Brexit will triumph. Forget the perfectly reasonable left argument for leaving; don’t even waste your time with the plausible left case for remaining. This is now (as if it has ever been anything else) a referendum on immigration. And the racists and bigots are winning (Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll gives the leave campaign a 3% lead).
Some of things I’ve learned this weekend, conversing with working-class Brexiters:-
All the nation’s ills are the fault of the EU. All of them. Because immigration.
The end of the post-war boom and the victory of Thatcherism over traditional social democracy – irrelevant.
The collapse of the USSR and its satellites and the resulting triumph of neoliberalism on a global scale – irrelevant.
An international banking crisis of truly historic proportions – irrelevant.
All our problems only started when “Tony Blair and Gordon Brown introduced a benefits and mass immigration culture.” Yes, really.
I’ve also encountered former striking miners and residents of former pit villages who genuinely believe that the EU and migrant labour are the reasons we no longer have a mining industry in the UK. Seriously. You want to punch yourself in the face now, don’t you? Unbelievable. I know.
This is where we are. Reason, sanity and logic have absolutely no chance in this ‘debate.’
I honestly believe these people would happily shoulder pay cuts across the board and the sale of their first-born sons to slave traders if it meant no immigrant was ever allowed to set foot on UK soil again.
Buckle up, folks. There’s a bad moon on the rise.
Harry Paterson 