Happy Brexit Anniversary. A Case Against The Referendum.
How good did that feel? Let’s take back control! Independence from European bureaucrats! Making Britain Great Again! We will halt immigration flooding our nation because of Europe’s open borders policy! More jobs for the British! Getting rid of European red tape so the British economy can go full steam ahead. We must stop paying the EU 350,000,000 pound each week. Let us invest that in our NHS! Vote “LEAVE”!
Three years on, the NHS is now the envy of the world in terms of healthcare efficiency and effectiveness thanks to the investment of those saved 54.6 billion pounds. Three years of British stable productive government ensured that the European Laws were quickly abandoned and now, without the European legal hamstrings, Britain’s economy has steamed full speed ahead leaving Europe in its dust. The results? Lower inflation, increased pay, less/no immigration, more jobs, less red-tape. Britain is back! The people celebrate those who initiated the Brexit referendum. Nigel Farage, Dominic-Take-Back-Control-Cummings, Theresa May and the best: Boris-I-am-not a dusty-politician-let’s-just-do-the-Brexit-Johnson.
There are just a few details that need a tad further clarification. The NHS for instance, has been in the news lately not because of its demonstrable increase in efficiency and effectiveness since Brexit, but because of increased patient waiting times and staff shortages. How is that possible after an investment of 54.6 billion pounds? Turns out there never was any 54.6 billion over three years because Britain never forked over 350 million per week to Europe. This was simply a claim made by Farange’s Leave campaign. An invented marketing slogan. Many voters, devoid of basic critical thinking skills would not ask: “How do I know that this claim is true”. They have a visceral reaction: “WHAT? THAT´S RIDICULOUS! 350 MILLION A WEEK? WE MUST LEAVE EUROPE AND INVEST THAT MONEY IN THE NHS!” People with visceral reactions will go to the polling station. The ones who don’t believe such claims are not so emotionally triggered and are less likely to vote. They are less emotionally vested in the issue. Politics is just BS for votes. It’s not about policy. Policy is boring. At least populists like Johnson, Trump and Bolsonaro stir things up. Consequences? Who cares!
It’s just a marketing slogan, but in common parlance it is a lie, because they knew the claim was false. Farange c.s. knew that the slogan wasn´t true, but they also knew that most people disattisfied with government and large institutions, would not question it. If it fits with a general anti-establishment feeling, people will like it. Humans naturally assume that what they like must be true.
This touches on the Achilles heel of the institution of democracy. If people, voters, cannot distinguish between what is true and false, then they will follow what feels good. And then there are lots and lots of people who see these people as easy prey. It’s easy to make a person feel good if they cannot distinguish truth from falsehood. They just have to point the finger tell them that ‘those people’ are the culprits. Vote for me and I will deal with them and I will take care of you. Compare that to trying to convince people who want to understand, who need facts, reasons, logic, evaluate possible consequences. Non-thinking voters, easy money for the manipulators and the easy first step towards authoritarianism and fascism, the holy grail of the psychopathic section of the ruling class.
The world is complex and people prefer it to be simple. Demagogues will project a simple solution. They know it’s false, but many voters will see them as harbingers of good news, an end to their discomfort.
Bernie Madoff promised easy money. He is in jail. Farage and Johnson promised a deluge of benefits. They are better off than Bernie: free and still profiting from the lies that they sold. No consequences for these politicians. The voters pay the price.
Fortunately, they now have a former banker for Prime Minister.
The claim about the weekly 350 million pound is, and always was, false. That’s why the NHS has not benefited from Brexit and never would have. Not a single British Pound. Instead, because British jobs have to go to UK citizens as per Brexit policy, qualified immigrants are less likely to receive a job permit and cannot apply for the jobs that the nation so desperately needs to be filled. Maybe European immigration policies facilitate immigrants taking up healthcare jobs which in turn would have shortened the waiting times. Maybe, maybe not.
That’s how it was at the time of the referendum too: maybe Leave, maybe Remain. But oh no, it wasn’t. Not “maybe”. Not “I don’t know”. Certainly not “Leaving such a broad and encompassing institution like the Europen Union might result in myriad unforeseen consequences, that I have no idea of, so why should I be so certain that leaving would be the right choice? Enough of this complexity already!
Who on earth thinks that Joe and Joanna Blo should determine how the country should position itself in the world economy? Who’s bright idea is to put such a responsibility on the shoulders of people who have got no clue?”.
Fervent be-“LEAVE”-ers have no trust in Big government and feel that the European Union is a distant, abstract bureaucratic apparatus that is just mudding the clear British waters. A foreign entity that decides for the UK what laws the UK must implement. Change is better than more of the same unhappiness. Farage is a breath of fresh air. And so is our Boris. They promised to unleash Brexit benefits to the people. Let’s do it!
IFarage is gone. May is gone. Johnson is gone. “Make Brexit Work” is still not working as EU Laws are still not fully dismantled and negotiations continue. The UK’s economy is performing poorly compared to those of EU countries. The economic and political costs of actually leaving the EU are astronomical. Red tape is increasing as goods need to be declared, checked and taxed. Those who voted “LEAVE” are worse off because of Brexit. The elite who peddled this referendum to the Average Joe, are not worse off, so that’s a good thing, I guess?
As long as a large part of the population doesn’t ask “How do I know that this claim is true?” and as long as they don’t know how to come to a reasoned answer, that part of the population remains easy to manipulate by populist politicians.
Populists can make disattisfied people believe that Jewish people are rodents that need to be eradicated, that black people are inferior to white people, that only they, their Leader, can make their country great again, that Brexit will make everything better, that smoking is not harmful, that climate change is not real/ not important/ not caused by humans/… that vaccines are microscopic machines that are injected into your bloodstream to make you a slave of the Lizzard people, that Ukrainians are nazi’s, that nuclear war is necessary to defend the country, etc. Freedom of speech is not bound by truth. Therefore the people should have the tools to detect BS. Such tools exist. They reside in the Critical Thinking methodology. Finland has integrated these tools into their education system, from kindergarten to university. The Finnish sense BS from miles away. Other countries do not take education that seriously.
Brexit-voters are worse off today then they were before Brexit. A few will have remorse and maybe a few have learned from their mistake and be more skeptical when the next populist claims are made. But others will point the finger and blame others for the disaster that is Brexit. They don’t learn and will wait for the next claim that makes them feel better about themselves. They will be more embittered and they will support ever more extreme claims.
It is time that the West understood that Democracy has no future without a voting population educated in critical thinking. Until then, the referendum, but also the whole democratic voting system, is nothing more than handing the country to the populists who appeal to basic instincts.
