The Gift

For many, Brexit is like being given the truly awful present of a colourful tank top by your favourite auntie who lives on the next street and who you bump into at least three times a week.

It is the gift that keeps on shitting on the mat.

It has been over four months since I wrote a politics blog; a large percentage of that time has been spent writing a massive tome about why leaving the EU might not be such a stupid idea, if the right party is in power when it happens. However, since I last did any work on it, Boris Johnson has become PM (by default); Brexit has gone up several ladders and slid down as many snakes; we've gone from Treeza's 'Brexit means Brexit' and 'Nothing Has Changed' to BJ's 'Dead in a Ditch' and the Libdems abstaining from a vote which, in the event of a shit Brexit deal would stop the NHS being sold off to the highest Yankee bidder (thus proving the LibDems really can't be trusted with anything apart from taking the trash out - themselves).

What I can't understand is why Boris's first 10 attempts at getting a GE are not as important as the current one, which has the media going full scale nuclear on Labour's arse. Unless this is a rouse?

Boris is high in the polls (nearly where Treeza was when she called a GE in 2017) and everyone continues to try to demonise that Corbyn fella, blaming him for everything and then a bit more. BJ's trying every possible way to call a Christmas General Election now that's he's failed to get one any earlier. In many ways he sounds like an opposition leader trying to get the PM to resign and call a vote, and I suppose in a way he is in opposition. The thing is so many Tories (who voted for the Fix Term Parliament Act) are so desperate for a GE they really are sounding desperate; but is that desperation because they're so confident they can win big or is it, for the rather surreal reason, that they think they might lose.

There's a reason for this, which I'd like to explain because it does sound a wee bit crazoo...

There is a very good chance that a General Election will deliver us with another hung parliament; in fact, talk to any pollster and despite their affiliation to the Tories they will honestly say they couldn't put their hands on their hearts and forecast a massive Tory win. If we have a hung parliament then there's going to be a huge chance that there will be too many anti-Brexit MPs for whoever forms a government to achieve Brexit without, at minimum, a second referendum. The constitutional dilemma facing the Brexiteer Tories is another hung parliament pretty much guarantees more Brexit deadlock and can you imagine if we're still trying to sort out extracting the eggs from a baked cake in 2025? Can you imagine what the population will be like?

In a poll held in the last week of 1000 Leavers and 1000 Remainers, 63% of Leavers felt that civil unrest, violence and another MP's death was 'a price worth paying' to get Brexit done. Rather scarily (because it flies in the face of my belief) 53% of Remainers feel the same way... It might not be obvious - apart from the rise in hate crime - but tempers are simmering; hate and vile comments are increasing and it won't be long before something boils over. The division is now so great, I reckon we're on the brink of an existential civil war.

But back to the deadlock... Would Boris really want to be PM in charge of the same parliamentary numbers? Would Boris keep trying with subsequent general elections in the hope that eventually he gets the result he wants? That is a joke, but given this PM and his (lack of) success rate, I wouldn't put it past him. There's also the fact that despite being Mr Popular, he's also not particularly trusted, even by his supporters. He's seen as a slightly Machiavellian character and while that appeals to some people, he needs some victories to make him truly electable and for people to stop scrutinising him and his flippy-floppy nature.

Fortunately, he has the Mainstream Media on his side and they're not going to scrutinise him as much as they scrutinise Labour and Corbyn, but as we learnt from Treeza's botched effort in 2017, the MSM stopped trying to besmirch Corbyn because they realised it doesn't do much but make people wonder why everyone attacks this gentle man, who has an allotment and wants a fairer country for all - yes, they can call him a terrorist sympathiser (it's a shame Mo Mowlam isn't still alive to tell the wankers who keep perpetrating this myth that we wouldn't be where we are in Northern Ireland if Corbyn hadn't been on her team forging the Good Friday Agreement; but why let a fact get in the way of casting aspersions?) or they can call him a socialist or a commie, but people might also start thinking, "Well, we've had the Tories for 10 years, I'm worse off, no one trusts politicians any more, no one knows who to believe - why should I give them another go at screwing up the country they've made a good fist of screwing up already?" Labour won a lot of votes in 2017 on this fact alone; we're three years down the line and the Tories don't exactly cover themselves with glory, do they?

So, would Boris and his ERG buddies really want to be in charge of a parliament that will be as intransigent as it currently is? Or would they maybe think, 'Sod this for a game of soldiers, let's see if Commie Boy and his band of cultural misfits can do any better. If he fucks up we'll win by a landslide and can do all the things we wanted to do but legitimately and hey, we're all still young enough...'

I know this is an unlikely scenario, but Treeza's 16 point lead over Labour disappeared faster than a Boris Johnson prediction and Boris hasn't got that lead. When people start talking about the country's issues rather than Brexit, the Tories have a problem because no one really trusts them, not even their largely intelligent middle class supporters (forget working class Tory voters; they could have their children put up chimneys and they'd still vote Tory, because... [insert utter bullshit here]).

Plus there's the 1945 scenario. At the end of the Second World War, Winston Churchill - a hero of BJ - was walking on water; if there were personal approval ratings in 1945 he was as popular as Jesus and the election was going to deliver a Tory government who would do whatever Tory governments did in the first half of the 20th century, except they got annihilated. People decided they wanted something new to rebuild the country; to build houses, hospitals for the new NHS, more schools, more infrastructure - create jobs so that everybody post-war could contribute to the return of GREAT Britain. This current situation isn't much different than then, or at least that's the way it's being painted.

One last thing for the benefit of the moaners - not the remoaners, but the people fed up with it all, fed up with MPs for spoiling life by dragging Brexit out. I know there's a lot of people who think we should just leave; tell the EU to fuck off and go it alone. Even if that were possible Northern Ireland is part of the UK. I know that English Brextremists couldn't give a shit about the Irish, but there are a lot of people who do, not least some of the people we hope to make free trade deals with. If Northern Ireland is even in the same universe as a return to the troubles then we really would be fucked. You can dismiss this as project fear or say I don't know what I'm talking about, but pretty much all of the problems now to do with Brexit is how to extricate Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic without causing a civil war and how to do it to keep 10 fruit and nutcase DUP MPs happy. This is akin to giving a chimp 10 Rubics cubes and telling him in Cantonese that he has 10 seconds to solve them all - pretty much impossible without some shit being thrown first and a lot of anger.

This, along with the actual fear of economic oblivion, are the two reasons why so many MPs have thwarted Brexit. We elect them to serve us, yes. But we also elect them to do the best for us; to make the decisions that are not going to cause us great hardship and that's all of us, including the people who voted remain and those that through whatever reason didn't vote at all. I know that Leave voters hate the fact that they didn't win by 99% to 1% but dem's da facts; the referendum 'victory' wasn't a win-all-and-exterminate-the-losers kind of deal; concessions have to be made to try and make as many people reasonably happy as possible and to make sure that even the most rabid of Brexiteers don't starve to death, die of a lack of medicines or most likely get blown up by an Irish Republican bomb while Christmas shopping in Sunderland.

Most people say, 'I don't do politics' but in 2019 most everyone does, even if it's to call MPs 'wankers' or wonder when it's all going to stop. What is even more crazier than my belief the Tories might actually want to lose the election is that all those people who convinced Leavers that the sunlit uplands of Britain would be awash with diamond encrusted Unicorns dispensing money and free sex to everyone are now the same people claiming they never said it would be better and people actually voted to be worse off and culturally bereft. If Aaron Sorkin introduced this kind of story when he was doing The West Wing he probably would have been told the show was trying to stay as realistic as physically possible.

Whatever happens, just remember most of the MPs have been pissing you off to ultimately save you. You might not see it and you certainly don't appreciate it, but at some point in the future you might wish they'd succeeded.

We probably need to leave to shut down the right wing; to stop all this talk and focus on how to fix the country. That depends on who is in charge when it happens. If you work for someone be very careful about who you vote for when that day comes, because one of the parties actively talks about how citizens rights prevents the country from competing with Tiger economies; that same party would be happy to see sickness, maternity and holiday pay outlawed, because it would mean employers could get rid of whoever they didn't like and replace them with people equally as expendable. That same party thinks the NHS is a drain on resources and would like swathes of it privatised and that same party wants to keep reducing public spending while giving the richest 10% more money (which, if you are a Tory voter can you explain to me how that benefits anyone apart from the already very rich?)

If you want a future of uncertainty, fear and no security, you know which party is already offering you this. It's led by a buffoon and his army of posh wankers who wouldn't piss on the average Brit unless there was a fat cash bonus involved.

You don't do politics? Maybe you should. It's as important to humans as breathing; it affects every aspect of your life whether you want to believe it or not and 99% of the time it's instigated by ourselves and has nothing to do with 'unelected' (they are) 'bureaucrats' (aren't all politicians) in Brussels. People need to understand how it works otherwise they will continue to rage at all the wrong things.

Is it Racist?

I have some questions to ask?

Why is it acceptable for British politicians to criticise decisions or actions made by the USA?
Why is it acceptable for British politicians to criticise decisions or actions made by France or Germany?
Why is it acceptable for British politicians to criticise decisions or actions made by North Korea?
Why is it acceptable for British politicians to criticise decisions or actions made by China or Russia?
Why is it acceptable for British politicians to criticise decisions or actions made by the EU in general?
But why is it not acceptable for anyone to criticise decisions or actions made by the Israeli government?

Why does the media get behind outside influences attempting to overthrow an elected government in Venezuela, but ignores Palestine?

Why is it that you can criticise any race or culture in the world but one is exempt?
Why is antisemitism not just called racism? Why does it deserve a special word?

Actually, I can answer all of those questions. The IHRA - International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance - is a body who have created a 'working definition' of antisemitism. It is recognised by the UN and most countries appear to have adopted it in some form or another. It essentially defines antisemitism as any criticism of anything that is related to Jews is a criticism of the Jewish people. So if you think Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of Likud politicians are unjust in their treatment of other dwellers in a similar area to where most of them live and you voice this opinion contrary, you are a racist.

I find that disturbing.

What I find more disturbing is that the Labour party is systematically accused on an almost daily basis of being antisemitic, yet I've only ever heard one example of their antisemitism in almost two years and that was a tweet from a radical leftie criticising Likud over it's treatment of Palestinians. He's been expelled. For tweeting racist antisemitic comments...

I'm sorry, but, what the actual fuck?

My paternal grandmother was Jewish, albeit lapsed and ostracised because she married a gentile, but it's in my blood somewhere and I wouldn't give a holocaust denier the time of day; I'd shout down anyone who would actually be racist - calling a Jew a kike or a Yid. I wouldn't call myself antisemitic (I even worry about criticising Daniel Levy - the Spurs Chairman - for fear of having some nutter accuse me of being a racist. He's a weird looking bald guy but I don't think that has anything to do with his religion...) but by virtue of believing Likud - the current Israeli government - is a paramilitary organisation intent on some kind of radical eradication of Palestinians, I am, by definition, antisemitic. If the BBC reported this they would not report the content just that I'm an anti-Jewish racist who probably worships the alter of Jeremy Corbyn...

You know that I can call Sadiq Khan, the Muslim mayor of London and that would be 100% acceptable, but I can't include the definition 'Jewish' without being accused of racism; like saying 'Jewish' is saying 'dog shit eater' or 'child abuser'. To include one specific race in a definition is worse than any other derogatory description or labelling? If it's to do with the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust, what about the number of Muslims or Hindus who died in the Partition of India? That was done in peace time, not in a war. If I said 'Jewish film producer and serial sex pest Harvey Weinstein' I'd probably get pilloried for suggesting his Jewishness had everything to do with it. But if I mention that the London mayor is a Muslim then everyone else can jump on the bandwagon; including Donald 'Man-Baby' Trump.

How does that work then?

The thing is I firmly believe if the general public who have had antisemitism rammed down their throats for years saw some of the never-mentioned exampled antisemitism most would seriously wonder what the fuss is about. The problem to that is we get no balanced coverage of what is happening in Israel and especially what is happening in Gaza and other Palestinian enclaves. Whatever the politics, the rest of the world is sitting by and silently witnessing Israel obliterate a nation, without a hint of irony. Yes, the Palestinians are 'terrorists', but that's our fault and the Israelis for radicalising them through oppression (but, I can't say that because it's antisemitic). Like it was our fault that there is a rift that won't be healed on the Indian subcontinent or that much of former British Empire-controlled Africa is falling apart.

The media do not tell us what happens in Israel; we don't really know what's going on; the place is more like Soviet Russia for visiting journalists or reporters (Simon Reeve proved that recently on TV). Israel is outwardly a very welcoming country practising an aggressive isolationist politics to its neighbours - who pretty much don't and have never wanted them there.

The Labour party or a big part of it is against backing Israel [specifically Likud] in this conflict; therefore they are antisemitic. Labour party members asked questions of certain MPs of Jewish origin why they supported Likud. They were branded antisemitic? Really; this is how it started: a member for Wavertree asked how Luciana Berger could be a Labour MP and yet support the fiercely right wing Likud party and it blew up out of all proportions, with Berger defending her position by quoting the IHRA. Eventually, she received proper antisemitic abuse, but whether these were from genuine Labour members or from newly-created social media accounts has never fully been explored by our media - because they don't want to report the truth when the lie is so much better.

So, it started with almost innocent questions and exploded into something ridiculous. Berger, Margaret Hodge and a few others used this as a stick to beat the leader they didn't want and the right wing media - whether controlled by Jews or not - saw a way of undermining the Labour party, while simultaneously pushing an Islamophobic agenda and supporting the Tories.

But... You say... How come Labour MPs or Jeremy Corbyn doesn't go on telly and tell people this truth about the 'racist Labour party'? Don't you understand yet? You cannot discuss Likud or Israeli politics; it's not allowed. Apparently, it's called being antisemitic. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, you can't discuss the elephant in the room in case the elephant gets offended that you might be talking about it, even if it's to comment on the colour of its painted toenails or how it produces nice oranges.

If you can't talk about or address the elephant in the room about why you can't talk about it you can't debate it. Accusations of antisemitism are 97% this. If you mention the Israel government or Likud you are a racist. I can't say it enough, because if the 'press' won't explain it to people who don't care then it's up to me and people I know to do it; without fear of being called a racist (because I will be, especially if people read this and can use it as another stick to beat the Labour party... Except, I'm not a member any more).

No one has ever told me why Jews have to have their own word for racism, unless it's not really racism as we understand it. Zionism is also a word that just to say it has you teetering on the edge of antisemitism. Zionist doctrine is followed by Likud; Zionism is not allowed to be criticised because it is Jewish. That's like the Tories passing a law saying any criticism of their party is an act of racism - a hate crime. Let that sink in and if you think I'm wrong, please tell me why.

A Racially-Motivated Message

I was in Ayr earlier this year. Ayr's like Scotland's Bournemouth and was, without doubt, the most cosmopolitan place I've been to since I've lived in Scotland. While I was sitting in the sunshine, outside Poundland, I saw a group of young women - schoolgirls on holiday - all wearing hijabs. It was the first proper Muslims I'd seen in over a year. No one up here seems bothered by it and the fact all the girls sounded Scottish, you wouldn't have known any difference if you'd had your eyes closed.

Interestingly, about twenty minutes earlier, when we were wondering up to Primark, we saw two nuns - not your usual soberly dressed women, looking like nurses with headgear, but two full-on penguins. More extravagant and with just as little flesh on display. Yes, they're women of God. The girls in hijabs were probably devout followers of Allah. We have preconceptions of Muslims. Boris Johnson displayed that in August with a column about not allowing Muslims to wear what they want to wear.

I'd never defend Johnson. The man is a conniving and devious politician and disguises his ambition with buffoonery. However, reading his column you had to acknowledge that his 'offensive' remarks have probably been made worse by the solitary fact he wrote them. There was elements of casual racism, but largely he was trying to make a jokey point about a sensitive issue.

He failed. But... did he really? He's become more of a champion to the new far-right than he was before that column (and his slagging off of his former boss) and, at the time, we had people uttering the words 'freedom of speech' and so they should, because it is only right. Like it is only right that any speech can be challenged, in a constructive way, using the same freedom of speech rules. Racists and bigots need to be challenged, rather than banning them. That just inflames and makes a mockery of the 'freedom of speech' ideal.

What Johnson has probably achieved is help drive the wedge between xenophobic/racist Brits and normal people deeper. I mean, when you read about Pakistani rape gangs in Yorkshire and ISIS terrorists and radicalised British wannabe martyrs, how can those who will never be happy until all non-British people are gone ever be appeased? How are Muslims ever going to feel accepted when in some places they must have begun to feel like Negroes in 1950s USA? For every newspaper or twat US President claiming we have Muslim enclaves in our cities, we have genuinely scared people avoiding the streets for fear of reprisals because of their culture.

Now we discover that the UK has an incredible racial bias that extends to pretty much anyone who isn't white, heterosexual and, above all, English. Brexit has allowed English people to believe they're on the verge of a new Empire, one that finally kicks Johnny Foreigner squarely in the testes. History suggests when you start to alienate certain groups of people it isn't long before your cohorts are alienating others. We live in a 'Kingdom' that demonises pretty much anyone who isn't British and employed; but as The Guardian newspaper has found, even if you are British and employed, it depends on how 'British' you are.

A percentage of Brits are of Asian, African or West Indian origins. In fact, a number are also of European heritage, but are not as well accepted because they have a foreign - too foreign - sounding name. Farage is okay, but Davidovich or Simkiewicz isn't.

Let's be clear about something; I had a Chinese landlord once who thought Indians were 'dirty bastards'. I knew a man from Pakistan who thought Arabs (Iranians specifically) were allowing the world to destroy itself because they want to rule everything. I've met a man from England who believes in Brexit so hard that any dissenting voice is a liar and I've seen evidence (whether real or Russian bot) on social media platforms of such vile callousness towards people 'not like us' that it's added a new dimension to the "I'm all right, Jack" mentality. An attitude I'd always attached to dyed-in-the-wool Tory voters who believed that homelessness was a left wing conspiracy and that anyone on welfare/benefits was a scrounger or out to make something from the state. The human race is inherently xenophobic - I'd call them racist, but it's simply a fear and loathing of something that you can't relate to.

Michael Gove (or Pob as we like to think of him) pretty much declared there would be violence and national unrest if his Brexit doesn't happen and while that is just the Hard Brexit supporters' own Project Fear, in this world of intolerance he's probably not a hundred miles from the truth. But hey, in the USA BAME citizens feel like their rights and position has been eroded more in the last 2 years than it has since Rosa Parks told a white boy to find his own seat on the bus.

I look at BAME Tory politicians and wonder how long before they start to feel like a token gesture to tempt the delusional blacks and Asians to continue voting for them - 'You're all right, it's those black and Asian kids the Nazigraph is talking about' will be a variation of the excuse given to them.

Living in this part of Scotland you see a lot of casual racism, which you oddly don't see when someone is getting a takeaway from the Chinese or Indian restaurants, and, to be fair, I've not heard any overt nastiness from anyone up here towards anyone culturally different, but that's not to say it doesn't exist. There are enough Scottish Tories with bizarre ideas about a lot of things and there's considerably more Brextremists who've moved up from England, despite the fact that Scotland voted by a big margin to stay in the EU (and has been largely ignored by England since). These are the kind of people who'll always look for someone else to blame and once the country no longer has any Europeans to blame, they'll pick on the black, brown and yellow foreigners, while beginning to cast an eye of suspicion at Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders - because, you know, they might look and sound like us but they've probably stolen jobs, hospital beds and the last place on the twice weekly bus service which was hacked and slashed by the Tory controlled council and nothing to do with a 'foreign' tax payer and contributor...

What we need to realise is white people can't possibly understand what it's like to be black or Asian; the same as they can't really understand what it's like vice versa. Heterosexual people might think they can relate to homosexuals, but we can't really understand what is going on inside their 'souls' even if we can put our minds into that space. I'd like to think rational people - the kind of people who would rather help than hurt - really struggle to understand how a fellow human being can be purposefully vile and nasty to someone less fortunate (and equally, I can almost understand how 30-year-old neo-fascists can believe the Holocaust was just some Jewish propaganda and couldn't have possibly really happened... that is until the first people start being shipped into camps, like Muslims in parts of China).

The thing is it's pretty much the difference between someone with left politics and someone with right.

History is there to be learnt from and if we can't learn from it then we don't really have any right to be here. Without humans there would still be many similar traits in the animals; war, love, compassion, hatred, fear ... that's because, we're still just animals too. Devious, nasty and cruel ones, but we still shit, like having sex and beating the fuck out of people who are weaker or not like us. Not everyone is and many people who vote Tory, or feel their have little or no prejudices, probably aren't. The thing is it's easier to hate than it is to embrace and hold and until a large percentage - the majority of the population of the world - understand and practice this, just about everyone is screwed.

What part of the Bible or the Quran which tells us to 'love our neighbour' also tells us to kill them if they don't agree 100% with us? Because, that's all I've really got. I don't have a solution (apart from the war I've been forecasting for the last three years). When 50% of the planet suffers from different degrees of cognitive dissonance, you ain't got a hope of living in a peaceful non-prejudice world; so you turn your back and let the worst parts of human nature run rampant among the people supposedly running the world. And because you know you're just one person, you know you can't do much about it and if you think like that it's already too late...

The Last Word

Worst Case Scenario

The country decides to leave the European Union. What could happen?

The stock market could crash and there could be a massive run on Sterling, devaluing Britain by as much as £40billion over night.

This will spark an emergency budget to put safeguards in place should the arse fall out of the economy.

David Cameron - growing increasingly unpopular - resigns and triggers a leadership battle in the Conservatives, where those in favour of Leave become the leading contenders, people with an extreme right-wing leaning and who have publicly stated that the cuts to public services are not deep enough and are unlikely to channel whatever piddly amount is saved from leaving into those services and the excuse will be the fall in stock and the fiscal effect on leaving.

Not a lot else will happen during the first two years as our government attempts to negotiate trade deals and discovers that it cannot accept any existing deal without allowing the freedom of movement - just ask Norway or Switzerland. Except, some things will happen, socially.

As one political reporter (Norman Smith) said, 'Whatever happens it will change the face of the UK'. He knows, as do many others, that the extreme examples of xenophobia exhibited throughout the campaign will spill out onto the streets, probably whatever the result. The referendum has allowed prejudices to be almost acceptable, as like-minded people congregate to castigate and show extreme opinions that align them with some of the worst terrorists and this will affect foreign migrants in this country, who will be stuck in a limbo, not knowing what the immediate future holds for them.

The scary thing is if intimidation begins (continues) and starts to drive EU migrants (and others) out of the country, there is an idiot minority who will view this as a victory and once it starts 'reclaiming the country' will become something that the far right will begin to practice, because if we vote to leave then the lunatics will really be in control of the asylum. You might not care about the economy (you really should) or bureaucracy (there's probably more of it in UK law than in the EU) or even the migrant issue (depending on who you believe it's either the big issue or not really a concern), you might just feel it seems the right thing to do.

That hangnail - you know if you bite at it you'll end up making your finger bleed and sore for a few days. You know that pulling at it is the stupid thing to do, but you do it anyhow and you'll probably do it again. This isn't a hangnail, this is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. This isn't a frivolous thing; this isn't about getting one over the government, or screwing David Cameron, this is self-harm. Ask yourself this: the UK might be a better place out - that fairy tale might come true and Boris & co., will be right. It might not change much at all and you might shrug your shoulders and say 'Meh', or... it might be costing you your job, your children's jobs and futures, your pockets and purses, your civil liberties and you might wonder what the hell has happened and who can you blame for it?

If you vote Remain and nothing changes will it be that bad? But just think, for a second, put those feelings to one side and think about the future, what if it all turns to shit? What if your house devalues by 35%? What if your pension disappears either through lack of money or a corporate raider like Philip Green? What if there are no jobs, no money sloshing around the economy, no cheap goods - what if you can no longer buy what you want or at the right price? People don't want second best, but they sometimes have to accept it - but it tends to be their choice; if you never have the first choice any more and pay more for what you have to have, is that better than it is now? Do you really really want some kind of mythical independence if it is going to cost your kids their future? Can you truly live with yourself if you are one of the people responsible for the isolation and bankruptcy of our great nation?

Vote Remain.

Little Britain versus Great Britain

As we hurtle towards June 23, I can't help wonder if this is no longer a referendum about staying in the EU and a referendum on just how racist this country is. Of course, I'm always utterly bamboozled when I see Indians or Chinese or West Indians being racist and yet I have been reliably informed that the Indians and the Chinese have loathed each other for a damned sight longer than there's been English speaking people in this country. Racism isn't simply a reserve of the British, but something that is remarkably parochial, colloquial and regional as well as being focused on simply colour, culture or religion.

I grew up with English people telling Irish jokes and before that most Canadians making jokes about 'Newfies' or people from Newfoundland: if there was an Irish joke doing the rounds, it became a Newfie joke. Argentinians take the mickey out of Patagonians who in turn take the piss out of those crazy native indigenous Welsh speaking locals. Sometimes it's just a bit of a lark, other times it causes wars and even genocide - racism, whether casual or intended, is something pretty much every person on the planet has had a thought about and whether this xenophobia is inherent or something we've developed as more of the world becomes known to us is a subject for an anthropologist or a archaeologist...

In general terms, for anyone who really wants to know the 'facts', there are umpteen reputable places they can seek them. Both sides of the argument can state their cases, claim 'facts' and extrapolate on these 'facts' and build their own project fear (if ever this government's agenda of putting fear at the head of the table was ever more apparent...). Today a man called Anand Menon, who works for a company that process actual facts and was answering questions based on the information his company has gathered as opposed to being loaded with any political rhetoric or personal bias, pretty much answered the question that people who care about this referendum are probably more interested in. No One Knows! He said that if we remain very little should change and evidence will back up that the economy will re-stabilise and that it will be business as usual. He then said that no one can possibly give anyone an actuality after June 23 because no one knows whether the current government, in its form, will be in charge and, more importantly, no one apart from the people in charge will know what they will do given whatever scenario they eventually settle on.

I'd like to think that's what I've been saying all along and in one or two cases people have accepted this and said they would look at more details to understand things more; however as we draw closer to the day the subject is fast becoming a vote to decide just how racist a country we are, because, quite simply, migration and migrant workers is the subject that the ignorant only care about. They are basing their decisions on 'feelings' rather than common sense. You can categorically prove Remain is the best way, but for them, this isn't the case and they'll come up with the same reason, worded differently, when all they really need to say is 'you can prove to me the sun is a donkey's cock and I'll still believe what I think because it suits me' and when it comes to people who don't speak English there's a lot of people out there who offer up hundreds of reasons why they're not racists and yet can't help sounding like a Nazi party member. The referendum has stirred up fervent and unpleasant xenophobia and a strange kind of neo-nationalism.

We have allowed ourselves to become so judgemental, largely because of social networks, that we're not even modest about our dislike of bloody foreigners and if there isn't a mass brawl or riot (or another vile murder) before the 23rd I will be surprised, because tensions are building so much now that I borrowed a friend's description of it being like a 21st century English Civil War.

If immigration, migration and foreigners honestly mean nothing to you at all in this debate, then you deserve a seat at the table and your beliefs should be respected, unequivocally. If you're not prepared to look at the facts; the completely verifiable facts that currently, based on the proposed points system UKIP are promoting MORE NON-EUROPEAN PEOPLE COME TO THIS COUNTRY THAN EU MEMBERS. Sorry for shouting, but we are not being flooded out by unwelcome foreigners, we invite in over 60% of the ones who don't have access to ... er... free access.

The press and the government have made such a mess of the entire EU PR that Cameron and co are now backtracking on a lot of what they said publicly and in the Commons about the positives of migrant workers, possibly showing that perhaps the respect I afford politicians is misplaced and perhaps they only ever look like they're playing a long game when all they're doing is muddling along. The damage they are doing to the country could be irreparable.