Brexit will Make Britain Great Again.
I've never heard a bigger, more grotesquely misguided or egotistical slogan in all of the Brexit campaign, and its still going strong.
Its worse than the big red bus promising to give £350m a year back to the NHS- but now instead, it turns out we are going to have to come up with £40 billion to leave the EU- hmm, not quite the right maths hey?
Its worse than the immigration lie- EU members are probably still going to have access to Britain, and most of the immigration is currently from NONE-EU countries -which will not change. In fact, we will probably have to allow in more people to come and work in all the jobs we don't want to do - like in the underpaid NHS.
Its even worse than the belief that somehow our 'we will get back our autonomy'. WE WROTE many of the laws that currently govern the EU, we will have to spend £Billions rewriting them all over again for Britain once we leave. Most of the EU standards are GOOD for us! - do you really want me to explain the benefits of having basic health and safety regulations for importing food, chemicals, livestock, not to mention animal welfare, environmental protection, child welfare (yes they too are protected under EU law). And that's not even including the risk of terrorism and security threats that we will no longer have intelligence about. You wanted to finish with the EU? Britain is going to spend the next few years dealing with very little else other than the EU! We need more experts in EU policy now than ever before! We will need to become specialists in the very thing we are trying to get rid of!
In fact, it's even more head-shakingly, depressingly worse than the 'we've had enough of specialists' campaign slogan. I really don't get that one. When you are ill, do you call your plumber and ask him to prescribe you medicine? No, you call a trained Doctor, who has studied for decades in medicine to know what's best for you. When you get into a legal dispute, do you ask your mate from work to come and argue your case for you? No, you ask your professionally trained Lawyer who has studied the legal system for years to represent you. When you want to buy a house, do you go down the pub and ask the barman where's the best place to buy these days? No, you go to a real estate agent who is an expert in your local area. And when you want save up for your children's education fund, do you give your gambling buddy all your hard earned savings? No, you go to a professional financial advisor who is an expert in long-term investments.
So why then, WHY!? when you are asked to decide the future of your country, which will affect the value of your savings, your pension, your FREE national health service, you and your children's rights to live and travel abroad, your house, your holiday costs, your food quality, your forests, your clean air protection... Why would you go a listen to a bunch of Tories clowns from Eaton, who's SOLE reason for leaving the EU is to set up better tax havens for their £trillion offshore accounts, so that they don't have to pay our "Great" country a penny?
Why listen to them, when the Chief Surgeon of the NHS is telling you to leave will be a disaster, when the Head of the Bank of England is telling you to leave will be a disaster, when the Chief Economist from the American Institute of Economics (and yes he's not even British so what does he care) has stated that which ever way you twist it there is NO economic benefit to leave the EU for any sector in the UK and that its going to be a distaster.
Specialists in EU law and Immigration Law are telling you its going to be a disaster. Business Executives, CEOs, Lawyers, Deans of Universities, Eminent Professors of Economics and Law, Real Estate Agents, Investment Managers, Journalists, Scientists, Accountants, Architects, Mathematicians, Musicians, Artists, and an entire generation of hopeful, open minded, enlightened, learned-from-histories-mistakes, multicultural, tolerant youth, are ALL telling you that to leave will be a complete disaster.
And EVEN, when most of these wise and unfortunately accurate predictions have already started to become true, and EVEN when the EU government is offering us ways to end the madness and step away from the Abyss.. Even then, you STILL shout proudly that we should leave, just because we voted on one horrid day and Leave won. Even though you won by a majority of just 1% of the living population of the UK, and because apparently "Brexit means Brexit". This isn't just cutting of your nose to spite your face, its cutting of your hands, and your eyes and your mouth too.
BUT, none of these gob-smackingly awful, hand-wringingly frustrating, unbelievably mad beliefs are anywhere near as sad or misguided as the belief that we need to leave the Eu to Make Britain Great Again.
You know why?
Because we never were Great.
Do you know why we are called Great Britain?
You probably think its because once we were a "Great Empire'. Well that's not why we are called Great Britain. We are Great Britain because the island of Britain is the largest of the British Isles, hence it is called Great (meaning "large"). Well you've seen a map of the world- We really aren't than large are we.
But even if it was because of our Great Empire that we haven't had for more than 100 years; Do you know why we colonised the entire world through slavery, abomination of human rights abuse and outright theft of other people's land and resources? It wasn't because we were great, it was because we didn't have enough resources on our tiny little mud island to prosper so we needed to steal everyone else's. It was because Africa had minerals that we wanted, so we took them, it was because India had tea and Tigers and we wanted them, it was because the Caribbean had fertile land for coffee plantations that could be worked by our slaves from other colonies, and the Falkland Islands was politically strategic to build an army base. How pleasant for us that all these places happened to be sunny too! We don't even have enough sun (which is free!) on these chilly British Isles so we colonise all the warm countries.. Why didn't we colonise Siberia? Why not set up a colony in Antartica?
Ok, we still own a bit of Antarctica, but there aren't so many people there to demand we give it back are there,
It was our COLONIES that made us great. Their natural resources, their exotic cultures, music, foods, and fabrics, the billions of people from whom we took away rights to access their own land, stole their wealth, murdered all who opposed us. They were was made Britain great, not us.
And what's more, we don't "own" those colonies any more. We have no Empire any more. Leaving the EU isn't going to reinstate our sovereignty in India or Ghana. We don't have any say over who trades with us or at what price. The EU has trade agreements, we won't when we leave. The EU has standards in place, we won't when we leave. The EU is in the Single market, we won't be. We will be left alone without any resources and without any friends. The bully that everyone decided to just ignore.
What exactly do you think is going to happen when we leave? That the rest of the world is going to come flooding to us begging for our trade, forgetting all history of oppression and pilfering? That all our ex-colonial Republics are going to come to our aid in some form of gratitude for releasing them from slavery? Look at Zimbabwe, they won't even talk to us any more. Do you think that the rest of Europe will remember our greatness, and beg to let their people come and work in our Great country? Many EU nationals that live here are leaving or considering leaving Britain, whether or not they are "allowed to stay" by our gracious selves.
Do you even know how the rest of the world perceives us since 23rd June 2016?
Japan thinks we've gone mad, Singapore thinks we are "having a mental breakdown at a national level", Germany and France are laughing at us with pity, and China and Canada are staring in disbelief. The US would be crying, but unfortunately they've got Trump to deal with and quite frankly that's enough for anyone's plate.. but hey- at least they only have to suffer him for another 3.5 years - BREXIT IS PERMANENT!
Britain has no special status, we are not the royalty of the world. What does being British mean anyway? - we are melting pot Celtic, Gaelic, Saxon, Norman,Viking, French, African, Middle Eastern, Romanie, Indian, Polish, Asian, Spanish, Germanic genes among many others. Even most of our royalty is imported from Europe. We are an influx of constantly blending ethnicities, some just happened long ago and some are newer. Our language is half French half German, our beer is Belgium, our wine is French, our fashion is Italian, our tomatoes are Spanish, our cars are from Japan, our democracy is Greek, our Vodka is Russian, our curry is Indian, our coffee is Brazilian, our tea is Chinese. Even Heinz baked beans are American! Europe and the rest of the world gives us much more than we give them! We do have Cheddar though- we can give them cheddar. And Branston pickle.
No, my dear fellow patriotic Britons, Britain is not revered. We are not feared or respected. We are not the cream of the crop. Britain has become the Bunion on the side of Europe's foot, it was fine until it started becoming painful and now it just something to cut off as soon as possible. Britain is the annoying little brat with jam all her face that thinks all the doughnuts are rightfully hers and starts screaming when ever someone else takes one. No-one likes us, no one will come running to play, no one cares if we leave or not. We are the tiny islanders. We are the bad egg, the nagging child, the moaner at the party, the pimple on your back.
To put it bluntly,
We just aren't that fucking Great.
Except maybe Churchill - He called for the establishment of "United States of Europe" to prevent world wars and create world peace and prosperity. That was pretty bloody great.