Thread by @EmporersNewC

Well this is just nonsense, Philip.

🧵

https://twitter.com/PhilipJCollins1/status/1390560436454662146

If Labour are being punished for not supporting Brexit after the vote, it's because of people like Philip Collins casting them that way.

As someone who fought very hard to Remain from July 2017, I can say we didn't have a vocal supporting MP in any party for over a year.

The first thing the Labour party did was say "We need to listen to people to find out the reasons why they voted for Brexit".

Which is an incredibly silly game to play because the same people give the different answers and then complain that Remainers never understand.

Then this 2017 Labour conference ball poll showed pretty equal support for embracing or fighting Brexit.

Then they split between two camps. One side saying we should stay in the Single Market, and the other side lying about what senior figures said about the Customs Union and the Single Market.

Those in more leave centric seats began to champion the views of racists.

Their 2017 manifesto was really Brexity.

Remain/Leave isn't a party specific thing, and it's tough to argue the leader didn't get positively behind Brexit.

And let's be honest, it left some people wondering where his tick actually lay in 2016 despite his campaigning.

Suggesting Labour didn't accept the result is just nonsense.

I don't say that to defend them because I wasn't happy about it at all, but I don't begrudge a party leadership that felt the political binding of an advisory referendum.

They still acted with absolute cowardice in not backing amendment 51.

Because it would disrespect the Brexit vote, apparently.

So the suggestion that Labour just spent years telling everybody they were stupid is just another lie in our very own massive UK lie factory of political guff.

It's just another example of how the system is broke, and as long as a party tries to play by the rules that the party in power makes up as they go along, they are going to lose.

I didn't vote yesterday, because what's the point?

We had a debate about the EU before 2016, and afterwards who knew that much about the actual EU?

In 1975 Granada's State of the Nation created a 90 minute film showing how a single clause passed into law in the EEC.

In 2016 the BBC were asking us what our cats thought.

Rather than trying to understand what the preamble to the Treaty of Rome actually meant, our MPs just decided to change the words so it meant what they wanted it to mean.

You can read how Heath said it was just about trade every few years, because we've re-written our own history, and the press don't give a damn about shitting over the legacy of the journalists that went before them as long as they get paid.

I even saw the Kilmuir letter being referred to in the Financial Times as being kept secret, like Kilmuir wasn't talking about what he himself had to say, and he did bloody well say it.

This self-absorbed fact free analysis is what is considered as "intellectual political debate" in the UK today.

Unless a party comes along that wants to break this stupid system, then every vote we make or don't make is going to be interpreted by those inside the political bubble to mean exactly what they want it to mean.

If I vote now, I'm endorsing a system where even the basics of the EU could not be appropriately understood by our elected officials after 5 years of debate.

One thing all these years working on Brexit has done is given me a view of just how ignorant our MPs are when they make their decisions, and it's incredibly frightening.

If our politicians insist on playing this anti-intellectual politics, then I'm sorry, but I'm just not playing.

/End