Thread by @Big_Headers

False Narratives.

Thread.

1/37

Brexit is a stupid, dangerous and hugely damaging process to put the UK through.

Furthermore this ‘oven ready Brexit’ will not deliver a single benefit that Brexit voters have been promised.

2/37

Indeed, one of the worst parts of Brexit is the way in which the UK’s Brexit supporting population has been so poorly served by the UK’s mainstream media.

3/37

In terms of what we need to fix, moving forward, if we are to get out of this mess, is this failure by the UK’s mainstream media.

4/37

But before getting into the weeds of this, I’d like to take a few steps back, and make some observations informed by a journey, independent of Brexit, that I have been through.

5/37

As background, I’m not an academic. But I enjoy discovering what reality is, what was behind events in history. Call it a thirst for truth. And that is why Brexit is an anathema to me

6/37

‘Pravda’ during the Stalinist show trials where the Mensheviks (the ‘majority’) were abused, pilloried, and ultimately executed, and the Bolsheviks (the ‘minority’) got to tell their own particular version of ‘pravda’ i.e. any lies and calumny, so long as supporting Stalin

7/37

Read Simon Sebag Montefiore’s magnificent but harrowing Stalin trilogy.

8/37

Germany, when reeling from the despair and impunity after the devastating WW1, and the terrible treaty of Versailles. Then starting to create a false narrative of why they lost the war.

9/37

Read ‘Ludendorff, The First Nazi’ an amazing story of how one of Germany’s worst, but most powerful Generals, and later a mentor of Hitler, started to create the false narrative of how the Jews caused Germany to lose the war.

10/37

When in fact Germany losing WW1 was far more to do with the eccentric stupidities and hubris of the likes of Generals such as Ludendorff.

One in five Jewish soldiers won an iron cross in WW1.

11/37

There are other false narratives, in recent history which have caused huge damage, and enabled dark evil to succeed. The false narrative of the Tutsi being racially superior to the Hutu, in Ruanda, over many years of European colonialism.

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And then a radio station hectoring and berating the Hutu population to start the horror of mass murder of the ‘evil’ Tutsis.

13/37

The false narrative of ‘Pastor’ Jim Jones, which enabled him to dominate his followers, to such a degree that they took cyanide, burning their insides out, in a mass suicide. And his most zealot of followers murdered those who refused, mostly the children.

14/37

The false narrative of Pol Pot, who had a, ‘learn and share’ meeting with Mao, to learn tools of terror and violence.

Who then got his followers in Cambodia to murder intellectuals in order to prevent objection to the vile Khmer Rouge, and to stop the killing fields.

15/37

I met the sole surviving member of the Cambodian royal family. He had been advised to stay in exile at the time. Every other member of his family was murdered.

Many pretty much when they stepped off the plane.

16/37

The above are examples of false narratives.

Brexit is a false narrative.

With an anti-EU vibe festering in the British conscience due to the callous lies spread over the years by ‘charmers’ such as Boris Johnson and Michael ‘who needs experts’ Gove.

17/37

Brexit is a false narrative. Seized upon by the UK’s tabloids, as a marvellous mechanism to sell more copy, with the colourful magnetism of the fool and buffoon and con artist that is Boris Johnson to appear in progressively ludicrous ‘photo ops’.

18/37

No intellectual curiosity.

No sense of outrage over lies.

No interest in the concept of actual truth at all.

It seems that Brexit pundits are simply gaslighting liars, one and all.

19/37

I would have thought that many more would have the courage of Peter Oborne to see the light, change his mind, and call out Brexit for what it is.

20/37

But no.

The likes of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Matt Hancock, Julia Hartley Brewer, Katie Hopkins, James Delingpole and many more, simply doubling down on lies whenever they have an opportunity.

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Pundits such as John Humphrys, Daily Mail brainwashed, devoid of real intellectual curiosity.

Ask him where he gets his opinions from.

What books he reads.

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BBC's Andrew Neil – somewhat compromised by his chairmanship of the Barclay brother’s owned Spectator magazine.

23/37

Laura Kuenssberg – following the lead of BBC DG Peter Hall directing the BBC not to suggest that there was any option to back out of Brexit, as reported in the Radio Times.

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Laura Kunessberg, going for political lightweight gossip, finding it all rather fascinating and fun, and seemingly having no desire to get the public to understand the truth.

25/37

Piers Morgan, the ultimate feeder on false narratives, grifting his merry heart out.

Loving Donald Trump.

His God.

26/37

False equivalence of a fraudster and liar being setup against a serious academic, with each been allotted equal credibility for ‘balance’.

Repeated again and again by the BBC, and other media, throughout the Brexit process.

27/37

There was the excellent BBC documentary Climategate: Science of a Scandal that reported on how this ‘false equivalence’ approach caused the false narrative ‘climate change is fake news’ to spread like Australian wildfire.

28/37

Brexit is due to the likes of these people, more than capable of speaking the truth, and indeed, sometimes did. Remember Johnson on Westminster bridge? Or Sajid Javid on his blog? However these Brexit MPs have decided to lie to the British people. For their own careers.

29/37

There were the false narratives spread by popinjay and martinet Danish politicians during the ‘question’ of ownership of Schleswig Holstein.

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Following an orgy of national hubris, Danish youth was blown to bits by massively superior German artillery.

Massacres that were the perfect dress rehearsal for the horrors of WW1.

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Other countries of Europe looked on aghast, as Danish youth was massacred, and Demark as a nation was eviscerated, never to fully recover. One hundred and fifty years later still bearing the scars.

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You can feel similar feelings from the rest of Europe over Brexit.

Though it is not about actual carnage and murder, the dangers of Brexit to the UK are very real.

33/37

Probably the most prescient comment about Brexit was by a banking analyst – saying it will make it make the UK become like ‘Cuba’ but without the sunshine’.

Perfect.

34/37

Germany, after WWII, understood false narratives. And educated children as much as possible to search for knowledge, and to be aware of how a population was manipulated and misled, to prevent it from happening again.

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However our British media, our mainstream punditry, have seized the false narrative of Brexit, with their empty souls and their grifting, shameless, unprincipled hubris.

And until they change, the UK will not recover.

36/37

You destroy a nation by lying to its people.

By creating false narratives.

This is what the pro Brexit punditry have done.

They need to change.

37/37 & Ends