Thread by @AndrewPRLevi

The three faces of Brexit

🔻Sincere phantasmagorism

🔻Cruel cynicism

🔻Failed rationalism

How they’re affecting the United Kingdom. Why. And what’s to be done.

A short 🧵 /1.

🔻Sincere phantasmagorism

To be sincere is neither to be right nor, necessarily, admirable.

So it is with Brexiters seized by a phantasm of 21st C global British ‘greatness’.

A cocktail of supposed unique British virtue, 1870s Empire & 16th C piracy. Purest, toxic fantasy. /2.

🔻Cruel cynicism

You’ve got to laugh at the 0.01%, angry a ‘Brexit dividend’ of slashed taxes & regulations could now end up as more of both.

But it’s far from funny. Greedy, cruel, wealthy ‘libertarians’ are attempting to shatter government & society. They’re still at it. /3.

🔻Failed rationalism

Internal, logical consistency is no more correct, in the real world, if assumptions are faulty, than is logical inconsistency.

Brexiter rationalists see part of an important truth: the world is changing. But they make false assumptions … /4.

… about the extent & nature of UK agency in confronting those changes.

They fail (or refuse) to appreciate that the US is indispensable to all its allies’ prosperity & security for any foreseeable future, while the EU, similarly, remains an indispensable pillar … /5.

… of that very US global system on which we all rely. And that, given the UK’s significant economic size & geographic location, no one is going to give it the merest hint of a free ride.

Even were ‘rationalist’ Brexiters’ logic not so often faulty (‘cakeism’ is … /6.

… at root as much a logical as a political fallacy, for example) their ponderously assembled visions of Westphalian-style sovereign beasts roaming free on the 21st C geopolitical savannah, would remain no less divorced from reality than … /7.

… the lizard-infested, Rothschilld-manipulated Buckingham Palace of David Icke’s fevered imagination. /8.

Still, Brexit ‘rationalists’ (vanishingly few, in truth) make an effort. They’re just really bad at it.

The phantasmagorists are … well, no one’s quite sure, least of all them.

And the cynics are exactly what you’d expect, but 100x more dangerous. If let off the leash. /9.

So, what’s to be done? In the UK. Also elsewhere: the influence of the cynics & the failed rationalists is to be found in many countries. Even the phantasmagorists, in some places, although without the peculiar British flavour (others are available). /10.

It’s a most dangerous time.

Whoever you are, whatever your occupation, you either …

FIGHT & organise for what’s right

REFUSE to accept what’s wrong

EXPOSE corruption & lies

EXPLAIN the truth whenever & wherever you have the chance

… or you’re part of the problem. /11. End

P.S. ‘Lexit’ is a flavour of failed rationalism. Some supporters make a fair case that greater competition & budget (a bit) freedoms could allow better domestic economic & social policies. But: in truth, benefits only accrue if the elephants (EU etc.) allow. Why would they?

P.P.S. These ‘faces of Brexit’ are those of the ‘thinkers’ & ‘leaders’.

The millions of Leave voters’ fundamental motivations are well documented. There’s only slight, & for the most part accidental, overlap with the ‘leaders’’ agendas. Whichever ‘face of Brexit’ you choose.