Sinister Right Wing Bastards

I'm afraid that I can't avoid revisiting the vexed issue of the EU referendum.  Two key questions are: do you really believe, as the Brexiters claim, that the UK would save £350 million a week if it left the EU and, if that were the case, that they would spend that money saved on the NHS?  Whilst the the £350 million pound a week saving claim is utter nonsense, the idea that the likes of Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith and Boris 'The Buffoon' Johnson would, if in government, redirect these 'savings' to funding the NHS is laughable.  The NHS is underfunded as the result of political decisions made on a purely ideological basis by a government that they have either happily served in or supported for the past six years.  Moreover, some of these Tory Brexiteers, notably Gove, are on the record as favouring the privatisation of the NHS.  So please, don't try and tell me that they've suddenly become bleeding heart liberals with social consciences overnight.

Leaving aside the economic lies and insincere promises being made by the Tory Brexiteers, the aspect of the 'Leave' campaign which has most troubled me is the opposition many of its proponents have to the very idea of human rights.  They clearly see leaving the EU as an opportunity to scrap all those pesky bits of legislation guaranteeing civil liberties, which they seem to associate with the EU.  Obviously, the notion that human rights are some kind of filthy European invention is manifestly false.  The Human Rights Act which they all seem to hate so much doesn't actually accord anyone in the UK any more rights than they had before - it simply gathers them all together in one piece of legislation, rather than them being scattered throughout various previous pieces of legislation and obscure parts of the constitution.  It also means that you can try to protect your rights through any UK court, rather than having to go to the European Court of Human Rights.  Furthermore, the Act merely enacts formally into UK law the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is not only a signatory, but also the main architect.

Yet we have a seemingly endless parade of shady ex Special Forces and intelligence types telling us - via the pages of the right wing press - that being a member of the EU hinders our ability to protect ourselves from these amorphous threats which assail us from every side, because of all the human rights nonsense it forces on us.  Even our ability to fight wars is under threat because of those damned human rights according to one retired ex General.  He didn't explain exactly why this was - I can only assume it is because he thinks it unreasonable that British soldiers can't just kill who they please without repercussions, just so long as they were 'the enemy'.  Strangely though, that's been the case since before the Human Rights Act or our membership of the EU.  It has to do with the Geneva Convention, which considerably predates the EU.  But it originates in one of those filthy European cities, so it's all the same to them, I suppose.

So, the third question we need to ask is, do really believe, as these Brexiteers do, that human rights are such a ludicrous idea?  Are they really something only for foreigners?  I mean, what is so fantastical about the notion that we should have some kind of legal (or, preferably, constitutional) protections against the arbitrary use of power by our rulers?  Is the inalienable right to life, liberty and all the other stuff such an insane concept?  I suspect that even the Brexiteers don't believe any of those things - they just don't think that such rights should be universal.  Indeed, they shouldn't be a right, they should be a privilege conferred only on those who deserve them.  Being wealthy and coming from the right social class are undoubtedly among the most important criteria for being deserving.  The poor, the sick, the disabled, the unemployed, well, they certainly won't be deserving.

There are many good and valid arguments for leaving the EU, (although I don't find any of them compelling enough to vote 'leave'), but none of them have been advanced by the official 'Leave' campaign, which has instead focused on peddling economic lies and trying to appeal to knee-jerk reactionaries on the issue of immigration.  Which shouldn't surprise anyone, as the movement is led by a bunch of sinister extreme right wing cunts opposed to any form of social welfare or public ownership, let alone civil liberties. The danger is that, if you vote 'Leave', you could end up delivering the government of this country into their hands.  God knows, Cameron is right wing enough, but these bastards make him look like Karl Marx.  You have been warned.