Brexit: The Banality of Treason

“We have no real democracy at the present time, because again and again the people have voted for decisive action, yet again and again their will has been thwarted by obstruction in the talking shop at Westminster. Democracy only begins when the will of the people is carried out.”
Sir Oswald Mosley, 1931

One of my all-time favourite fictional stories about the nature of political belief is Flannery O’Connor’s The Barber, published in 1948. This remarkable short story, written when O’Connor was just 20 years old, follows a number of interactions in the life of George Rayber, a college professor who decides to visit a new barber just prior to a governor’s election. Rayber is a typical liberal, blindly convinced of his progressive beliefs and his own intellectual powers. In contrast to Rayber, the Barber and his other customers are supporters of the racial status quo. As Rayber sits for a shave, and discussion moves to the election, the interaction between college professor and barber becomes a masterful allegory for competing political philosophies and behaviors. Rayber finds himself arguing with an audience that is grounded in reality, immune to abstraction, and who seem to understand the economic interests he has in the election better than he does. It is the Barber who repeatedly reminds the conceited, and self-deceiving, college professor to really “think” and to use his “horse sense” rather than blindly follow progressive fantasies and intellectual fashions. Rayber, incensed by the reactionary views of the Barber, is nevertheless unable to offer an articulate, factual rebuttal, sitting mute and angry. Frustrated and embarrassed by someone he sees as an ignorant bigot, he then neurotically spends the night writing a “systematic analysis” for why voting for his candidate is a good idea, and plans to confront the Barber with it before the election. The story reaches a climax when Rayber finally gives his impromptu lecture in the barbershop, is greeted with laughter and derision, and subsequently lashes out by punching the Barber — confirming, with his violent loss of self-control, his own ideological, intellectual and personal defeat.

Although it’s been noted by biographers that she enjoyed “racist jokes,” O’Connor was politically ambiguous and her precise intentions in this story went with her to the grave when she died of lupus aged 39. In this case, however, I subscribe to the school of formalist criticism in that I see The Barber as possessing a life and existence beyond its author and her intentions. Regardless of what O’Connor intended, or how other critics have interpreted it, the story remains one of the most profound and succinct fictional portrayals of modern left-liberalism. We know, for instance, from several scientific studies that although leftists believe themselves to be agents of rationality they are in fact more likely than Rightists to be swayed by emotion.^[1] They are also prone to weaker levels of emotional regulation and to “extreme acts of solidarity … with groups to which they do not belong originally.” The ongoing tragicomic presence of Antifa, recently filmed screaming “Nazi” at a milquetoast female conservative approaching her eighties, and the growing culture of censorship, are surely proof that the spirit of George Rayber is alive and well. The Left continues to evade debate, forfeiting argument in order to punch the “ignorant” in the smug belief that the Left, and the Left alone, are both intellectually and morally correct.

This smugness, and the inability to accept defeat even when it’s right in front of them, has typified the actions of the left-liberal elite in relation to both Donald Trump and Brexit. When the Mueller Report, a kind of modern day Democrat version of Rayber’s “systematic analysis,” provoked all the laughter and derision it deserved, the Democrat’s simply dusted themselves off and “punched” the GOP with a new set of outlandish claims concerning Trump and Ukraine. Similarly, when Britain voted to leave the European Union, the left-liberal elite “punched” the British public by blocking Brexit legislation, dodging a proposed general election, and then accusing Boris Johnson of inciting violence against them. Irony is often lost on the Left, but they have a talent for inadvertently producing it.

I must make myself clear. I am ambiguous about the actual meaning of Brexit. I firmly believe that the day after Brexit there will be violence in the streets, chaos in hospitals, resources and infrastructure will be stretched to breaking point, and government will be totally ineffective. Britain will be a disaster. But this will also be the case the day before Brexit, just as it has been the case in Britain ever since the multicultural project was embarked upon. Britain’s most pressing crisis has little or nothing to do with a series of transnational treaties binding it to other European member states. Britain has already imbibed the most potent of toxins, globalism and multiculturalism, and these toxins will remain in the system with or without supervision or government from Brussels. My point is that Brexit will not cure Britain of any of its ills. It will not stop or slow immigration, it will not halt cultural decline or the march of Cultural Marxism, it will not stop Britain being ruled by elites far removed from the life and environment of the everyday Briton. More than a departure from European bureaucracy, Britain needs a new departure from itself.

That being said, of course I support the national principle and the idea that the British should be self-governing. I am, all things considered, a Brexiteer, and someone who believes that Britain should have the “cleanest break” possible from the EU system. But we must place all such rhetoric in context, and it is this context that reveals the circus in Westminster to be a particularly banal form of treason.

Brexit’s Immigration Paradox

The ethno-nationalist looks at the Brexit debate and what does he see? He sees a choice between the migrant-welcoming EU globalist behemoth and … what? For a start, he sees “the most ethnically diverse” British government in history, led by a Prime Minister whose first act in office was to rule out setting any limits on the numbers of immigrants flooding Britain. This places Brexit voters in something of a quandary because the primary motivation for the Brexit vote was concern about immigration (see the excellent research of University of Kent’s Matthew Goodwin). What they are now faced with is a Brexit that won’t do anything to change immigration other than reduce the numbers of Poles and increase the numbers of Indians, Pakistanis and others from the Third World. As The Economist put it in February, “Europeans in Britain are packing up. The rest of the world is moving in.”

Goodwin pointed out in his analysis of Brexit votes that although leaving the EU would reduce the influx of East European migrants to Britain, “of the twenty places with the largest proportions of non-UK EU nationals, eighteen voted to remain in the EU.” In other words, the vast majority of British towns with the largest migrant worker populations from Poland and other East European countries were not moved into an anti-EU immigration stance. Nevertheless, since Brexit voters responded to surveys by insisting that they voted for Brexit due to immigration concerns, how do we connect these two facts? How do we reconcile an anti-EU Brexit vote motivated by “immigration,” with the fact EU workers are tolerated or welcome in many parts of Britain, including those where they live in the highest concentration?

Goodwin’s theory is that some towns were overwhelmed by the pace, rather than nature, of EU migration and, in some cases like Boston in Lincolnshire (first nationally for Brexit vote percentage) this seems to be the case. Similarly, Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, has argued that Brexit was simply a vote “against free movement of workers within the EU.”^[2] But I’ve consulted the demographics for boroughs in England that ranked highest for Brexit votes and the theory that Brexit was a reaction against fast-paced migration from Eastern Europe really only partly explains what’s going on. Against Goodwin’s theory, I posit that Brexit wasn’t merely a reaction to the increased pace in arrivals of Poles and Bulgarians but rather, for most people, a more general protest vote aimed at, to use Nigel Farage’s own terminology and propaganda phrase, “taking back control.” Or, to put it more bluntly, Brexit was a general reaction against multiculturalism and multiracialism, and not against EU immigration as such.

An excellent example of a White area desperate to take back control from multiracialism is the borough of Thurrock in the East of England. Thurrock ranked fourth nationally for Brexit votes, but Poles and other EU nationals are nowhere near it’s highest non-British group. Rather, that title goes to Black Africans who increased more than 1,000 percent between 2001 and 2011 (jumping from 971 to 9,742 — around 4 times as many as East Europeans). By sheer coincidence, drug sales, gang activity, and violent crime also increased in the area in line with the Black demographic. The situation is very similar in Fenland, East of England, which ranked sixth nationally for Brexit votes. When residents were questioned about their attitudes to immigration, most respondents made it clear that EU workers were tolerable and in some cases welcome, but that the “majority wanted the numbers of asylum-seekers and refugees to be reduced,” and some “veered towards overt racism, including negative comments about Muslims.” A Brexit vote wouldn’t limit African and Muslim migration to Britain, but one assumes that voters in these areas saw it as a move in the right direction — a move towards “taking back control.”

A similar theory to my own is apparent in the research of Simon Hix, Eric Kaufmann, and Thomas Leeper (London School of Economics) who have issued a working paper titled “UK voters, including Leavers, care more about reducing non-EU than EU migration.” Their surveys found conclusively that “British voters prefer EU to non-EU migrants. … This pattern of preferring immigrants from inside the EU to those from outside holds across all social groups in our data.” This adds to Kaufmann’s findings that “the increase in non-European (BAME) respondents in a White British person’s local area in the 2000s was a somewhat stronger predictor of their support for UKIP than the increase in local European population.”^[3] This is Brexit’s immigration paradox — the vote brought about by a desire to tackle non-White immigration is, even if finally successful in removing Britain from the EU, utterly powerless to achieve that goal.

Nothing conservative about the Conservatives

Several days ago, conservative elements in the UK press celebrated a speech by Britain’s India-derived Home Secretary Priti Patel, who has now pledged that she will, post-Brexit, introduce an Australian-style points system (or work permit system) for migrants. Such celebrations are woefully misguided because such a system will almost certainly do nothing to reduce immigration, and, if anything, will probably skew immigration even more towards non-EU migrants — a situation the British public clearly doesn’t want. In fact, thus far the government has promised only to “end free movement in its current form.” [emphasis added] In other words, after Brexit, Britons can expect a slightly new form of free movement and ongoing mass migration. The Migration Observatory at Oxford University issued a paper last year showing that non-EU labour migration to the UK has been increasing since 2012, and that the largest group by far in this category are Indian men. Using existing patterns of work visa issuance, the paper makes the perfectly logical prediction that the primary beneficiaries of this Indian Home Secretary’s much-vaunted post-Brexit “points system” will be … her fellow Indians. Szymon will make way for Sanjay, Radek for Ramesh.

In fact, Patel, who is a darling of civic nationalists because she talks nonsense about being tough on crime without actually doing anything (UKIP YouTube personality has hailed her “Priti the Barbarian”), is busy using her new role to build as many bridges to India as she can. Days ago she introduced a new two-year post-study work visa that is almost perfectly tailored to Indian graduates in Britain, providing a gateway to permanent settlement. Sir Dominic Asquith, British High Commissioner to India, has said the development is “fantastic news for Indian students, who will now be able to spend more time in the UK after completing their degree. … I’m delighted that numbers of Indian students coming to study in the UK are constantly increasing, having doubled over the last three years. Last year alone we saw a massive 42% increase … 96% of all Indians who apply for a UK visa are successful — meaning the vast majority of those who wish to come to the UK are able to do so.”

Adding to Patel’s dubious effort to “take back control,” Boris Johnson has pledged to support “an amnesty for half a million migrants who do not have proof of their right to stay in the UK,” something he has expressed enthusiasm for even while mayor of London between 2008 and 2016. Speaking to a leadership campaign event in the east of England before being elected Prime Minister by the Conservative Party, Johnson said, “I don’t think it’s commonsensical to think we can deport such a large number of people. We do need to think of how to regularize their status.” One assumes that Johnson, deep down, feels that it isn’t “commonsensical” to “take back control” of immigration, but he is happy to play the role of Brexit messiah if it keeps him in power.

The Banality of Treason

Pantomime is a classic British tradition, consisting of a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. One of the typical features of a pantomime is that the audience is expected to raucously boo and cheer the production’s villains and heroes. Make no mistake, Brexit is at the present time little more than a pantomime in which the British public is encouraged to cheer for Boris Johnson and his “Best o’ British” cabinet of globalist Indians and half-Jews against the wicked Remainer factions in Parliament. And thus far the British public is dutifully playing along, with accusations of treason and declarations of “will of the people” becoming more and more commonplace, even though the original and ultimate goal of the Brexit vote, an end to mass migration, is becoming ever more distant.

I don’t deny that treason of a sort is evident. In November 2016 I noted that Jews were very prominent in leading the fight against Brexit, and John Bercow, the Jewish Speaker of the House of Commons, has been credited with stopping Brexit thus far and is said to be capable of ousting Johnson. Jeremy Corbyn’s tactics thus far have revolved around avoiding a turn to the electorate, and keeping any further decision-making out of the hands of the British public. All such actions are indeed in flagrant opposition to the will of the people as expressed in the 2016 Brexit vote. But, as a general election becomes more likely, the ruse that we will see a noble fight by Boris against a treasonous faction in Parliament is the stuff of pure fantasy. There are traitors in Parliament, but they occupy every seat, and not just those on one side of the House of Commons. Boris Johnson, in proposing an amnesty for half a million illegal immigrants, acts against the will of the people. Priti Patel, in easing the path for thousands more of her co-ethnics, acts against the will of the people. Treason from government is not a novelty, and is not tied to Brexit. It is endemic and banal in equal measure.

Part of the reason for the inertia and paralysis of the British response to the Brexit pantomime is that the Brexit vote was the result of a coalition of anti-globalists, Eurosceptics and nationalists. The referendum campaign was driven by anti-globalist and nationalist propaganda and instincts. The best example is the classic “Vote Leave” poster titled “Breaking Point” which depicted not factories filled with Polish agrifood workers, but streams of Syrians. And yet, almost as soon as the vote was announced, the focus switched to Eurosceptic concerns about trade, tariffs, and legal powers. Anti-globalist and nationalist elements became almost silent in the ongoing Brexit pantomime, revealing that the majority involved were in truth little more than the willing puppets of Eurosceptic business interests who wanted to use the emotive pull of immigration concerns without any intention of actually acting on them. This, and not the banal charade played out by Corbyn and his ilk, is the greater betrayal of the British people.

Brexit Britain: Still at Breaking Point

The curtain will fall on the pantomime at Westminster only when the British people come to the realisation that proxy votes do not work — whether for UKIP, Brexit, or other parties, causes or interests where there is no clear programme for action on immigration and multiculturalism. The result of Brexit will inevitably be a UK in some form of union with the EU, in some form of scheme for some form of free movement, and with some form of provision for ongoing mass migration. Britain will have moved from one form of globalism to another, and the British electorate will be numbed for decades by apathy, exhaustion, and disillusionment.

I opened this commentary on Brexit with some lines from Sir Oswald Mosley not merely because the quote seemed appropriate, but because Mosley himself had ideas on a European Union that are worth considering. Mosley greatly desired an end to European “brother wars” and envisioned a voluntary union of European member states that made common cause for one another, supported one another, and exchanged the traditions and cultural values that made Europe a global titan. He sought an end to the “destruction of Western civilization by the simple process of first dividing the advanced nations of Europe and then setting them at each other’s throats in quarrels which have neither material nor spiritual relevance to reality.” Mosley’s European Union, conceived for the exclusive benefit of the European peoples, would have been something worth fighting for, rather than against. How different things might have been if we had the Union of Mosley instead of that of Coudenhove-Kalergi — a European Union conceived as the vehicle for the suppression and replacement of the European peoples. This, sadly, is our reality, and such as things stand, the pantomime must play on — the endless parade of the banality of treason.

^[1] R. Pliskin, D. Bar-Tal, G. Sheppes, “Are Leftists More Emotion-Driven Than Rightists? The Interactive Influence of Ideology and Emotions on Support for Policies,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40:12 (2014), 1681-1697.

^[2] Portes, J. (2016) ‘Immigration after Brexit’, National Institute Economic Review, 238(1), pp. R13–R21.

^[3] Kaufmann, E. “Levels or changes?: Ethnic context, immigration and the UK Independence Party vote” Electoral Studies 48 (2017), 57-69.