Daniel Hannan has a typical article on Conservative Home HERE attacking Barnier and the EU. He thinks they are deliberately and with malice, punishing us for wanting to leave the EU. For Hannan of course this is perfectly normal. He has a sort of paranoia, an irrational fear that every other country in the world is out to 'get us'. So, his article, especially on the CH website would not normally be newsworthy, but it is for one thing and that is the reaction of readers.
He writes:
"The normal British reaction to such blackmail would be to bridle at the threat and dig in in defence of democracy. In a healthy polity, even those who had voted Remain would be appalled by the bullying tone, and would rally around a policy that honoured the referendum result.
"But our polity is far from healthy at present. In the debilitating culture war that followed the referendum, plenty of British politicians and commentators were determined to side with Brussels, however unreasonable its demands. Although many Remainers accepted the referendum result in good faith, some Europhile peers, MPs and businessmen were determined to overturn it. They therefore lined up behind even the most preposterous EU positions, because they shared the goal of making Brexit so painful that Britain would drop the whole idea.
"They didn’t put it that way, of course, at least not in public. Instead, they would typically say things like, “The EU has to follow its own rules, you can’t enjoy the privileges of the club without being a member, what else did you Eurosceptics expect?”
"Sadly, our negotiators never faced up to the fact that Brussels did not want a mutually beneficial deal. Eurocrats could hardly have been clearer. Theresa May kept saying she wanted the EU to succeed; her EU counterparts kept responding that they wanted Brexit to fail. And yet, absurdly, we pursued a strategy of being nice in the hope that our goodwill might be reciprocated".
I don't recall the EU 'kept responding they wanted Brexit to fail' but I think this is characteristic of the paranoid who, according to NetDoctor (HERE):
I was amazed how many of these fit the typical Brexiteer and leave voter and seem particularly apt for Hannans article. His views are entirely in keeping with most of his previous output so this isn't the surprise. It is the responses below his article. The first 25 or so were almost universally and surprisingly critical of Hannan! Amazing. The thinking idiot's Brexiteer is not quite as popular as he thinks. This was typical from someone called AlfieJTarn:
- are easily offended and quick to anger
- find it difficult or impossible to trust others
- are very thin-skinned and unable to be given any type of criticism
- put harmful meanings to other people's innocent remarks
- are defensive, argumentative and unable to compromise
- think people are saying bad things about them behind their back or scheming to cheat them
- feel threatened and persecuted by the world
- believe in wild 'conspiracy theories
I was amazed how many of these fit the typical Brexiteer and leave voter and seem particularly apt for Hannans article. His views are entirely in keeping with most of his previous output so this isn't the surprise. It is the responses below his article. The first 25 or so were almost universally and surprisingly critical of Hannan! Amazing. The thinking idiot's Brexiteer is not quite as popular as he thinks. This was typical from someone called AlfieJTarn:
"Dear, dear. Has the argument in favour of Brexit been reduced to this? Setting up a straw man, in this case the EU, for people to hiss at? Be honest. The fault with Brexit is that some people voted for it who did not understand the subject matter. There it is".
Even Conservatives are slowly coming to see it is all a disaster.
