Brexiting. A series on being English. #16
If the Brexit referendum were held in 2024, the Remain vote would outnumber the Leave vote by at least 4 million, not including the people who regret having voted for Brexit. If the latter were included, an estimated 70% would vote for Remain.
It was the generation over 50, the baby boomers and society builders born between 1946 and 1976 and the older folks who voted for Brexit while the people born after that voted for Brexit.
Since, 2.8 million Brexit voters have died. The difference in 2016 was 1.3 million in favour of Brexit.
2016 was the real annus horribilis for the Western world. Forget QEII's complaint.
In that year, America elected a lunatic stooge of their archenemy as president and England chose to leave their greatest benefactor for the sole benefit of perhaps less than 20 people, Boris Johnson, Jacob Reese-Mogg and the alleged diamond white-washing billionaire Arron Banks among them.
It was the year when a company called Cambridge Analytica had data that, when abused, like it was, made Trump and Brexit possible.
The Americans can be forgiven for electing Trump for at the time, nobody expected Trump to be really insane or a stooge for Putin. That was revealed only in 2017. The expectation was that the gravitas and responsibilities of the job would put a halt to the idicocies and shenanigans of Trump and that he would start to behave like any American president, i.e. as a repsonsible and reasonable person. Alas, it was not to be and the USA was rent asunder for generations to come.
But in the UK, people could have known. The Remain campaign explained full well what was to be expected but the main media did not carry it or only scantily. Perhaps it were cultural quirks like the English politeness and the English innate sense of superiority which prevented Leave campaigners from being vetted on their lies, e.g. the "350 million pounds a week for the NHS" lie by Boris Johnson put on his red bus was never really put in question.
And it was just England, for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland chose to remain in the European Union. In other words, it was a purely cultural matter. Sense and reason had nothing to do with it.
Sources: Lord Ashcroft Polls. https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/
Blog reference: Updated Figures on Dead Brexiteers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f08kBtf7t9k
Amsterdam, 15 September 2024.
drs Charles van der Hoog, philosopher of culture
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