Thread by @SimonFRCox

Thoughts on why Leave EU are struggling with fitting Germany & Germans into their narrative (warning - racism). 1/

https://twitter.com/simonfrcox/status/1181873862327312384

Leave EU’s effectiveness depends on tapping in to popular British sympathy for authoritarian & racist ideas, while also seeming libertarian & ‘not-racist’.

Difficult act. 2/

“Brits love liberty! EU is oppressive”. But much of Leave EU’s base is worried by *too much freedom* - they’re fans of strict parenting & more police. 3/

Racism is central to Leave EU - Turks, Romanians, British Muslims. But anti-German racism doesn’t fit easily in long-standing English racist thinking + 4/

English racist hierarchy is abt intelligence, moral/physical hygiene & skin colour. Look down on “others” as stupid/lazy (Irish, blacks), mean/dishonest (Scots, Jews, Welsh) or dirty (Mediterraneans, non-Christians). 5/

Before WWI, Germans - with their advanced organised economy and white skin - were a fellow superior race.

WWI and Nazism allowed Brits to claim Germans were *morally* deficient. 6/

70 years on from WWII Leave frame UK as a world power - but they can’t decide if EU is a motley joke or a brutal German-controlled EUSSR.

This is where it gets really messy. 7/

Framing Germans as authoritarians is a mixed message for Leave supporters. Yes, authoritarians are enemies of freedom - “boo! Brits love freedom!”.

But also it implies “organised & powerful” and that is:

- what Leavers want for UK.
- what Leavers fear in their opponents. 8/

When Leave EU promote Merkel as a leader (even by insulting her) they imply to Leavers that this white Christian woman is ...

strong.

That’s not the image of the EU that Leave EU want. 9/

The idea of a strong, disciplined Germany leading the EU into battle against UK is both an incentive to ultra-nationalists and scary for softer English nationalists. And the second group is much larger. 10/

Bogeyman stories about Turks or Romanians or Muslims work for Brits because their racism reassures them that those groups are inherently inferior - and so can be defeated.

But Germans aren’t seen by Brits as inherently inferior. So using them as a bogeyman is much harder. 11/

Leave built EU up as a threat - only to its members.

Remainers didn’t claim EU would act against UK, instead framing problems of Brexit is inevitable, not EU’s “ fault “

But most public are less concerned with blame than reality. 12/

Leave hate discussions about UK coping with No Deal. But if Leave.EU idea of EU-as-threat is true, then why would that stop with Brexit.

So pushing Merkel as enemy may be drawing attention to whether Britain would be as Great and powerful as Leave EU claim. 13/13

PS Cummings lie - that Merkel told Johnson Germany could easily leave EU if it wants to - was made to imply German arrogance and power. But these claims only motivate those who have more power - or are committed to “do or die”.

Credit in this thread goes partly to Henning Wehn’s comedy shows where he gets English people to laugh with jokes about Germans. And then sympathises with them about other immigrants. A fascinating experiment in racisms (which I won’t try again).

PPS. Racism of the powerful prefers deniability & its twin - respectability.

Shouting “Nazi kraut” at a *German* is what open violent street racists do.

Not how Farage & Tice like their public racist messaging.