Fintan O'Toole is a is a columnist, literary editor and drama critic for The Irish Times. He was on Channel 4 News the other night and gave what I thought was a terrific summary of Brexit. He has written a number of columns from a similar perspective and he often points out a profound but hidden truth about Brexit.
O'Toole says first of all, to get to Brexit at all you have to imagine the EU is, and has been for a very long time, an 'oppressive coloniser' of the UK. Every petty, trivial, irritating rule or regulation has to be as seen as being 'forced on us' or somehow as an attack on the UK and on our ancient liberties, even though British ministers explicitly vote for virtually every one. In other words the picture created of a subjugated UK is an entirely false one, but widely accepted. It was the Brexiteers fantasy world.
Although O'Toole doesn't say it, MPs and government ministers often use the EU as a human shield. They develop a policy, along with other European countries, that is good but unpopular. When the impacts are felt, they blame the EU. But when benefits flow, they take the credit and keep the EU out of it altogether. It's all very convenient - for weak MPs and ministers that is, they don't need to bother selling or defending policies at all.
Then, having inadvertently or deliberately created a climate where half the country feels oppressed or in danger of being colonised you cannot be surprised when a political party, largely made up of this aggrieved mob, begins to form and press for a referendum.
A weak prime minister, under pressure from the extremists in his party concedes a referendum and the country is encourage to vote for Brexit and, against the odds, leave wins.
Negotiations begin and eventually a deal emerges. The immutable reality of the European situation is that the EU is much bigger than we are and they control the market to which we need access. To protect our trade we agree to align ourselves with most of the EU rules.
Bizarrely then, we are going to find ourselves having to follow the rules that hitherto we could help to formulate, or even veto if we weren't satisfied. Our views and opinions counted for something as did our vote. These were the rules and regulations that were supposedly 'forced on us'.
After Brexit, we will paradoxically become the oppressed rule taker that we THOUGHT we were before, but weren't.
Crazy or what?
O'Toole says you should be careful what you spread fantasies about. They may come true.
