From The Guardian: 'The case for Brexit was built on lies. [View all]

[abqtommy]

Last edited Sun Jun 27, 2021, 12:25 PM - Edit history (1)

Five years later, deceit is routine in our politics. written by Will Hutton

from article: After five years, the biggest casualties of Brexit are in plain sight. Integrity and decency in public life are crumbling. Because so much of the case for Brexit is false, the political modus operandi of the Brexiters, now dominating our political culture, has become a refusal to accept responsibility for mistakes, overclaiming, deceit and sometimes outright lies to justify the unjustifiable. Once the electorate can no longer trust what they are told, democratic debate is denied. We have been robbed of a core right of citizenship.

It is a form of coup, but with a cloud of nationalist hyperbole disguising the threat to parliamentary democracy. To hold power, or challenge it, in a democracy requires continual argument and discussion, the precondition of which is a commitment to truth-telling and a shared acceptance of facts, however differently they may be interpreted. Trash those preconditions and we inevitably slide into a universe of division and distrust impervious to rational argument. We are all belittled.

It is as the Brexit right wants. Brexit has given it a cause and a political coalition that leaves it more firmly in control of power than at any time since peak Thatcherism. It is not only partisan rightwing policies – from the impending assault on public service broadcasting to the criminal failure to provide the additional teaching to compensate for Covid-induced teaching losses – it is the gerrymandering that favours the Tory interest.

Voter suppression; rendering the Electoral Commission even more toothless; ensuring all trustees and chairs of public bodies are Conservative; weakening judicial review; abolishing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act; eliminating any proportionality in the voting system for mayors; not accepting the doctrine of ministerial accountability. And all couched in a language of defiant nationalism so that critics can be dismissed as unBritish friends of the foreigner and outriders for wokedom.

Will Hutton is an Observer columnist'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/27/case-for-brexit-built-on-lies-five-years-later-deceit-is-routine-in-our-politics

Some snipping has occurred. This is a long, worthwhile read that supports my own understanding
of all things Brexit.