Sunday 19 June 2016

Ho, Jo?

When, about 2pm on Thursday June 16th, I first heard of an attack on Jo Cox MP, I thought: Is this a deliberate attempt by the political class to fabricate a story with the purpose of distracting the people from the forthcoming Brexit referendum? With Leave in the lead, and starting to accelerate away?

About an hour later, the media reported that the perpetrator had shouted “Britain First!” before shooting, or kniving, or whatever else it did. I smiled to myself. Yes, this was a set-up, I thought, and they’re going to use it as an excuse to blame the Brexit campaign. This was parts 2 and 3 of their strategy. Part 2: If you want to suppress an issue, make something happen that will eclipse it in the news. And part 3: try to make your opponents look bad in the process.

Another hour later, I heard that Jo Cox had died. I thought, Oops. They shouldn’t have let that happen. I thought of David Kelly, and of another Labour politician, Robin Cook.

The next morning, Boris Johnson and others had “suspended campaigning” in the referendum. It took me a while to appreciate the nuance; but this was part 4 of their strategy. They stopped talking about the issue. Officially.

All this will make more sense when you understand that those, like Johnson, that claim to be pro-Brexit aren’t really against the EU at all. They’re only interested in their own chances at power. All politicians, of all parties, are ultimately on the same side; and it’s their side, not mine. (Or yours.)

As to the specific issue of Leave or Remain, I was a Europhile up to about 1991. I thought the EEC was a good thing. But when the economic EEC morphed into the political EU, I lost all confidence in the European project.

I haven’t voted for almost 30 years. I am completely alienated from political society. But I do plan to vote on Thursday, for Leave. And here’s why. It’s the first time in my 63 years living in a so called “democracy” that I feel my vote has actually had any value at all. It’s my first (and probably last) opportunity to say fuck off to the establishment that have treated me, all my adult life, as if I was sub-human.

So, please join me in voting Leave on Thursday. And in wishing that Jo Cox’s killer, be it an organization or an individual, gets the justice it deserves.

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