A vote to Remain in the EU is a vote to change it for the better

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How a Churchill quote was “stitched up” to support Brexit

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Dead people can’t sue or answer back. Maybe that’s why supporters of Brexit thought they could get away with fabricating a quote by Winston Churchill to support Britain leaving the European Union.

Increasingly doing the rounds in the lead-up to Britain’s EU referendum is a quote by Churchill which it is claimed he said to Parliament on 11 May 1953 when he was Britain’s Prime Minster.

The quote or variants of it, usually depicted alongside a photo of Churchill, is being heavily promoted on social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and quoted in readers commentsin multiple newspapers and blogs, usually by UKIP supporters.

The quote is being used to prove that Churchill would never have supported Britain’s membership of the EU, and that if he were alive now, he would be against the concept of today’s European Union and vote for Brexit in June’s referendum. 

This is what’s claimed Churchill said in Parliament in 1953, during his second term in office as Prime Minister:

“We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed. If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.”

The problem with this quote is that it’s a deception. Brexit supporters have fabricated it by ‘stitching’ together two different quotes by Churchill, said by him at different times and in different contexts.

The authors of this ‘stitch up’ have then falsely claimed that Churchill made this announcement in Parliament in 1953 as a reason for Britain not to join the emerging European Community. 

In this way, Brexit supporters have posthumously ‘recruited’ Churchill as a backer of Britain leaving the EU in the forthcoming referendum.

Duplicity

So, let’s unravel this crude duplicity and betrayal of Britain’s greatest war leader.

The first four sentences of the ‘quote’ were not said by Churchill in Parliament in 1953, but written by him 23 years earlier, in February 1930, for America’s Saturday Evening Post.

Ironically, the title of Churchill’s article in 1930 was ‘The United States of Europe’ – a concept which he passionately supported.

Churchill considered that a truly united Europe would be the antidote to war and the path to greater security and prosperity for the continent. This in turn would be of considerable value to Britain, wrote Churchill. His article was remarkably prescient, as it outlined a blueprint for today’s European Union. 

Churchill concluded that, “the concept of a United States of Europe is right.” His article imagined a Europe without internal barriers or tariffs, or passports, or multiple currencies, which would enable the “free interchange of goods and services” and the free travel of people across the continent.

And the idea of “European unity” was not new. “Europe has known the days when Rumanians lived on the Tyne and Spaniards on the Danube as equal citizens of a single state,” wrote Churchill, reminding his American readers of the Roman Empire.

Added Churchill:

“Everywhere, in every age, in every area however wide, our every grouping of peoples however diverse, unity has made for strength and prosperity for all within its circle. Why should Europe fear unity?”

 

Empire

It was clear from his article, however, that at that time Churchill did not envisage Britain – which then headed a huge Empire and Commonwealth straddling the world – needing or wanting to be part of a ‘United States of Europe’.

It’s from this article that Brexit supporters have taken four sentences and claimed that instead of 1930, Churchill spoke them to Parliament in 1953. He did not.

Let me put the quote into context by quoting the sentences that immediately preceded it:

“We are bound to further every honest and practical step to which the nations of Europe may make to reduce barriers which divide them and to nourish their common interests and their common welfare.

“We rejoice at every diminution of the internal tariffs and the martial armaments of Europe. We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonality. 

“But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.”

Churchill’s view in 1930 would be bound to change by the 1950s, by which time Europe had endured a second devastating world war and was desperate to avoid another. (More of that shortly).

Temper

So, what about the last sentence of the misleading quote that Brexit supporters insist Churchill said to Parliament in 1953? Here it is again:

“If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.

This was not said by Churchill after the war, but during the war, on the eve of the ‘D Day’ landings in Normandy that would eventually lead to victory over Nazi Germany. (Source: D-Day, the Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor)

The French leader, Charles de Gaulle, was flown from Algiers to London to be briefed on the battle plans called ‘Operation Overlord’.

But Churchill became exasperated with de Gaulle’s apparent obstinacy and brinkmanship, and wanted to demonstrate his strong loyalty to US President, Franklin Roosevelt, without whose help Britain – and Europe – would be lost.

Churchill’s temper with de Gaulle flared up and he demanded to know how the British could act separately from the United States. During the raging row, Churchill bellowed to de Gaulle:

“We are going to liberate Europe, but it is because the Americans are with us. So get this quite clear. Every time we have to decide between Europe and the open sea, it is always the open sea we shall choose. Every time I have to choose between you and Roosevelt, I will always choose Roosevelt.”

De Gaulle accepted this was bound to be the case, and tempers calmed down during the ensuing lunch (with fine wine). Churchill raised his glass and said, “To de Gaulle, who never accepted defeat.” And de Gaulle raised his and said, “To Britain, to victory, to Europe.”

For sure, the two of them had a mercurial relationship. De Gaulle once famously and loftilyremarked:

“When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. So we were often very angry with each other.”

Brexit supporters should not have taken a quote by Churchill yelled in anger during the war and falsely claimed that he said it as part of a considered speech to Parliament eight years after the war had ended.

In fact, the entire quote now being promoted by Brexit supporters to claim Churchill’s support for their cause is nothing other than a misleading concoction.

Hansard

It is, however, true that in the early 1950s Churchill did not support Britain’s membership of the emerging European Community.

So why haven’t Brexit supporters instead quoted what Churchill actually did say to Parliament on 11 May 1953? After all, it’s easy to verify as it’s available online in the edition of Hansard for that day:

“Where do we stand? We are not members of the European Defence Community, nor do we intend to be merged in a Federal European system. We feel we have a special relation to both. This can be expressed by prepositions, by the preposition ‘with’ but not ‘of’  – we are with them, but not of them. We have our own Commonwealth and Empire.”

In 1950, Churchill explained to Parliament why he didn’t “at present” foresee Britain being, “a member of a Federal Union of Europe.” This was primarily because of Britain’s position, “at the centre of the British Empire and Commonwealth”, and, “our fraternal association with the United States of America.

It was clear that Churchill’s opposition was not a principled one, but a practical one.

All that was to change during the course of the 1950s and 1960s, when it became clear that Britain’s Empire had finished and its Commonwealth was diminished.

Speech

In March 1957 the six nations of France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg founded the European Economic Community (later to be renamed the European Union).

Four months later Churchill gave his last speech on Europe at Central Hall, Westminster. He welcomed the formation of a ‘common market’ by the six, provided that, “the whole of free Europe will have access.” He added, “we genuinely wish to join.”
(Source: Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches Vol. 8 page 8681)

In August 1961, Churchill wrote:

“I think that the Government are right to apply to join the European Economic Community…” 

Churchill supported the ‘welding’ of West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg into ‘an organic whole’, which he described as a ‘happy outcome’ of the European Economic Community. Churchill added:

“We might well play a great part in these developments to the profit of not only ourselves, but of our European friends also.”

(Source: Long Sunset by Sir Anthony Montague Brown, pages 273-274)

And in 1963, just two years before he died, Churchill wrote:

“The future of Europe if Britain were to be excluded is black indeed.”

Brexit campaigners, however, are increasingly using Churchill’s words and images to recruit his memory to their side. Recently, for example, ‘Vote.Leave’ launched a videopresenting the case for Britain’s exit from the EU, and featured Winston Churchill alongside other famous British heroes.

But Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, launched a scathing attack against this use of the war leader’s words and images in support of Brexit. He said that they had no right to use his grandfather in this way and suggested that Churchill’s views would never have aligned with their campaign.

Sir Nicholas told The Independent newspaper:

“Winston Churchill was a profound believer in the values of European co-operation and the need for it, and I am very disappointed to see these people twisting his views to suit their own ends.” 

Contrary to what Brexit supporters might tell you, Churchill is recognised as one of thefounders of the European Union, and has a building named after him at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. (I know; I’ve been there.)

Fortunately, truth usually prevails in the end. 

Another article from Jon Danzig. This and other articles from Jon can be found on his blog Jon Danzig’s blogspot

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Jeremy Clarkson backs staying in the EU

Jeremy Clarkson

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Things I would like to see from the LeaveEU campaigns.

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Things I would like to see proposed from the LeaveEU campaigns:

1. A list of EU directives, rules and regulations that they plan to repeal if ‘we get our sovereignty back’? They claim that they don’t like the rules forced upon us by the EU but fail to say what they would get rid of if we vote to leave.

2. I’d like them to be honest about the extraction process with the UK voters. They need to be truthful about how long it will take, and what they plan to do next. With no plans it truly is a leap into the dark.

3. On immigration, I want them to tell us who they think is going to do all the necessary jobs that are filled in the UK by EU migrant workers. They claim that they will reduce immigration from the ‘hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands’, but fail to explain which industry sectors they are prepared to close down in the UK to do it.

4. On Trade, I want them to say if they have had a single formal or informal discussion with any nation anywhere in the world. Is there a single nation that has said they would be interested in beginning trade negotiations with a post-EU United Kingdom?

5. I want them to explain more about the new Tariff and Duty regime that the UK would find itself in after a Leave vote with all our trade partners around the world. Joe Public deserves to be told the truth about how their vote will affect their cost of living.

6. LeaveEU campaigns have said that losing jobs and closing businesses is a ‘price worth paying’. All very well, but its not their jobs and livelihoods they are paying with, its OURS. What exactly IS the ‘price worth paying’ for their future political career?

No more soundbytes from random politicians….. it is time for the Leave Campaigns to present the facts…… many in the Leave camps have been trying to get this referendum for 20 years…. its time they put their cards on the table and told us what that actually means.

 Thanks to Jason Hunter, a member of the Say Yes 2 Europe – Remain in the EU alliance, for letting us use his post from the New Europeans
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Why isn’t Germany planning to Leave the EU?

When you hear the Brexiteers blaming the EU for this and for that one thing that they never seem to acknowledge is that whatever the EU does, we are a full part of its deliberations and decisions. If the EU isn’t handling the refugee crisis well,for instance, then it is we that aren’t handling the refugee crisis well.  The Brexiteers are not big when it comes to offering solutions as to what should be happening.  It is easier to blame ‘Brussels’ than to say what you think the British Government should be doing in Brussels.  And of course when it comes to practicalities – for example what exactly might happen at the Irish border after a Brexit, their solution is to wave airily and talk of negotiation.  But just imagine Ireland in the EU and Northern Ireland outside. That alone is a recipe for mayhem.

Actually the British Government is doing a great deal in Brussels that is extremely positive but about this you hear not one squeak from those seeking to detach ourselves from the sea anchor of our Continental partners.  Having been the power behind the Single Market, Britain is seeking to extend that market to digital services which at the moment are still hemmed in with restrictions.  The greater part of Britain’s much needed exports are services and completing the digital services market would be of immense value to us.
Lord Hill, the British EU commissioner responsible for financial services is also seeking to build a capital union market so that investors can invest in business on the same terms right across the Continent.  Again this would help Britain disproportionately.  Again this is something that the Brexiteers discount and would gladly throw away.  Besides the notional but unachievable idea of a ‘independent’ Britain, such practical gains that create jobs and income and improve the quality of life count for nothing with them, apparently.
If leaving the EU were such a good idea then why is Germany not leading the way?  Germany pays more money in and gets less out.  With her strong manufacturing base Germany could survive outside the EU with no problem at all.  So why isn’t Germany wanting to leave?  The Brexiteers can’t answer that except by advancing quite specious reasons which effectively boil down to the fact that we are an island and Germany isn’t.
No, Germany wants to stay in the EU because, like Britain, it derives very considerable advantage from EU membership;  in trade, certainly, but also in all sorts of other ways including a greater influence in the world.   What is absolutely certain is that all the other members of the EU want us in, not because they want to do Britain down or exploit us, but because they realise that only together are we safer, stronger and more prosperous.
Thanks to Peter Sain Ley Berry, a member of the Say Yes 2 Europe – Remain in the EU alliance.
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Brexit from the French perspective

Europe will not the same without Britain, and Britain will not be the same without Europe, but a stronger Britain is possible inside a stronger Europe.

UCL Europe Blog

Rob Bowker/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by-nc-nd)Pierre Kanuty, regional councillor for Île-de-France, says that this challenge for ‘in’ campaigners is to answer the demands of citizens without offering Eurosceptics an opportunity to frame the debate. This piece is part of the UCL European Institute’s first guest editor week on openDemocracy.

Brexit – Britain’s exit from the European Union – is more than a debate on the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the European continent. This relationship has been difficult ever since Britain joined the European Community in the mid-1970s, a time when France was facing its first referendum on the question of Europe, because of the way this great nation sees herself in relation to Europe as a continent, on the one hand, and as a political and economic entity, on the other.

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What are the Leavers offering as “After Sales Service” if we buy their nebulous Brexit idea?

It is not only that we don’t know what the Leavers are selling, perhaps because they don’t know themselves.

We don’t know what their “after sales service” is like.

When you buy an insurance contract or a new car one of the things you want to know is what the seller’s after sales service is like: if the goods are faulty, if what you bought isn’t as advertised, how will these things be sorted out.

What is it the Leavers are offering as an “after sales service” if we buy their vague, ill-defined idea of Leaving the EU?

Just how are the Leavers going to deliver on what they are trying to persuade us to buy?

All part of understanding how the Leavers are going to convince us that their product is BETTER than Remaining in the EU.

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Leaving would embroil the Government for years in negotiating new arrangements

Boris Johnson - 20160207 Telegraph

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Remain in or Leave the EU – the choice is yours

I am a supporter of the UK REMAINing in the EU. To me it is a no brainer for a shed load of entirely positive reasons including -:

  1. Membership of a Customs Union removing all tariffs and trade barriers as well as expensive border paperwork within a marketplace of over 500 million people.
  2. The Single Market concept and the level playing field it tries to create although it needs completion and to do that we have to be in to influence it.
  3. Freedom of Movement enjoyed by 2.3 million Brits and a few less EU migrants living and working in the UK where all the evidence shows they overwhelmingly contribute positively to the economy. Also, of course, allowing us all easier and cheaper holidays.
  4. It is where Workers’ Rights are protected across the Union in a way they would never be in the UK alone.
  5. There are also environmental protections across the board.
  6. Membership give support to Science including massive investment and through EU funded collaborative schemes in the UK.
  7. There is also support for Academia including educational exchanges through schemes like Erasmus.
  8. Despite the doubts expressed there are democratic controls – this is controversial in some quarters as I know only too well but the EU does have the appropriate checks and balances and we are hardly democratic ourselves with a government holding a majority but elected by less than 50% of the votes cast AND with an unelected 2nd chamber. I do however agree that the EU can appear distant.
  9. The EU has the ability to make better deals for trade around the world as it is a larger trading block than the UK alone.
  10. Important to me is the fact that the EU and its predecessor organisations have contributed positively to peace in Europe. Some will say that is NATO but they would be wrong as that organisation is only concerned with external defense.
  11. We can trade with the rest of the world as well as the EU with a common set of agreed rules.
  12. Sadly, leaving the EU could lead to the break-up of the UK.
  13. The peace process in Northern Ireland is at risk if controls have to be reintroduced on the Irish Land Boundary and even more so if the Common Travel Area is abrogated.

The above list is not exhaustive and if anybody gets nit-picky it can be extended. Now, with the best will in the world, leaving the EU is a gamble as nobody knows what will happen but extracting ourselves and negotiating new trade arrangements will take years (some experts say 10 or more world-wide) during which time our economy could implode. It is incumbent on the Brexiters to paint a positive and fact based picture of a post-Brexit UK – they wont of course as they cannot.

There are those that say the Remain campaign uses fear and is negative. This is a total distortion as all we do is point out the difficulties that are brushed aside by leavers in their rush to the exit door that they are trying to push open.

We do ask questions of leavers and the main one (see the previous paragraph) is simply not answered – they do not know what is the other side of the door they so desperately try to open. They cannot know what lies in the future but then neither can we.

The difference is that support of the status quo (as adapted by Cameron’s piece of paper) is what it is. If REMAIN win on June 23rd then people have certainties about the kind of world they will be living in going forward from the 24th but this is denied to you by Leave if they win as that will send us in to a black-hole consisting mostly of uncertainty. The Leave campaign, at a political level, is to a large extent made up of opportunist bandwagon jumpers that have flip – flopped on the EU issue (some several times).

I spoke in the last paragraph of Leave uncertainty but one thing is for sure. They will point to Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and say that the remainder EU will have to negotiate a deal with us.

The facts are that they do have to negotiate but reaching a deal is an entirely different matter. So let us quickly examine the basis of their claim.
Article 50 states-:
1) Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2) A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

3) The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4) For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.
A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5) If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to re-join, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.
Effectively from day one we cannot be denied a right to leave and we would get 2 years to negotiate a brand new arrangement with the remainder EU. That is straightforward and positive however we must remember that that both sides around this negotiating process will have widely divergent positions. The UK, according to Leave, want everything that is good and none of the painful shared responsibilities or the one thing that irks them the most – the free movement of labour.

The remainder EU will however see this entirely differently and this isn’t being negative it is practical negotiating. They would like the UK to stay in the single market as this benefits all parties but for them this cannot be at any price as there will be nervous inward glances and they will want to discourage any other desertions.

I suspect that their minimum requirement will be the Norway option of paying to access and accepting all rules including the free movement provisions. On this basis it is unlikely that we will reach an agreement after two years have elapsed, yes a hard fact alert – it will take that long before anything at all changes.

If it looked like an agreement was possible we could extend those negotiations for up to the end of a third year. It is possible that a solution could be found but somehow I doubt that the other member states would want a deal at any price and, in particular, one that did not allow free movement.

Therefore, at some point in the 3 years, we are likely to walk away with nothing and the Customs Union will be denied us and tariffs re-imposed. The freedom of movement will fall away and we will have to reintroduce controls on what are now EU workers and UK citizens living and working elsewhere in the EU will possibly subject to controls themselves from their host nation.

I can hear squeals at this point from the Brexiters that I am contributing to the fear but honestly I am not – Article 50 is clear on the process and they could still grasp the nettle and tell us what will happen.

There has, of course, been talk recently of leaving and then negotiating a better deal before holding a second referendum (please I can’t go through this again) although Article 50 does allow for lapsed members to rejoin. Any such application will be treated under Lisbon under Article 49 as a new application so it may entail some of the things that we have currently got protection from such as membership of the Euro.

I believe that any second deal will be worse than what is currently on offer as the EU will be very unwilling to accede to anything very much from us as we will have caused them to deal with us rather than confront the real issues affecting the Union which are many (I am the first to admit that) including the ongoing Refugee issue, the Euro crisis (something that we currently have protection from as part of the revised deal) and the collapse of Schengen (not our problem in the current arrangement).

We are positively better off REMAINing – that is completely clear. If you think otherwise, please tell me positively, how leaving will make anything at all better as I simply cannot see it.

The big elephant in the room is Immigration, Asylum, Refugees, Economic migration and the free-flow of EU labour both in to and out of the UK (our people do live and work in other member states in great numbers). I will issue a piece confronting this issue soon.

If you have got this far, I thank you.

Thanks to Stuart Wilson, a member of the Say Yes 2 Europe – Remain in the EU alliance.

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Deconstructing the Leavers’ arguments – Myths, cliches and generalisations

An interesting side-effect of the EU Referendum (well, interesting to me at least) is the way it highlights the use of emotive language. Even when trying to scare us, the Remain people talk in measured tones,  using well-constructed, syntactically correct sentences, and avoid clichés.

Most Brexiteers, on the other hand, don’t do syntax. They prefer to SHOUT at us, use a lot of Capitals and string Long Sentences together with as LITTLE punctuation as possible. You have to take a deep mental breath before starting one or by the time you reach the end you’ll be BLUE in the face. Here’s an example, from the Riviera Reporter’s Facebook Group:

John Norrish Please ask your selves why you personally want to stay in the UK, is it because you are happy with a relative easy life in France? with minimum paper work due to the UK being in the EU?? Give a thought for the home country the way it is being taken over and the Brave people in the Armed Forces that fought to keep Britain Great, SHAME on you all if you do not feel the slightest bit of Guilt. Germany is taking over through the back door, France formed the first alliance with them to start what has become the EU now it is TOO BIG no longer exclusive and run by totally unelected people, as for money spent when was the last Audit?? all hiden so people cant see the real gravy Train the EU has become for all the top Bureaucrats, When Brexit happens it will be for the right reasons, not the scare mongering from the “IN” brigade of Britain will lose Nato etc etc

Leaving aside the spelling mistakes, the writer is evidently a native English speaker but it seems most of his early education may have been largely wasted. There’s little evidence he even knows what commas and full stops are for, let alone where to place them.

Now you may think I’m being picky and just mocking because I feel superior. You’re entitled to that view but I don’t share it. My fear is that if the author doesn’t understand his own language, what else doesn’t he understand? Is his thinking regarding the EU as muddled as his use of language? It would seem so. It’s unfortunate that illiteracy sometimes removes the caution that the rest of us experience when trying to express ourselves. It’s so much easier just to pour stuff onto the page in a kind of stream of consciousness.

OK, now onto what friend John is trying to say. First he tries to shame expats (note the all capitals; he thinks he’s writing a Sun headline) into feeling guilty about the home country being “taken over”, but he doesn’t say who is taking us over and in what way. Did your town council suddenly get run by France? No of course not; it’s shorthand for “immigrants”, probably those of a different colour, but he hasn’t the guts to admit to being a racist.

Then there’s the reference to “the Brave people in the Armed Forces“, who apparently fought “to keep Britain Great”. What exactly is Greatness and how do soldiers fight for it? In the Second World War they fought to keep Britain free of invasion; nothing more.

Now we get Germany “taking over through the back door”. Cliché upon cliché. How many Germans do you see on a daily basis, John? Are they in the police force? Does a German voice deal with your tax enquiries? Has Marks and Spencer been taken over by Germans forcing us all to buy lederhosen? And where is this back door anyway? This sentence has absolutely no meaning; it’s designed to whip up hatred against all things German in the minds of people of little education.

The next part repeats a familiar cliché, that we are being run by unelected bureaucrats. It’s a lie peddled by those with an agenda they don’t want you to know about, so they set up a smokescreen in the hope you won’t notice. To their shame, most don’t. The fact is that bureaucrats don’t make laws; elected politicians do. And the EU accounts are audited every year, but why spoil a good lie?

Next we get a familiar slur on “top Bureaucrats” and their supposed “gravy train”. Do you have figures, John? Would that be too difficult for your confused mind to cope with? Or perhaps you already have the true figures and know they don’t suit your case?

And finally the last sentence, where John loses contact both with reality and coherency. What has NATO got to do with all this? Is he saying we’ll have to get out of NATO if we stay in Europe? Where did that come from?

When you are faced with hate-filled incoherent rantings like the above, take the time to deconstruct them, line by line, to arrive at the message. I have seen many of them and after a while they grow wearily familiar. I’m starting to find it difficult to believe there is an army of angry semi-literate EU-haters out there, all producing amazingly similar material. In view of the very repetitive nature of these posts, all displaying the same cavalier disregard of English grammar and syntax, I have two theories about “John Norrish”:

The first possibility is he’s real. Angry about how he sees the world is going but lacking the intelligence to think for himself he simply reiterates what other similar types have already written, just changing a few words here and there.

The second possibility is he’s not a real person at all, but one of a number of fake personal profiles set up by Leavers as a means to peddle their often hateful philosophy. They are aiming partly at the first group, providing them with a standard set of rants they can adapt to their own needs and go on spreading the same poisonous message.

Either way, it’s a depressing thought that there may so many angry people out there who are ready to lay the blame for whatever upsets them on the first convenient target they can find, with a total disregard for the consequences. The most worrying thing in all this is that if they succeed in dragging Britain out of the EU their anger won’t go away because we all know little will change for the better. Day by day the world is getting harder for us all and the way to hold things together can only by cooperation, not antagonism. So who will they transfer this anger to next? Would you want to be gay, to have the wrong religion or to be a member of a racial minority in a post EU Britain with no moderating influences to keep the John Norrishes from acting out their fantasies?

Or is it possible these people are far less numerous than it seems, being mostly a succession of invented characters designed to create the impression of a groundswell of opinion, created and maintained by a small core of fanatics and let down by careless attention to detail?

You decide.

Thanks to Graham Potter, a member of the Say Yes 2 Europe – Remain in the EU alliance, for permission to reproduce this from his own blog.

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