By now it has filtered through to many that the Brexit result was mainly due to three factors. The immigrant issue, the North/South divide in Britain and the protests of the elderly who have to exist on a basic state pension of £150 per week. No economic arguments advanced to the xenophobic or racialist voters would convince them to vote otherwise than to leave. Consider the case of the Labour MP canvassing for a Remain vote. Interviewed by the BBC, I paraphrase his words, “We tried to convince them by explaining some misconceptions about jobs lost to them and other lies told, yet such was their intensity of feeling and belief that immigration would be halted that they always reverted back to their anti immigrant stance.”

One can thank Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage for the chaos and uncertainties in world markets. I have a good idea what they told the voters but I have a better idea what they did not tell them. Firstly, Cameron had squeezed a deal from the EU that bona fide EU workers in the UK would not get social benefits for four years. Secondly, Schengen did not apply to Britain and a passport was required. Thirdly, illegal immigrants are liable to criminal prosecution if found working without a permit. Their employer is also prosecuted for taking them on. Illegal immigrants cannot therefore enjoy any social benefits unless they are legally working, paying taxes and national insurance contributions. As for taking the jobs of the natives, the National Health Service would collapse without these workers.  That also applies to Local Authorities that need labour for the dirty jobs the British spurn.   

Farage and Johnson have a lot to answer for. They had no plans in the event of Brexit. Like frightened chicken who find themselves out of their coop, they had no constructive ideas on how to proceed and to obtain their next meal. They offered Britain its independence and now the people that took their advice find that Britain will never be independent, rather the opposite. Britain is a trading nation, always has been and always will be. Ask any commercial enterprise of any size whom it depends on for its survival. If Britain thinks it is in any way independent, it might as well wait for manna to fall from the sky. So now after 41 years of being the maverick nation of Europe thanks to those two false prophets, Britain has to go cap in hand to leave the EU with a deal which may force them to think twice about Schengen. It is no wonder they are dragging their feet in triggering Article 50, if they ever will.

I note that Mr Farage, for the good of Britain, had better say less or retire somewhere he can do little harm.  I saw this Nigel Farage being interviewed by a Maltese reporter on television. I was not impressed by his confident air and show of ebullience, particularly when he was so patronising to the hapless reporter and when he had the arrogance to suggest Malta should leave the EU.

Mr Farage should save his bluster for the EU Parliament where his audience are not as easily convinced as the ones who voted in accordance with what he told them.   

Now he and Johnson and others of his ilk have quickly been discarded by the pragmatic British lest the anti EU vote is heard above the coming negotiations. A change of heart towards the EU may be too late after years of EU scepticism.

 

Joe Izzo

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