Rant

This post is mostly about getting things of my chest. So quite likely you shouldn't read it.

I've been getting more and more angry with both sides of the Brexit "debate". Both sides think that wild economic speculations constitute an argument. Firstly they are speculations. Secondly the Remain camp seem to have taken Clinton's mantra "It's the economy, stupid" to an extreme, where it never seems to occur to them to mention any other factor. It seems to me that geopolitical considerations should be pretty important, but they are simply ignored. 

So, if Greece had not been in the E.U., would their economic difficulties have led to a military coup? There is a history. Without the E.U., how far might the Yugoslavian conflict have spread?  And we should not assume that democracy is winning throughout the world. There are very many rich powerful nations where equal rights and democracy and the rule of any sort of law that we would recognise as justice do not exist, and are not likely to in any foreseeable future.  It makes sense to band together with countries who share similar ideals. 

And when the Leave campaign claim that we can get together with the USA instead, I feel like screaming. Have they ever been to America? We have next to nothing in common with the USA as a whole in terms of values and political ideals.

And if one more idiot talks about "getting our country back" - back from what, exactly? The twenty first century? or the voices in their heads? And back to what mythical age, when you didn't need to lock your door and no one was poor and everyone had a job and the sun shone all summer, and you never had to worry about living next door to a brown person? 

On the leave side is that out and out hypocrite and chancer Boris Johnson, The Daily (Hate) Mail, the ghastly Gove and the unspeakable Farage. That's really all you need to know. 

I do believe the inflammatory rhetoric and outright lies of the Brexiters have contributed to the dreadful murder of Jo Cox. Spouting vitriol about the country being swamped, hordes of refugees coming to rape our  women, our culture being destroyed, the British way of life under threat and such like must affect weak or disturbed minds, and God knows there are enough of those.