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Roland Smith
@rolandmcs
, 7 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
"I have not encountered a single soul who voted Leave because they missed the Empire."
I can vouch for this.
It does however require some exploration - why does the claim keep being made...? spiked-online.com/2019/02/06/it-…
On one level, "Leavers are all Blimps living in the 1940s or 50s; ergo they must want to return to last days of empire".
I'll pass over this one.
Second, Leavers see Britain as "choosing the 'open seas' over Europe". This nods to an alleged Churchill quote: 'Open Seas' being a euphemism for Empire and English speaking peoples.
No? It isn't?
Well hold that thought and connect it to three others......
1. The Anglosphere and CANZUK are often mentioned by Brexiters. Concepts understood easily enough but each having no depth.... And each recalling an imperial legacy.
2. The Brexiter concept of global free trade has been shown to be rather simple. It seems to not take account of 21st C trade realities but looks more attuned to the 19th C (said with no snark)....the time of empire in other words, when trade was 'simple'.
3. European solutions like EFTA and EEA have been now totally rejected by Brexit radicals.
So no, no Leaver is going to consciously think they want the empire back. But just about everything else they say around trade and alternatives to EU membership sends out signals that they do.
That's why this keeps coming up. /ends
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More from @rolandmcs see all

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Roland Smith
@rolandmcs
Every few years, I do a spot of genealogy. Random observations from this time around:
1. The number of searchable online records is quite astounding.
2. Widely-used DNA testing (and portability of output) has nudged everything up several gears.
3. Both DNA and the availability of more recent directory/electoral roll records and Births/Marriages/Deaths up to the modern day make it easier to trace 'downwards' i.e. from an ancestor to a living person).
4. The number of 4th-6th cousins is notably high and this becomes very evident when on a DNA database like Ancestry dot com. But then simple maths (and larger families in former times) has always pointed this way.
Read 6 tweets
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Roland Smith
@rolandmcs
Or: In April, a couple decide to rent a cottage *on the HS2 route* and are now annoyed that it's disrupting their lives because they have to move out.

F*ckwittery doesn't get much better than this.
This is probably why I've turned out to be sh1t at politics - I'd only choose the battles that look credible and not grab any passing moan or idiot in support of my cause.
Presumably the couple will now rent a cottage on Heathrow's third runway and then moan to the Harmondsworth Gazzette when it goes wrong.
Read 3 tweets
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Roland Smith
@rolandmcs
Finished @kevinhorourke 's Short History of Brexit - an excellent summary tour of the very seeds of Brexit (from 1950) through to the (almost) present day:

• The victories of federalism over intergovernmentalism from 1950 onwards
• Churchill's early cakeism
• Trying to hold back the incoming supranational tide with the creation of 'free trade' EFTA.
• Macmillan facing the "grim choice" in 1960 (at EFTA's birth) between Britain's imperial preferences and Europe. A grim choice that has stoked & defined euroscepticism ever since.
• De Gaulle's famous "Non" to British accession despite the Brits potentially providing a counter-balance to Germany; perhaps even an Anglo-French 'motor', which Monnet was not averse to.
• 1973 accession; 1975 referendum and its place in (very sceptical) Lab party politics.
Read 10 tweets

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My late International Women’s Day thread.
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RemainerNow #FBPE #finalsay
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Here is Jon, her voted leave but now has seen the lies of the #leave campaign become clear & is a #RemainerNow
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Thanks for taking the time to do this @jonnywoo34 hopefully it can encourage others!
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Since May's fateful appointment & her 'Brexit means Brexit' this has always been OUT v IN. Talk of deals is fantasy. We should vote IN asap!
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