By Barry Duke • Published: 20 Sep 2019 • 14:43
CREDIT: YouTube
A WHILE back I disengaged myself from London’s LBC radio because I could no longer tolerate the interminable whining of Brexit supporters who thought their pipe-dream of an EU-free utopia was turning into a nightmare.
I also stopped reading news reports about the process and warned my husband that, if he were to utter words like ‘Brexit’ and ‘Boris Johnson’ in my presence I would file for divorce.
My disengagement came after I realised the ill-informed claptrap hysterically screamed down LBC phone-in lines by Brexiteers was doing my head in.
But divorcing myself from LBC and other media proved as hard as quitting smoking. After 48 hours my willpower crumbled. I turned on the radio to catch up with all the grotesque details of the prorogation of Parliament and the latest antics of Boris Johnson, a man-child who has the morals of a feral tomcat – and only one discernible talent: he can give masterclasses in lying to Pentecostal preachers.
Had anything changed for the better? No! In fact matters were a whole lot worse, as evidenced by a report that hate crimes committed by children and young people in Cheshire’s schools and colleges had spiked in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum.
The Chief Executive of anti-bullying charity Kidscape, Lauren Seager-Smith, said that anti-immigration rhetoric globally had ‘given rise to attitudes of hate, fear-mongering and intolerance.’
She believed kids were aping the abominable language and behaviour of their parents and other adults towards people of colour, Muslims and gays that dramatically spiked after the vote.
The September report in the Chester Standard came after the BBC reported in June this year that race-related hate crime had significantly increased in England and Wales since 2016.
Eryl Jones, from charity Show Racism the Red Card, was quoted as saying ‘it’s fairly obvious Brexit has been a major influence. The feeling is a lot of people believe they have the right to express their racist feelings or to show hatred.’
After LBC reported on the Cheshire findings, and interviewed the parent of a mixed race lad who had to be removed from his school because of racist bullying, a Dutch caller said he firmly believed that Britain was now in the grip of ‘persecution mania,’ with people laying the blame for all of their social ills on the EU, on foreigners, and everyone they regarded as ‘others.’
A nation once highly-regarded for tolerance and fair play, he ruefully said, was now ‘coming apart at the seams.’
Brexiteers, who imagine that other countries will follow Britain’s lead in exiting the European Union, are living in a fog of self-delusion. No country in the world, let alone the EU, would expose itself to the ridicule Britain has heaped upon itself.
In 2017, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said Brexit was the ‘stupidest thing any country had ever done,’ adding ‘it is really hard to understand why a country that was doing so well wanted to ruin it.’
We need people like Bloomberg to lead the country, not Johnson and his deranged cronies.
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