Stephen Daisley on Brexit and the "liberal nervous breakdown."
It has been my opinion for a long time that a significant proportion of the British political spectrum becomes somewhat irrational when the subject of the EU comes up and that this applies at both ends of the pro-to-anti Brexit spectrum.
On the one hand there has for a long time been an element of the UK establishment which always appears to believe that the EU can do no wrong, that any problems with the EU's failure to account properly for the money it spends which lead the Court of Auditors to publish critical reports are all the fault of member states, that everything the EU side of any negotiations with Britain says should be treated as gospel while those by our own side are received with robust scepticism, and any failure by British negotiators to agree to the everything the EU asks for is intransigence.
There is a mirror-image of this worldview among those for whom the "EUSSR" can do nothing right, who will never take the European Union's side even in disputes with despots. For example. their loathing for the European Union is so great that they will find ways to blame Europe for such matters as the disputes between Putin's Russia and its' former satellites, particularly the Ukraine, as if a wish on the part of the European Union to trade with the peoples of Eastern Europe could possibly justify the murderous aggression which Putin's regime has inflicted on the unfortunate people of that country.
Mrs May's premiership was destroyed by what amounted to an unholy alliance between hardline pro-Europeans and hardline pro-Brexiteers who were equally unwilling to compromise. The pro-remain MPs who consistently voted against her deal were convinced that they could thereby obtain a softer Brexit or no Brexit at all: the pro-Leave MPs who voted it down were convinced that they could thereby obtain a harder Brexit, possibly one which they call "WTO" Brexit and everyone else calls "No deal" Brexit.
These two groups cannot both be right - either one of them is completely deluding itself or both are taking an enormous risk of helping to cause what they ought logically to regard as the worst possible outcome.
It is very common for people on the remain end of the spectrum to accuse leavers of being irrational but less common for people to recognise that what is sometimes called "Brexit derangement syndrome" exists at both ends.
There is a good piece by Stephen Daisley who describes himself as being of liberal views, about the "cruel psychological torture" which the response to the Brexit vote has inflicted on liberalism (with a lower-case "l.")
As he puts it
"Brexit angst is driving liberals to take positions they would have recognised as reactionary and illogical not so long ago. Decrying the BBC has become de rigueur in a way once confined to Tory conference fringes and mad academic symposiums on Zionist control of the media. Some remainers have convinced themselves the Corporation is pushing not only a pro-Leave agenda, but a pro-Farage one."
"Liberals on this side of the Atlantic have become as accustomed as their analogues on the other side to blaming their defeats on nefarious Russian plots. That’s not to say that the Kremlin doesn’t seek to influence elections in the West (it does) or that Putin wouldn’t favour the destabilisation of a rival superstate (he would). But liberals have fashioned a soothing parable in which a few Russian troll farms are all that’s stopping the people of Sunderland from embracing their inner European integrationist."
"A fair whack of Remainers are positive their opponents are knuckle-dragging bigots."
"Tell yourself often enough that your opponents are Freddy Krueger and you will come to resent all democratic niceties and wonder if a more direct approach might be in order."
"Liberalism is having a nervous breakdown at the very moment we need it most."
It is a good article which you can read here.
On the one hand there has for a long time been an element of the UK establishment which always appears to believe that the EU can do no wrong, that any problems with the EU's failure to account properly for the money it spends which lead the Court of Auditors to publish critical reports are all the fault of member states, that everything the EU side of any negotiations with Britain says should be treated as gospel while those by our own side are received with robust scepticism, and any failure by British negotiators to agree to the everything the EU asks for is intransigence.
There is a mirror-image of this worldview among those for whom the "EUSSR" can do nothing right, who will never take the European Union's side even in disputes with despots. For example. their loathing for the European Union is so great that they will find ways to blame Europe for such matters as the disputes between Putin's Russia and its' former satellites, particularly the Ukraine, as if a wish on the part of the European Union to trade with the peoples of Eastern Europe could possibly justify the murderous aggression which Putin's regime has inflicted on the unfortunate people of that country.
Mrs May's premiership was destroyed by what amounted to an unholy alliance between hardline pro-Europeans and hardline pro-Brexiteers who were equally unwilling to compromise. The pro-remain MPs who consistently voted against her deal were convinced that they could thereby obtain a softer Brexit or no Brexit at all: the pro-Leave MPs who voted it down were convinced that they could thereby obtain a harder Brexit, possibly one which they call "WTO" Brexit and everyone else calls "No deal" Brexit.
These two groups cannot both be right - either one of them is completely deluding itself or both are taking an enormous risk of helping to cause what they ought logically to regard as the worst possible outcome.
It is very common for people on the remain end of the spectrum to accuse leavers of being irrational but less common for people to recognise that what is sometimes called "Brexit derangement syndrome" exists at both ends.
There is a good piece by Stephen Daisley who describes himself as being of liberal views, about the "cruel psychological torture" which the response to the Brexit vote has inflicted on liberalism (with a lower-case "l.")
As he puts it
"Brexit angst is driving liberals to take positions they would have recognised as reactionary and illogical not so long ago. Decrying the BBC has become de rigueur in a way once confined to Tory conference fringes and mad academic symposiums on Zionist control of the media. Some remainers have convinced themselves the Corporation is pushing not only a pro-Leave agenda, but a pro-Farage one."
"Liberals on this side of the Atlantic have become as accustomed as their analogues on the other side to blaming their defeats on nefarious Russian plots. That’s not to say that the Kremlin doesn’t seek to influence elections in the West (it does) or that Putin wouldn’t favour the destabilisation of a rival superstate (he would). But liberals have fashioned a soothing parable in which a few Russian troll farms are all that’s stopping the people of Sunderland from embracing their inner European integrationist."
"A fair whack of Remainers are positive their opponents are knuckle-dragging bigots."
"Tell yourself often enough that your opponents are Freddy Krueger and you will come to resent all democratic niceties and wonder if a more direct approach might be in order."
"Liberalism is having a nervous breakdown at the very moment we need it most."
It is a good article which you can read here.
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