Part 2 of my look back at Vote Leave's campaign "case".
VL - The former head of Interpol, Ronald K Noble, has said that: “Europe’s open-border arrangement… is effectively an international passport-free zone for terrorists” like “hanging a sign welcoming terrorists to Europe”
False: Vote Leave's own Facebook page on 27th December 2015 confirms Noble was specifically referring to the Schengen system countries.
The UK is NOT part of Schengen.
VL - We need to take back control of our borders so we decide who can come here – and who can’t.
False: The same Ron Noble, during the same speech said:
“Among the European countries that are not parties to the Schengen Agreement is the United Kingdom, which began screening
passports against Interpol’s database following the 2005 terrorist attacks there that killed 52 people and injured more than 700. The U.K. now screens about 150 million passports a year, more than all the other European Union nations combined, and catches more than 10,000 people
a year trying to cross its borders using invalid travel documents”.
(Vote Leave are good at omitting crucial details).
VL - The EU will continue to grow. The next countries set to join are: Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia & Turkey.
Misleading: "Set to join" is worded to give the impression these memberships are imminent & mirror false media narrative about Turkey.
None will happen until at least 2025, 9 years after the Referendum. Turkey first applied in 1987 & were/are nowhere near joining, even in 2016.
VL - Over half our laws are made by unelected EU bureaucrats in Brussels who we never voted for.
False: The House of Commons library records this figure as 13.2% and was available for reference had VL cared to look. (see attachment)
(Ignoring the unelected myth)
VL - The UK has been outvoted every single time it has voted against EU laws
Misleading - Up to between 1999 & 2016 the UK voted against laws passed in Brussels 56 times & been on the 'winning' side 2,466 times.
The number of losses increased after Cameron withdrew the Tory
Party from the European People's Party, to please the Euro-sceptics and as a result lost the UK considerable influence.
VL - The Eurozone has a permanent majority in the EU voting system - this means we’re always outvoted.
Misleading: In theory, the use of Qualified majorities
means the UK could always be outvoted.
However, in evidence to Parliament in 2013, the UK’s Permanent Representative to the EU, Sir Jon Cunliffe, said:
"In most areas, the alliances that countries make across different dossiers do not reflect the Eurozone. Across the single
market, some of the alliances can be very strange, but in agriculture, fisheries, single market, foreign policy and justice the alliances are very different. They are very dossier-specific."
VL - Taking back control is a careful change, not a sudden stop - we will negotiate the terms of a new deal before we start any legal process to leave.
False: This unambiguous pledge specifically rules out ANY chance of leaving the EU without an Agreement.
That went well!
VL - The EU is already planning its next power grab (see attachment)
Misleading - The wording on this page deliberately gives the impression these things are certain to happen.
These are not 'plans', but visions.
In reality, as with the 2012 'Four President's Report', due to
the widely varying wishes of members states, very little of the Report is likely to make it as policy, let alone implementation.
There's more than enough material in these threads to confirm Vote Leave set out to inherently mislead voters.
This was their PRIMARY "case", still
available as such on their website.
Note also, the ONLY reference to leaving without an Agreement (No Deal) is to specifically pledge to rule it out.
@MarieRussler Also is a lie, based on a single 2017 study by the now defunct Quillian Foundation.
It was never submitted for peer-review, its scope & methodology highly questionable & it's findings contradicted by both the Home Office and an 8 year long Inquiry. iicsa.org.uk/final-report.h…
@MarieRussler So, with respect, it's hate stirring propaganda, which you're not removing because you believe previous propaganda disguised as research.
The Inquiry revealed wholesale abuse in Christian churches, boarding schools, youth detention centres, by foster carers, in music schools
@MarieRussler and on child migration programmes, as well as 'sex abuse rings' (grooming gangs) in Norwich, Plymouth, Belfast, in South & North Wales, among other towns & in the heart of professional football, none of which involved Pakistani/Muslim gangs.
Simultaneously & imminently imploding under the weight of its political, social & economic ambitions, while inexorably evolving into a United States of Europe Superstate.
Leavers, simultaneously pretending to reach out to Remainers, while indulging in an orgy of spiteful triumphalism, celebrating the imposition of their clusterfuck Brexit on an unenthusiastic UK.
Simultaneously celebrating the UK's 'independence' & 'sovereignty', made possible only by legislation enacted by an independent & sovereign UK Parliament, while insisting the UK's independence & sovereignty had been lost to a "foreign power".
The time to "reach out" was immediately after the Referendum, so all parties could influence the shape Brexit was to take, IF it was to be successfully implemented.
NOT:
- "You lost. Get over it"
- Confrontational Party division on a BLATANTLY cross-party issue.
- What 'Leave' in "Leave means leave" means, is for ME alone to decide & I'll make it up as I go. (T May)
- I have unilaterally decided a legally & Constitutionally NON-binding, narrow vote of principle, is in fact an "emphatic" & irreversible mandate for self-harm. (T May)
- Instead of acting responsibly to defend Parliamentary sovereignty & Judicial independence, my Government will seize the opportunity to set Leave voters vs Parliament & the rest, for political gain. (T May)
- We will take advantage of a hapless Opposition, to manipulate
Just as they deliberately distorted democracy with the myth of the "will of the people', so Leavers sought to stifle dissent by misapplying the principle of 'loser's consent'.
Such consent only requires democratic minorities to accept defeat at the ballot box peacefully,
and to trust their turn will come to challenge again in due course.
It bears NO obligation whatsoever for those minorities to conform to the majority view.
No matter how heavy a defeat, it's the right & responsibility of the losing minority to scrutinise, question, and
challenge the majority at every turn, and if they can, to make the minority view, the view of a new majority.
Attacking the right to dissent, is the action of an authoritarian state.
Responding with silence, is the inaction of a compliant population.
A key motivation for Brexit, we're told, is a fab new Trade Agreement with Trump's America, despite Trump having already threatened, several times, to refuse to negotiate an FTA unless the UK complied with certain other unconnected US policies, on which the UK diverged.
A National Audit Office report in May 2019, warned:
"Negotiating trade deals is a new competence for government. The Department for International Trade will be relying on relatively inexperienced staff."
The White House published its key objectives in February 2019
'United States–United Kingdom negotiations, Summary of Specific Negotiating Objectives' (ustr.gov/sites/default/…)
It includes the following:
- Industrial Goods
"Secure comprehensive duty-free market access for U.S.
Since June 2016, both the Government & Leavers have been fixated on the idea of "respecting the result", which in their eyes means leaving the EU come what may, even though Leavers themselves cannot agree how this should be achieved.
This must happen, they say, in order to
prevent "the people" from losing 'trust' in the democratic process.
But what does 'trust' mean in this context?
The Government decided the narrow mandate resulting from Ref16 effectively meant 'the end' (leaving the EU) justified whatever means it decided necessary to
make it happen, at whatever cost, even if 'the end' they delivered, bore little resemblance to the outcome voters were originally sold.
But is failing to achieve 'the end' really the reason for the loss of public trust?