Unherd, June 23, Robert Tombs
The Brexit strain in our political bloodstream has mutated almost beyond recognition. It seems strange now that, for years, it dominated everything. It was going to destroy the economy, create mass unemployment, explode the Union, smash the constitution and remake the political system.
But its latest variants are not very contagious and cause little harm to the body politic. The National Farmers’ Union tries to revive Project Fear with stories of vast herds of Australian cattle, while Oxford dons insist that Rhodes Must Fall — for the Empire, so some of them insist, is the key to Brexit. One of their most vocal members, indeed, co-authored a book explaining that Brexit was due to “a nostalgia for a time when life was easier, and Britain could simply get rich by killing people of colour and stealing their stuff”. So here is the anti-Brexit cause boiled down to its primitive components: vested interest, and visceral alienation.
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