51吃瓜

Pro-Brexit voters have struck a blow for real peace and democracy in Europe, says John Pilger.

The majority vote by Britons to leave the European Union (EU) was an act of raw democracy. Millions of ordinary people refused to be bullied, intimidated and dismissed with open contempt by their presumed betters in the major parties, the leaders of the business and banking oligarchy, and the media.

This was, in great part, a vote by those angered and demoralized by the sheer arrogance of the apologists for the Remain campaign and the dismemberment of a socially just civil life in Britain. The last bastion of the historic reforms of 1945, the National Health Service (NHS), has been so subverted by Tory and Labour-supported privateers it is fighting for its life.

Rejecting the Ancien Regime

A forewarning came when the treasurer, George Osborne, the embodiment of both Britain鈥檚 ancien regime and the banking mafia in Europe, if people voted the wrong way; it was blackmail on a shocking scale.

Immigration was exploited in the campaign with consummate cynicism, not only by populist politicians from the lunar right, but by Labour politicians drawing on their own venerable tradition of promoting and nurturing racism, a symptom of corruption not at the bottom but at the top. The reason millions of refugees have fled the Middle East鈥攆irst Iraq, now Syria鈥攁re the invasions and imperial mayhem of Britain, the United States, France, the EU and NATO. Before that, there was the willful destruction of Yugoslavia. Before that, there was the theft of Palestine and the imposition of Israel.

The pith helmets may have long gone, but the blood has never dried. A 19th-century contempt for countries and peoples, depending on their degree of colonial usefulness, remains a centerpiece of modern 鈥済lobalization,鈥� with its perverse socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor, its freedom for capital and denial of freedom to labor, its perfidious politicians and politicized civil servants.

All this has now come home to Europe, enriching the likes of Tony Blair and impoverishing and disempowering millions. On June 23, 2016, the British said, 鈥淣o more.鈥�

The aim of this extremism is to install a permanent, capitalist theocracy that ensures a two-thirds society, with the majority divided and indebted, managed by a corporate class, and a permanent working poor.

The most effective propagandists of the 鈥淓uropean ideal鈥� have not been the far right, but an insufferably patrician class for whom metropolitan London is the United Kingdom. Its leading members see themselves as liberal, enlightened, cultivated tribunes of the 21st-century zeitgeist, even 鈥渃ool.鈥� What they really are is a bourgeoisie with insatiable consumerist tastes and ancient instincts of their own superiority. In their house paper, The Guardian, they have gloated, day after day, at those who would even consider the EU profoundly undemocratic, a source of social injustice and a virulent extremism known as 鈥渘eoliberalism.鈥�

The aim of this extremism is to install a permanent, capitalist theocracy that ensures a two-thirds society, with the majority divided and indebted, managed by a corporate class, and a permanent working poor. In Britain today, . For them, the trap has closed. More than 600,000 residents of Britain鈥檚 second city, Greater Manchester, are, reports a study, 鈥溾�� and 1.6 million are slipping into penury.

鈥淭hese People鈥�

Little of this social catastrophe is acknowledged in the bourgeois-controlled media, notably the Oxbridge-dominated BBC. During the referendum campaign, almost no insightful analysis was allowed to intrude upon the clich茅d hysteria about 鈥渓eaving Europe,鈥� as if Britain was about to be towed in hostile currents somewhere north of Iceland.

On the morning after the vote, a BBC radio reporter welcomed politicians to his studio as old chums. 鈥淲ell,鈥� he said to 鈥淟ord鈥� Peter Mandelson, the disgraced architect of Blairism, 鈥渨hy do these people want it so badly?鈥� The 鈥渢hese people鈥� are the majority of Britons.

The wealthy war criminal Tony Blair remains a hero of the Mandelson 鈥淓uropean鈥� class, though few will say so these days. The Guardian once described Blair as 鈥渕ystical鈥� and has been true to his 鈥減roject鈥� of rapacious war. The day after the vote, the columnist Martin Kettle offered a Brechtian solution to the misuse of democracy by the masses. 鈥淣ow surely we can agree referendums are bad for Britain,鈥� said the headline over his full-page piece. The 鈥渨e鈥� was unexplained but understood鈥攋ust as 鈥渢hese people鈥� is understood. 鈥淭he referendum has conferred less legitimacy on politics, not more,鈥� wrote Kettle. 鈥淸T]he verdict on referendums should be a ruthless one. Never again.鈥�

The kind of ruthlessness Kettle longs is found in Greece, a country now airbrushed. There, they had a referendum and the result was ignored. Like the Labour Party in Britain, the leaders of the Syriza government in Athens are the products of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, groomed in the fakery and political treachery of postmodernism. The Greek people courageously used the referendum to demand their government sought 鈥渂etter terms鈥� with a venal status in Brussels that was crushing the life out of their country. They were betrayed, as the British would have been betrayed.

On June 24, the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was asked by the BBC if he would pay tribute to the departed David Cameron, his comrade in the Remain campaign. 鈥渄ignity鈥� and noted his backing for gay marriage and his apology to the Irish families of the dead of Bloody Sunday. He said nothing about Cameron鈥檚 divisiveness, his brutal austerity policies, his lies about 鈥減rotecting鈥� the NHS. Neither did he remind people of the warmongering of the Cameron government: the dispatch of British special forces to Libya and British bomb aimers to Saudi Arabia and, above all, the beckoning of World War III.

In the week of the referendum, no British politician and, to my knowledge, no journalist referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin鈥檚 speech in St. Petersburg commemorating the 75th anniversary of Nazi Germany鈥檚 invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The Soviet victory鈥攁t a cost of 27 million Soviet lives and the majority of all German forces 鈥攚on the Second World War.

Putin likened the current frenzied and war material on Russia鈥檚 western borders to the Third Reich鈥檚 Operation Barbarossa. NATO exercises in Poland were the biggest since the Nazi invasion; Operation Anaconda had simulated an attack on Russia, presumably with nuclear weapons.

On the eve of the referendum, the quisling secretary-general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, warned Britons they would be endangering 鈥減eace and security鈥� if they voted to leave the EU. The millions who ignored him and David Cameron, George Osborne, Jeremy Corbyn, Barack Obama and the man who runs the Bank of England may, just may, have struck a blow for real peace and democracy in Europe.

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.

Photo Credit:听 /听

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