Rebutting Remain: the 7 biggest attacks on democracy (and why they're wrong)

The political earthquake that was Brexit has since turned into Biblical Apocalypse in the minds of the losers. The same people who backed David Cameron and his warning that the outcome must be respected have had a distinct change of heart since it transpired the bookies, exit polls and general consensus were wrong yet again.

The reasons for the shocking outcome have been scrutinised in several sources, with Peter Hitchens perhaps proving the most insightful. But as Britain tries to move forward and let the outcome sink in, the disgruntled minority have returned to form by spreading several myths, half-truths, emotional blackmail and - in at least some cases - downright lies in a desperate bid to find any excuse any excuse to ignore democracy and get what they want. Let's review the propaganda:

• 1) "Many" , "Some", "Reports suggest" (choose which weasel words you prefer) have admitted they did not know what Brexit was and now regret voting for it. 
  
  
• (Sometimes this nonsense is accompanied by a google analysis showing that searches for "What is the EU?" hit a high after the outcome.)

This is the biased sample fallacy. Seventeen million people voted for Brexit. The media has managed to pull up a single-digit number of confused voters on the Brexit side, without checking the opposition vote.  The sources have used this 1/17,000,000 fraction to represent the entire Brexit vote. These are probably the same sources who would be first to rightly scream "racist" at anyone who suggested one Muslim terrorist represented all Muslims. The google searches show us nothing except that a lot of people - we have no idea of their age, gender, nationality, political preference or favourite underwear colour - searched for information about the EU after the poll.

• 2)  Old people voted for something younger people have to live with ( circumstantial ad hominem )

This is probably the most unintentionally revealing complaint, as it exposes contempt for older voters. The professed shock at the revelation that pensioners and millenials have different views is either phony or born of ignorance. Did anyone expect seventysomethings and twentysomethings to see the world similarly? Did the same outcry occur when the Conservatives - the traditional party of old folk - won the last election, breaking the hearts of the Labour youth?

Yes, younger voters will have to live with the decision because more elders voted Leave than youngsters voted Remain, it's called "Democracy". What's the objection? Are younger voters wiser? More knowledgeable? Do they deserve to have more say in world affairs than people who have experienced real life for longer than they have? When considered carefully, this complaint is nothing but an ad-hominem attack against a demographic of society. Again the same sources would be screaming from the rooftops if the same type of argument focused on a religious or non-white ethnic group.

• 3) We should have a second referendum because the result was so close (special pleading)

And if Remain won the second referendum, would there be a third?
The online petition reached three million signatures, which is less than a quarter of the Leave vote, and was also found to have at least 17,000 fake signatures which renders it highly dubious.

And by the way, the vote wasn't close, there was a majority of one million.

• 4) This is a victory for racism , Fascism, hate, isolation (choose any other slur that fits) (ad-hominem)

Sometimes accompanied by a set of apocryphal reports on Twitter of someone saying "I heard someone says Romanians go home" etc. ( guilt by association )

The reason the viral reports of people saying unpleasant, discriminatory things is so popular is because it makes the losers feel vindicated - they are the superior intellect and better human being. What's interesting from these rumours is that none of them I've seen has anyone actually confirmed a police report has been made, and making racially-hostile comments is a criminal offence in the UK. Of course, making a false police report is a criminal offence in itself. Have a few people made nasty comments? Probably. In any large city in the world you're likely to find at least a tiny number of xenophobic people. When Leave campaigner Boris Johnson arrived at his office after the result was announced, he was booed, abused and a tiny number of people threw things at him. Pretty sure that we could compile a Twitter wall of these things, too.

• 5) "What about the foreign people working here or Brits living abroad"

Leave said before, during and after the poll that any changes in laws would not be retroactive. End of.

• 6) "Vote Leave lied/spread fear" (ad hominem again )

The 5 million slogan was a little risqué, it didn't account for the rebate. It's true.
Meanwhile, Remain discussed World War 3, economic Armageddon, used the American President to deliver a possibly scripted threat, shamelessly and deliberately exploited the brutal murder of a good person and a colleague, exploited celebrities, sent out based leaflets, and allowed stereotypes of Brexiters as skinhead thugs.

• 7) This has caused the economic crash (appeal to belief )

The economic crash that wasn't and was never reported as such by any media source that had any knowledge of economics. It was rightly reported as a very sharp drop. The kind of sharp drop that occurs in any nation when there's a serious, unexpected event. Speculators cash in, they always have done and always will, it's the founding principle of stock markets.

The richest few were the biggest losers, the pound was not. The FTSE is recovering. Will there be some blips? Probably.

Then again, perhaps our market will drop and never pick up. Perhaps we'll suddenly become a nation of Fascists, pick up guns and attack every nation in Europe, while signing songs about Hitler and expressing hatred of all the foreigners that we see. On the other hand, perhaps things will carry on very much as normal, with the only difference being that we have a stronger level of soveignty, a court that has legal supremacy, greater freedom to spend our own income, more leverage with FTAs and the chance to employ skilled and qualified workers from across the commonwealth and knowledge that we know who are leaders are and, if necessary, how to get rid of them.

If you're so sure it's the former, go to the bookies and place your bets. Maybe they'll call it right this time.

Jo Cox aftermath: How about 'honest' instead of 'kinder' politics?

 

One thing all Thailand guidebooks draw attention to is the idea of the “little good lie”, the simple idea that sometimes feelings will be spared by an untruth. I have received many 'good lies' in my time overseas, but the only one that sticks in mind is early in my career when I covered a very popular senior teacher in a grade five math class. After two weeks, my boss came to me and told me he was so grateful for my help that they would "reward me" by freeing up some time on my schedule and removing me from my cover classes. It transpired that some parents had requested the previous teacher return to class.

In the west however, where lies and especially lying politicians are treated with contempt, the old adage  “The bigger the lie, the more it's believed” rings true. Political lies tend to fit one of three types: either they are rushed through in the hope that nobody bothers or knows how to verify them (think: numerous claims made in the Brexit debate), they are promised to be proven or justified by some future report or other event that is continuously and deliberately postponed (Iraq War report, for example) or they bypass logic and verification altogether via emotional blackmail and appeal to our populist, more defensive instincts. The tragic death of MP Jo Cox and the despicable pile of lies and emotional blackmail heaped on it by some of her so-called friends and allies is an example of that latter type and represents possibly the lowest our own politicians have sunk in quite some time.

Jo Cox, rest in peace

Fact: Jo Cox was killed by a violent man who believed himself mentally ill and linked to a US-based Nazi group. It's a hard truth that extreme people like this have always existed in society. History books have rare but endless tales of senior figures assaulted by violent citizens. However the likelihood of it happening to any one of us is rare, which is why we quite rightly feel such a sense of shock, revulsion and sympathy when we see someone fall victim to such a senseless act. Such sentiments were probably exasperated in Jo's case as – despite being a politician – she lacked the aura of aloofness and occasional arrogance displayed by many of her colleagues. She was a likable, regular person.

All of which makes what happened next all the more despicable. Before Cox's body was even cold, some of the media and her political allies moved to fashion a huge lie from the public grief. Apparently sidestepping the natural stage of grief felt by rational people, the Daily Star was first to hit the press with the headline “Jo Cox killed by Brexit Gunman”. The single claim for the headline was based around a rumour the Cox's killer had yelled “Britain First” after shooting. The headline was wrong for two reasons. Firstly, “Britain First” is not a Brexit group but a fringe political, right-wing group. To suggest that supporting them makes someone a Brexit supporter is akin to saying being a KKK member makes someone a Republican. The second problem is that it never, ever happened. A witness to the event confirmed he never heard the gunman shout “Britain First” or anything remotely similar.

But by the truth had its boots on, the lie was halfway around the world.  Sure enough, Guardian writer Polly Toynbee - formerly a BBC employee – produced an article on Cox's death warning of a sentiment  of“hate and isolation" built up from Brexit support. Still less than 48 hours after the death and with the Labour MP's family no doubt still in shock, Toynbee reveled in her moral pedantry. I personally found it difficult to decipher the psyche behind her column: was she really so confused as to believe her drivel? Was she simply so arrogant and callous that she didn't care? Or did she believe the end game was so important that all lies and exploitation were justified?

From then on the myth snowballed. Remain leaflets warned “Jo Cox's murder may be the start” , with similar hyperbole spreading uncontrollably from some sections of the Remain camp. Others didn't even pretend: Remain campaign director Will Straw was exposed in a phone conversation and email ordering his team to exploit the death. Meanwhile, in a serious of mostly heartfelt and sincere tributes to Jo by politicians of all sides, Labour's Neil Kinnock couldn't resist linking the death to UKIP and Nigel Farage in a two-sentence "tribute" tweet.

Even apparently justified and reasonable acts became loaded. The recalling of parliament to allow tributes to Cox was probably a kind thing to do. The question, however is: would the same course have been followed if, say, Douglas Carswell had been murdered? Would David Cameron have been so keen to display grief and tributes if the undertone of anti-Brexit sentiment hadn't been established? If not, why not? The whole purpose of parliament is to display, encourage and follow the process of democracy. Democracy means accepting different views. If you bend or twist procedure according to the views of the person at the end, you're being the exact apposite of “kind” or democratic.


A charity was set up in the wake of Jo's passing. Three charities were named as beneficiaries. Two of them I know little of, but their cause sounds courageous and noble. The third, however, is “Hope Not Hate” , a group set-up with – despite any claims to the contrary– a single goal to stifle, disrupt and intimidate any groups that express enough disagreement with socialist politics. HNH have repeatedly disrupted various events such as UKIP meetings and Brexit events. Their modus operandi is not to engage, discuss, debate or engage in “kind” politics but to simply shut down the opposition.

But in this mountain of lies, “kind” may be the most abused word. “Kind” is being presented as the idea that we shouldn't disagree, that we shouldn't find fault or acknowledge that people, culture and societies can, do and always will differ in some way.

“Kindness” can have many meanings and examples but surely in the murky world of politics we can narrow the field to two useful examples: the first being tolerance if not approval or assistance to those with very different views. We don't need to be told that killing isn't the answer, no sane person believes otherwise. The second is that even in a field where deceit and dishonesty is the norm, we should still draw the line somewhere. When the still-warm body of a good person, a mother and a friend is being exploited and lied about without the slightest element of shame, I'd say that “kindness” isn't the only quality lacking, we could all benefit from a big dose of the human qualities of honesty and common respect for those in grief, too.

Dear teachers: stop being your own pets

Dear NUT (National Union of Teachers),
I used to have sympathy for you, my counterparts back home. Dealing with the levels of violence and threats you face with little support must be agonising. Now I can’t help wondering if you deserve it, or derive some weird sadistic pleasure in this kind of divisiveness.

No I don't mean the standing ovation you gave Jeremy Corbyn, I mean the NUT’s call to end teaching “British values”  in favour of teaching “international rights”, because the former is “cultural supremacy”. I can’t help but wonder how many of you even have a true knowledge and understanding of what those words mean but it’s hard to tell, since there were no further details. I wonder: who will decide what constitutes “international rights”? You? Or will you use the UN declaration? You know, the one that Saudi Arabia refused to sign because it violated Sharia Law.

The truth is that some cultures are superior to others. It’s simply impossible to logically argue otherwise. Saudi Arabia refuses to allow women to drive because they follow a hard-line take on Sharia Law. Other counties, like yours, allow women the same rights as men. Does the NUT believe that our children should be taught that females cannot drive? Do they admire the old Aztec culture of human sacrifice?  If all cultures are equal, it’s perfectly acceptable to support that belief.  The reality is that any teacher even remotely hinting at such an idea would be fired within a week and would never be employed again, because it's an abhorrent idea.   We know full well there are better and worse cultures, we’re just terrified of admitting it.

But while all of you were light on facts about "international rights", you were thick on rhetoric. The list of complaints emanating from the NUT conference read like a textbook (pun intended) example of how modern British teaching has become a parody of itself. Let’s read the grandiose ideas asserted by one of your own (via the Telegraph article):

“Christopher Denson, a teacher from Coventry, said he had reservations about using the term "fundamental British values" in schools because many of his students had ancestry in countries which had been at the mercy British colonialism. “

I don’t follow your reservations, Mister Denson. When we teach “British values” are we teaching that the UK is a perfect union, the only state in the world never to have committed immoral actions? Is that in the curriculum? I don’t see it. Surely we’re teaching that we have learnt from past mistakes and now promote freedom and tolerance? Are the students in question aware that they have been granted British citizenship?

But Mister Denson wasn’t done. He continued:

“ "The inherent cultural supremacism in that term is both unnecessary and unacceptable. And seen with the Prevent agenda, it belies the most thinly veiled racism and a conscious effort to divide communities."
He added: "It’s our duty to push a real anti-racist work in all schools. And that doesn’t mean talk of tolerating other’s views, but genuine, inclusive anti-racist work."

Simply reading this statement makes me think Mister Denson will soon be high-up in the government’s well-paid, pen-pushing education hierarchy if he isn’t already. Apparently, using the name of the country in which you live and work followed by the word “values” means you discriminate against others because of their race. A teacher openly declaring his intention not to tolerate other’s views and to redefine national values inside the context of race is shocking to me, but not to you folk at the NUT apparently.

Yet still this teacher - thank the Lord he’s not teaching my (mixed-race) kids - wasn’t done...

"We organised a politics day for Year 8s in the week before Easter. They had a day to form a political party in their tutor groups to come up with a manifesto, film a broadcast, and make banners and take part in a debate. (If this quote is verbatim, I hope Mister Denson isn’t an English teacher.)

"Apart from the quality of the work, the other thing that really made my proud was that every single tutor group had as a policy, 'refugees welcome, open the borders'."

Now I may be going out on a limb here, teacher, but given your earlier comments, is there just the most minute possibility that you guided these children to these conclusion? As any teacher should know, children are not yet fully developed in their capacity to make informed and fully-logical decisions, particularly their long-term consequences. If they were, there’d be no need for teachers and no need for any legal age limits on any civil contract. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that you denied them equal time to any views that opposed allowing “refugees” unlimited entry? I don’t wish to be presumptions but in your own words “that doesn’t mean talk of tolerating other’s views”. I bet I’m not the only person suspecting that when you praise the conclusions of your students, in your mind you’re smirking and patting yourself on the back.

Dear NUT, it’s no secret that exam standards are getting easier, schools are getting more crowded and as already noted, you guys are in more danger than ever. Heck, you usually harp on about that at your conferences. But now, when you actually have some way to find a common cause, a sense of unity and principles that will make your lives easier, you’ve spat on it. Why? Could it be that you’ve succumbed to the stereotypes: the teacher who can’t live in the real world so instead spends time at school pushing his or her views onto others?

Stop applauding yourselves. Stop believing that a teacher is also a parent. Stop believing in your own self-righteous superiority. Your role and moral responsibility is to gift students to the tools to think, research and decide for themselves, it is not to tell them what to think.

Remember that next year when you complain about working conditions once more.

5 Star Book Reviews

13 Hours: The explosive inside story of how six men fought off the Benghazi terror attack -





It's Your Time You're Wasting: A Teacher's Tales of Classroom Hell (Frank Chalk Book 1)

 

Wolf's Head (The Forest Lord Book 1)


 

Book reviews

ISIS: The State of Terror - review

Tommy Robinson: Enemy of the State - review

 

 

Friar Tuck and the Christmas Devil - review

Open letter to Stephen Nolan: can I have your job?

Dealing with different opinions - Nolan style

Hi Steve,


I was quite disappointed that you blocked me on Twitter, this week. Yes I was rather harsh in my criticisms but then I wasn’t abusive, and I surely can’t have said anything you haven’t heard before. After all, you are a talk show host on the BBC, no less. Truth be told, I envy you so much that I want your job.

You have it so much better than most of the world. Take the amount of people-juggling the rest of us have to do, for example. I’m a teacher in a private school, I have to walk a tightrope between expectant parents, management, students and the way that I actually think I should do my job. I swing too far in any direction, I have to answer to someone.  But you? You are not constrained by such petty, plebeian worries. You only have to answer to one party, and answer in the simplest terms possible. Nowhere was this more evident than those controversial couple of days on your radio show last week. Your behavior, your incessant pious judgments of your callers - you know, those people that actually pay the BBC licence fee - was utterly staggering. The was self-evident from the deluge of complainants that called you in response.

In almost any other industry or media company, you’d be hauled before management with a demand to explain how you managed to insult and anger so many customers in one arrogant swoop. Instead, you swatted away the indignant callers requesting you apologise to the elderly man you so righteously questioned on his moral right to have a view on migrants and flippantly told them to complain to the BBC instead of calling you, the person responsible. When you told one caller: “Complain to the BBC rather than calling me.”, the translation was clear to the world: “Go ***** yourself instead of calling me”.

Why take that approach? Simple, you know that as long as you are talking the right political line for the BBC, you will never, ever be punished or forced to apologise for your treatment of dissent. You’re as safe as Fort Knox in your job, and you know it. You degrade callers because you can.

Secondly, you don’t really need to do that much in your job. I know, people say teaching is not a real job either, but at the very least I need to have some idea of what I’m teaching and how I’m going to teach it each day, so there’s basic standards to follow. You on the other hand, apparently don’t actually need to explain your view or even to quiz the callers on theirs. All you need to do is talk about the headline of the day, let people call and then simply perform your own moral inquisition of their right to disagree with you.

On that “migrants” show, you asked one man: was he Christian? Did he consider himself a good Christian? Was he charitable in any way? Did he practise any form of charity? All that in response to the concerns  he voiced about the migrants inundating Europe, the topic he was actually invited to call in and share his feelings about. At one point you even claimed he said all migrants were paedophiles and terrorists when he actually said nothing of the sort. You didn’t actually address his or anyone’s concerns but then, why would you? You get paid anyhow. You’re Stephen Nolan, dammit! You’re big in Northern Ireland, I’m told.

Thirdly - and yeh, this is the no-brainer-  you’re on much more money than me. According to Jon Gaunt - who is in a position to have a good idea - you’re on the best part of three hundred grand a year, courtesy of the licence payers who call your show to be morally interrogated.  That’s the thought that crossed my mind when you asked another of those pesky: “I’m not sure we should let everyone in” type-callers the rather bizarre question: Are you sitting comfortably in your chair tonight?.

Well Stephen, I guess the same question isn’t necessary for you. Your chair is probably leather (or fake leather, I bet most BBC staff are PETA members) and replaced every year. But your odd line of debate was when I had my brainwave. Stephen, I have a halfway decent voice and face for radio myself, why don’t I take your job? No, seriously! Think about it: you could finally live that dream you put out on the airwaves last week. You could show the world how charitable you are by giving away your public-funded salary to anyone who shows up at our borders (no checks need, right?). You could show the fella from Swansea how Christian you are by letting the first lucky migrant into your home - I bet you have a bigger telly than me - at your own expense. And as for comfy chairs? I bet one of those fighting-age Syrians arriving on European shores is in need of a luxurious recliner right now.

Don’t worry Steve, I’ve got you covered. I’ll bring my own wooden stool and scrutinise the moral fibre of any cheeky Joe Public who “takes up the airwaves” while you’re out practising what you preach, and you know what? I’ll do it for half price. I’ll fleece licence-payers for the bargain sum of 150,000 per year.

Let me know what you think. You’ve gone a bit quiet lately. You blocked and ignored the Breitbart editor’s request for a debate with a neutral moderator and venue, and Gaunty says you went AWOL from your own show this week. Hey, maybe you beat me to that brainwave! But then you would, wouldn’t you? You always know best. That’s why you work for the BBC, where morality is checked at the door, and salaries on the way out.  Might there be room for one more in there?

That Boy in that Picture

goodreads.com

time.com

That image of the girl in Vietnam running from napalm still haunts the world today. It was one of the most cogent case of war’s horror being captured in a single frame. (Fewer people realise she has a book, however). As we ponder the newer generation of a snap that changed the world, can we consider if the father of the child that was tragically drowned could produce his own harrowing account of his life? Unlikely.

Abdullah Kurdi has suffered the greatest emotional pain a human can endure. It’s something I don’t know how or if I could cope with. Is there any way to discuss his loss without sounding hideously callous? We have to try, because the harrowing picture of the poor boy is transforming Europe and there is something not right.

Should anything happen to my own children, I think one of the first things I’d ask myself is: could I have stopped it? Kurdi could have. He was leaving Turkey, not Syria, where he’d lived for three years,  well away from war. He undertook a journey he surely knew was dangerous for reasons not entirely clear. At some point he claimed he wanted to go to England (not a nearer, safer country) to get his teeth fixed. This claim was later amplified to explain his teeth had been removed by torture. Why did he not mention this in the many interviews he sat? Surely something so terrible, so compelling a reason would be the first thing he tell the world? Instead it appeared later in an unsourced blog.


Why did his aunt lie? She claimed his appeal for asylum in Canada was rejected. In fact, it was never submitted, and she surely knew this. Again, this isn’t a small lapse of memory, it’s a deliberate attempt to mislead the world at a very crucial time over an incredibly emotive subject. Finally, was Abdullah Kurdi  a people smuggler as a reputable Australian newspaper has claimed?

These are exceptionally difficult queries to raise at a time when every European is competing with each other to show they have more compassion for young Aylan than the next person. As Brendon O'Neil says, it’s almost become a form of moral pornography. As such, it’s become the perfect political weapon for the left wing to push for more and more immigration. They were less (as in, non) vocal when Christian children were being beheaded in Iraq.

Are there genuine refugees, escaping from the mess that we created in Syria? Technically, no, not in England., A refugee seeks the nearest available safe haven. (Saudi Arabia have not taken migrants but have offered to build two hundred mosques in Germany).

Are there people who need and deserve our help? Yes , of course.  The true compassionate person would seek to help them, by avoiding the ISIS insurgents they have openly admitted to sending, by encouraging the separation of those who discard their passports, are taught to lie or who perhaps are men of a fighting age (57 percent), fleeing their country to enjoy the freedoms that our men of fighting age actually fought and died for.

Until we can reach some level of realism and pragmatism rather than seeking to indulge ourselves in cheap goodwill, we will only guarantee that further conflicts and a far wider spectrum of misery is guaranteed at some unspecified point in the future.

The image of Phan Thi Kim Phuc transformed the world, probably for the better. Twenty or thirty years from now, I’m not sure Abdullah Kurdi will view his own tragic loss, his circumstances or his (or his aunt’s) reactions as unavoidable. As a father, my heart goes out to him. As a rational person, I fear for the long term consequences of our despicable actions in Syria and the domino effect it has set in motion.