advocates) then their economic nightmares will prove utterly unfounded while their precious freedom of movement is left largely untouched.

And while Remainers may be devastated at the prospect of soon no longer being EU citizens, Brexiteers have had to endure being in the EU against our will since 1973. And while I’m dreadfully sad that Remainers will not get precisely what they want handed to them on a silver plate for once in their lives, many Brexiteers have suffered what we see as an undemocratic, unjust status quo for our entire lives. Let’s not get so caught up in concern for the Brexit-inspired mental trauma of Phoebe and Rupert from Islington that we forget the fact that Jack and Gary from Sunderland have been losing out for decades, and only now are getting the opportunity to taste victory for the first time in their lives.

Of course, much of the commentariat struggles to wrap their heads around the fact that Brexit is not a calamity for everyone. They live among Phoebes and Ruperts, and rarely (if ever) meet Jacks or Garys, let alone identify with their lives, struggles and ambitions. That’s why the Guardian finds endless examples of delicate people whose anxiety has gone through the roof and have retreated to their safe spaces in terror, but then extends the same nauseating sympathy to celebrating Brexiteers, assuming that we uneducated rubes have been tricked to vote against our own interests and will soon regret our vote for democracy and self-governance.

What we are now witnessing, with these tearful examples of pampered middle class pseudo-trauma and calls to ignore the result of the EU referendum or to keep holding votes until the British public give the “right” answer, are nothing but a collective hissy fit from people who have had their way since 1973 and are furiously, childishly determined that nobody else should ever get to influence the future of their country and exercise control over their lives.

And while remaining magnanimous toward individuals and genuinely disappointed EU supporters in general, we should treat any further such selfish, self-pitying sentiments with the scorn they richly deserve.

 

Trigger Warning

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