Thread by @rolandmcs

Hmm, I find nothing interesting, surprising or original in this, never mind anything revelatory.

It's all very standard late-1990s "the internet will be a force for liberation/libertarianism", described in a thousand articles and books, including by non-Tory tech people.

https://twitter.com/OborneTweets/status/1343840587670290434

Look, Rightist Brexiters have a belief: it's a belief in smaller, limited government (which they believe often gets it wrong) and a correspondingly larger private sphere (which they believe often gets it right).

And that's basically it.

Brexiters therefore want less government regulation (which becomes "regulation=bad") and more private activity/exchange i.e. "free markets".

And they are thus going to view the layer of government that is the EU - a "regulatory superpower" - with hostility.

But they are also "natural" Tories. They don't do anything that smacks of supranational government well, because they see themselves as the nation's defenders.

Insofar as they see a need for government (and they do), they want it to be as a flexible, nimble servant.

There is nothing nefarious about any of this. You may think their outlook is wrong, mistaken, immoral even, being often blind to real-world needs for collective action [see Covid and also Rightist Covid deniers]. But because you don't understand it, don't start "mis-splaining" it

Leading Brexiters are not "disaster capitalists" trying to make money out of a shitfest they somehow know they are unleashing [they don't!]. These are moneyed men (mostly) who have moneyed families, connections, confidence OR street-wise men highly attuned to how people think.

They'll make their money (or more of it) in any circumstances and they generally already have - see Rees-Mogg, Banks, Tice, Ashcroft. Do you really think Crispin Odey, who is worth a few quid, is supporting this to make a few more quid that he would have made anyway?

No, they simply share that belief about government and society. And at its core, it is a very simple belief [simplists in 'simple beliefs', shocker] - so simple & boiled down that ironically they don't actually understand their core belief of "free markets" in the modern world.

And so we end up with the ignorati in charge of government - deploying school debating society tactics (because some haven't grown up), blundering around like a bull in a china shop and getting annoyed when things go wrong because they can't see why. "It must be those Remainers!"

There is no conspiracy. Just rampant simplist idiocy and lots of it.

And if you've missed that, you must have lived in a cave for the last five years.

/ends