Open letter to MPs RE: Brexit

So I wrote a letter to my MP based on my last post. I took out all the pictures and colorful language, like the bit where I called Nigel Farage a 'vinegar faced human lollipop.'

So I figure if you want to send it to your own MP, or let your MP know how you feel about the leave vote, you can just copy and paste mine, and fill in the blanks. 

You can find who your MP is at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/, and go to http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/ to find their email (under the constituency heading).

Copy / paste begins: 

Dear ___  _______, 

I am writing to you as parliamentary MP for _______, which I understand covers the town of _______, where I live. 

I am sending you this letter as it is my opinion (and I hope I will prove that I am not alone in this) that the result of this referendum has not only been harmful to the image of Britain worldwide, it has also dangerously emboldened a violent and racist element within our own country. I am writing to you as my representative in the Commons to urge you to take action before it is too late.

Opponents of Europe are complaining that MPs delaying the invocation of article 50 (or not acting on it at all) would be 'undemocratic.' In my opinion, this result is not democratic. This has never been how democracy has been conducted.  

Right back to its roots in ancient Greece and Rome, democracy has been about people appointing an expert to represent them - regardless of what Michael Gove might think. This expert then researches the issue on your behalf, with your interests in mind. Finally, they argue their case and make sure the people’s interests are represented as the experts decide together the course going ahead.  

We’ve heard much of the metaphor of the UK as a ship, in which case democracy would be making sure the heads of engineering and steerage pass on their team's concerns to the captain, who ultimately weighs up their advice and decides whether to change course or not. 

Democracy is not giving every idiot a steering wheel so we can 'show that iceberg who's boss.' 

As I said, I do not believe this result is democratic, it's mob rule, one of the things Democracy has always tried to avoid. At every stage, the referendum campaign has been about who could lie the loudest and most often. The news pushed a fear agena over immigrants, because scary news drags in viewers. UKIP and BF capitalised on it because it suited their agendas. Will Self's comment was that "Not all Brexiters are racists, but almost all racists will be voting for Brexit." I disagree with the conclusion that many or even most of the Leave voters were euro-bigots or racist themselves, but I do think that bigoted logic was combined with a media campaign against immigrants to convince a lot of people to vote Leave.  

This has all combined into this perfect storm in which the UK is now being compared to 1930s Germany, and incidents of racial violence have risen 57% since the vote. This is unacceptable, and as our elected representative, you have a duty to your constituents to voice our concerns in the house. 

There is a growing body of evidence that we don't necessarily have to accept this result. Even UKIP leader Nigel Farage said before the election that he would contest a 52-48 vote for Remain as 'undemocratic.' With increasing reports of leave voters who regret it, the new petition with over 4.2 million verified votes as of writing this, and just over 75% of MPs voting against the referendum in the first place, it's clear that very few of the population understood what they were voting for, especially since the second most popular Google search the day after the referendum was "What is the EU?" 

This is a situation where the experts we elected to speak on our behalf must do so. I've never been a believer in "Tough luck, live with it," especially now that so many of the Leave arguments have been proven untrue, or at best extremely misleading insinuations.

So that's why this is something I am passionate about, along with many others, and that's why I don't particularly feel like 'just accepting the result.' The stakes are far too high to equate this to stern parenting. If your children were about to walk off a bridge, you'd stop them for their own sake - especially if one of them was begging you for help, which is what this petition is begging of our MPs. 

I believe that the real thing to come out of this whole debacle is the amount of fact checking the media needs to do, and that the various statistical and media regulatory bodies need more power to take action against the press for their role in the misinformation. I would hope that an inquiry into this misinformation would be possible, and I would urge any MPs who still believe we are better off in Europe to force a vote in the house – among our appointed experts – to undertake such a vote before invoking article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. 

To have a situation where the news is nothing but Brexit for months, then the day after the vote the truth emerges and the public cries "But we didn't know!" is a shameful indictment of our political and media landscape, and we cannot act on the results of such a referendum. 

So to conclude, this is not a request for a revote. It is a request for an inquiry over whether the first vote was understood by the public. An inquiry must be conducted in light of the numerous resignations and admissions of misinformation from the politicians involved, and petitions and outrage from the misled votership following the announcement of the result. It was only a narrow majority, and the public clearly regret having put our economic recovery back five years and emboldened a frankly terrifying degree of racism based on misinformation. 

We cannot let this farce continue. And I think that this is an appreciable enough viewpoint that when this issue is next raised in parliament, I hope our MPs will vote to suspend invocation of article 50 while an inquiry is held into whether or not the country understood what the hell they were voting for. If the inquiry concedes that the referendum was based on mistruth, the result should not and can not be acted upon by Great Britain.

Yours hopefully,

_______ _______

Resident, _______ Constituency. 

Give it a go. I mean, what have you got to lose? It's all written there for you. It's even got links in it and everything! Fill in the blanks, look up your MP, and send it off.

Let's do some proper democracy this time. 

Brexit, Bregret and Brecovering Brefore it's too late

So. Some thoughts on the EU referendum, and the problems with the outcome.

People are complaining that MPs delaying invoking article 50 (or not acting on it at all) would be 'undemocratic,' while seemingly only having a vague idea of what democracy is. Well, this result is not democracy. This has never been how democracy has been conducted. 

Right back to its roots in ancient Greece and Rome, democracy has been about people appointing an expert to represent them. This expert then researches the issue on your behalf, with your interests in mind. Finally, they argue their case and makes sure their interests are represented as the experts decide together the course going ahead. 

And it'd probably be called Boaty McBoatface
via: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QE2-South_Queensferry.jpg

If Britain was a ship, democracy would be making sure the heads of engineering and steerage pass on their team's concerns to the captain, who ultimately weighs up their advice and decides whether to change course or not.

Democracy is not giving every idiot a steering wheel so we can 'show that iceberg who's boss.'

This result is not democratic, it's mob rule, one of the things Democracy has always tried to avoid. At every stage, the referendum campaign has been about who could lie the loudest and most often; the Sun being one of the chief offenders, who are now having to deal with a readership who are pretty mad at being manipulated, as are readers of the Daily Mail.

Image unrelated.
via: https://www.flickr.com/photos/harald/4510869982

Will Self's comment was that "Not all Brexiters are racists, but almost all racists will be voting for Brexit." I disagree with the conclusion that many or even most of the Leave voters were eurobigots or racist themselves, but I do think that bigoted logic was combined with a media campaign against immigrants to convince a lot of people to vote Leave. 

The news pushed immigrants because scary news drags in viewers. UKIP and BF capitalised on it because it suited their agendas. Murdoch and Dacre have long wanted to drag us out of Europe, and so the final push from the Sun and Mail all combined into this perfect storm in which the UK is now being compared to 1930s Germany. 

It reminds me of the #notallmen and #gamergate arguments. Individuals who supported or voted Leave without bigotry complain every time an article calls the Leave campaign racist, without understanding that they are in the minority, that there is an issue of race and nationality here, it absolutely does suit the Leave agenda, and it's emboldened racist mobs to a dangerous degree. 

In other words, it's fucking tragic.
via https://www.flickr.com/photos/lionheartphotography/4650421582

But there's a growing body of evidence that we don't necessarily have to accept this result. Even vinegar-faced human lollipop Nigel Farage said before the election that he would contest a 52-48 vote for Remain as 'undemocratic.' With increasing reports of leave voters who regret it, this new petition with over 3.7 million verified votes, and just over 75% of MPs voting against the referendum in the first place, it's clear that very few of the population understood what they were voting for, especially since the second most popular Google search the day after the referendum was "What is the EU?"

I've never been a believer in "Tough titty, live with it," especially now that so many of the Leave arguments have been proven untrue, or at best extremely misleading insinuations.

In the name of absolute transparency, yes I was pro-Remain - and by that I do mean pro-Remain and not anti-Brexit. There are many reasons, most of which are pointless to go over now. I read up on the Leave arguments, researched them, and found out that most of them were bullshit. I read up on the Remain arguments, and found them to be mostly well researched and rational. I respected the opinions of the personalities that were backing Remain, and Jim Davidson was among those backing Leave.

Pictured: Not a racist, being not racist.
via: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8XXrE9r0kM

But like most of the country, I ultimately voted with my heart. 

You see, I have depression, which limits my capacity to deal with stress. I also have a chronic injury which limits the amount of time I can work in a day without worsening my condition. But a year or so ago, my own government turned the support network that was supposed to be helping me back into suitable work into something to be afraid of. ATOS, who's administrator with a week or so's training disagreed with the medical opinion of two GPs and a consultant. 

The thing is, the recent Osborne / IDS attacks on chronic illness and disabilities could have been so much worse, but a lot of the deeper cuts and impositions have since been successfully challenged in Europe. But now that last line of defense, the final oversight stopping them from fucking me completely, may soon be gone.

So yes, that's why I'm mad, and that's why I don't particularly feel like 'just accepting the result.' 

"Well, guess I'd better just get used to all this fire now."
via: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aj-clicks/4054799944

The stakes are far too high to equate this to stern parenting. If your child was about to walk off a bridge, you'd stop them for their own sake - especially if they were begging you for help, which is what this petition is begging of our MPs.

But because I was so pro-remain as well as anti-leave, it'll probably just seem like sour grapes, and like I want to flip the vote my way, despite that the petition in question was started by a Leave voter hoping to shoot down a predicted narrow win for Remain.

I think the real thing to come out of this whole debacle is the amount of fact checking the media needs to do, and that the various statistical and media regulatory bodies need more power to take action against the press for their role in the misinformation, and politicians taking liberties with the truth.

Image not quite so unrelated.
via: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/25/cameron-brexit-bet-drama-night-ripped-britain-apart-ukip-eu-referendum

To have a situation where the news is nothing but Brexit for months, then the day after the vote the truth emerges and the public cries "But we didn't know!" is a shameful indictment of our political and media landscape.

So yeah. If the basis of the re-vote is that it was only a narrow majority, the public were misled, and now regret having put our economic recovery back five years and emboldened a terrifying degree of racism, I can appreciate that. And I think it's an appreciable enough viewpoint that when this issue is debated in parliament, I hope our MPs will vote to indefinitely suspend invocation of article 50 while an inquiry is held into whether or not the country understood what the hell they were voting for.  

Which, as I said, they clearly didn't. 

What's in a word?

So I woke up this morning to this:

http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/30/hundreds-of-masked-men-beat-up-refugee-children-in-stockholm-during-revenge-attack-5652849/

And the article in the Daily Mail (which I'm not linking to because I don't want them getting any more ad revenue) is using the word Migrant to describe the victims.

Migrants.

It's a word the right wing loves throwing around these days. It comes from the Latin migrāre, to change one's abode. It implies a choice. It implies that they woke up and decided they were going to pack up and head over here for a better life, like Katie Hopkins' imaginary 'army of cockroaches.'

But what's the harm in a simple word?

The vast majority of the 'migrants' were bombed out of their homes by our governments. A brief look at any shots of Syria will tell you that.

Source: http://www.pythagorasandthat.co.uk/a-syrian-street-in-2011-and-2014

And Syria's just one of the countries where we've bombed, or funded insurgencies, or otherwise screwed their infrastructure to the point that the people can no longer live there. So they did NOT 'change their abode.' Their abode was changed by war. They were driven out of their homes, and they are looking for a new one.

The word you are looking for is refugee.

1680s, from French refugié, noun use of past participle of refugier "to take shelter,protect," from Old French refuge (see refuge ). First applied to French Huguenots whomigrated after the revocation (1685) of the Edict of Nantes. The word meant "oneseeking asylum," till 1914, when it evolved to mean "one fleeing home" (first appliedin this sense to civilians in Flanders heading west to escape fighting in World War I).In Australian slang from World War II, reffo.

noun
1. a person who has fled from some danger or problem, esp political persecution: refugees from Rwanda

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/refugee?s=t

When David Cameron uses a word like migrant, it is a very deliberate linguistic choice, even if it not at a conscious level. It is a change from passive to active. It changes the image in the listener or the reader's mind from those seeking refuge, those desperately dragging themselves through country after country seeking a better life, into dehumanised targets for our ire. The same way the same paper that supported the Fascist Oswald Moseley warned us about the outrage of 'aliens' and how they were 'pouring into this country,' and is now comparing the refugees to rats.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/07/31/daily-mail-1938-jews_n_7909954.html

Floods. Hordes. Migrants. The same words. The same paper. The same meaning.

I found myself wondering how it is that the mob responsible for the violence yesterday could have done it. How they could have walked up to a complete stranger and hated them so much that they would beat three children in broad daylight.

The above article makes it clear that this was 'sparked' by the death of Alexandra Mehzer, stabbed by a refugee child. The mob see themselves as taking revenge for that, I have no doubt. Whipped up into a frenzy by the media and the political right wing over the refugee crisis.

But I have no doubt either that the refugee child was blinded by the same fear of us that drove the mob to yesterday's atrocity. I also have no doubt that somewhere in a refugee camp right now, someone is reading a sensationalist report about 200 men beating up a sixteen year old and planning revenge against the 'monsters' who attacked kids.

And I also have no doubt that when it happens, there'll be a Daily Mail journo all ready to go with another 500 words of fear and misinformation, a tory MP who'll stand up and tell us they must be stopped, these migrants. All ready to whip us all up into giving them a little more ad money or a little more power.

We're all going round and round and round taking revenge for this, and that, and the other: a pointless and ongoing cycle of destruction. I asked myself why it is that the attackers couldn't see the refugees as victims, how this cycle of blame is being perpetuated. It's easy.

It's the words.

The press is dehumanising everyone involved for sensationalisation, to be the paper that everyone reads. The news is turning into clickbait. Why use a word like refugee - a nice sympathetic word - when you can use the word migrant, and grab everyone's attention?

Get some clickthrough. Or in Cameron's case, get some votes. Whip up the public into being afraid enough to vote for the warmongers who put us in this situation by bombing the Syrians in the first place. Sod the consequences, we're all just playing the game and if you criticise that, you're just naive. There's money to be made from the latest two minutes of hate. There's power to be gained.

You want to know why we're in this war? Why it keeps going? Why people are killing each other?

Because we've all become afraid of each other, and the right wing are literally making a killing out of it.