Imagine if Leave lost and we imposed a hard Remain - there would be anarchy

Let me take you back two years and three months to the time immediately before the Brexit referendum. The Leave campaign promised we would remain in the Single Market and Customs Union for the sake of business. Things would more or less remain the same. The Brexit deal would be signed and sealed in one afternoon. There would be more money for schools and hospitals, and the mainland would still be there to carry on visiting and trading with.

Fast-forward those twenty-six months, and now those same people are putting severe pressure on the PM to leave everything, which will most probably cause us to become more of a vassal state to the US than we ever were to the EU. They harp on about the "will of the people" and "they've had their say, there should be no more Brexit referenda," conveniently forgetting that the reason we have elections every couple of years or so is precisely to reflect the mood of the people at that time.

So let's see what life would be like if the tables were turned and the British government implemented a hard Remain...

It's the twenty-fourth of June in the Year of Our Lord, two thousand and sixteen. The people have spoken and it's a resounding victory for Remain. 52% of the electorate, a sizeable and clear majority [not, obviously!], have voted to remain in the EU.

David Cameron is delighted, and begins immediate negotiations to take the UK into Schengen and the Eurozone. By 2020, the British Pound will be obsolete, and the only monarchy in the Commonwealth where the Queen's head doesn't appear on the currency will be her own.

The gutter press, though, protests. "DON'T TAKE US INTO THE EURO", clamours the Daily Mail. The Guardian shoots back with images of Leavers including Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg under the headline "ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE" for pleading with the PM not to join the Euro.

Remainers take to the readers' comments sections to have a good old-fashioned pitchfork and fire-on-a-stick fight over the direction of the country. They want Boris ostracised and EU flags to replace the Union Jack everywhere except on government buildings.

People like that Wetherspoon's guy and that Dyson fellow are routinely attacked on social media by hordes of Remainers, branding them all kinds of nasty names. Audiences on the BBC's political panel shows like Question Time constantly heckle the few famous guests who still dare to say they are Leavers. Katie Hopkins leaves the country to go and live in Alabama [in the end, there are pros to everything] and receives a slap on the face by several Remainers who showed up to the airport to make sure she left.

Those on the Leave side continue to campaign, saying the vote was close and there should be some compromise, rather than this total sell-out to the EU. Remainers heckle them, especially on social media saying "we won, you lost, get over it", and other cheap slogans to that effect. Leavers say "but we were told if Remain won, we would just carry on as normal, not join the euro and Schengen. We've been lied to!" Remainers say, "we knew what we were voting for", as if that was their original intention. Despite all the archived articles in newspapers and on TV, Remainers insist that was the plan all along.

Of course, this is never going to happen. Why not? Because those on the Remain side are far less vitriolic, caustic, venomous, spiteful, malicious, whatever your description, than a lot of those on the Leave side. Why so? Because, having been a member of a very large social media group actively trying to counter Brexit, I have noticed one thing: all 60,000 members are civil, decent and friendly. And being too "nice" may actually be their weakness.

It is absurd to think that the Remain half of the country would act in this way. Which is why I question a lot of the vitriol on the Leave side. It is astounding how much hate has built up when reading readers' replies in the Daily Mail and the Express. Where does all that aggression come from?

I think it stems from many different places:

• Many people don't know why the UK gives money to the EU and think it's a waste. 

What they don't realise is that that money is 1% of every country's national spending, and a lot of it is spent doing local projects. The UK, having nine of the most deprived areas in the EU, the money gets re-invested in areas which the UK government would not consider touching.

• A great number of people are conned daily into believing they are being ruled by Brussels. 

This is an absurd notion, but one that has a lot of support from the newspapers. Many newspaper owners, living overseas or in tax havens, have alternative agendas and don't like the idea that the EU is interfering in their tax affairs, so they cook up all types of stories and twist reality to make it seem like the EU is a left-wing dictatorship. They have been doing this for years. The link to the left here highlights the abominable abuse levelled at Brussels for the last 30-odd years.

• Too many people found themselves excluded from the benefits of economic development

Successive British governments have done little to improve the lives of a lot of people in poor areas, and more and more people have slipped below the poverty line without having been given the chance to improve and develop. Wages have declined, prices have risen, working conditions have stagnated or receded, property prices have become prohibitively expensive, and healthy food like fruit or meat is a luxury. A lot of these people voted to leave the EU to give the government a kick where it hurts, but in fact, they have hurt themselves the most.

• Apathy and ignorance

A great deal of the public have entered a kind of limbo world where they are happy with their lot in life (modest living, decent social life, car, a couple of holidays, maybe kids). Things like Brexit are at best a distraction, at worst an annoyance. They maybe voted in the referendum, but did so based on the last story they read and whether it was positive or negative. They don't really care either way because they only go abroad for a couple of weeks a year, don't need EU funding, and have routines that don't matter whether they care about the EU or not. When the Lambrusco price goes up a quarter, they might start wishing they had paid attention over the last 3 years.

What to do about this?
Recently, one member said he thought we should "start getting a bit French about the whole thing", which is not a bad description of where we are today: just half a year away from B-Day, and a whole raft of warnings concerning the UK's preparedness for the eventuality of no deal should be bringing the good people of Britain out on to the streets, but they are a sedate, passive kind of folk; that's why successive governments have been able to make them swallow all kinds of bad measures à la boiling frog.

Getting a bit more active in the streets, more frequently and more aggressively, would be quite a feat for the people of Britain to carry out. There are two reasons for this: firstly, most demonstrations take place on weekends unless they're strikes, because they are busy at work, and because of the British propensity to associate leave from work with bad performance, any time off is precious. Secondly, most British people don't really care enough to be out every day on the streets protesting, as they have jobs and livelihoods that are indispensable to them and they prize their private life more than they care about which people govern them.

In countries like Romania, where there have been great upheavals in recent times, whole swathes of people have been out on the streets for days, sometimes weeks, on end. The constitutional and democratic state of the country there is fragile and still in its infancy compared to that of the UK, whose institutions go back centuries. For that reason, British people still trust in the procedures and processes that flag up threats to democracy. But considering the fraudulent manner by which the Leave campaign won the 2016 referendum, all the evidence against them, and the reams of papers proving collusion with foreign hostile forces, the clamour to bring the perpetrators to justice, let alone annul the result, is unsettlingly quiet.

Why is nobody on the streets? Why are people not angry? Why does it seem that the press is more concerned with Jeremy Corbyn's views on Israel and Palestine than the crooks who are trying to take over the country by stealth? Smoke and mirrors, it seems. Keep the spotlight off the bad news of Brexit just until B-Day, then all hell can break loose if necessary. These gangsters, who have friends in Trump's White House and in Putin's Kremlin, as well as with Salvini in Rome, Orbán in Budapest and Kaczyński in Warsaw, not forgetting the AfD in Germany, the Front National in France, and Geert Wilders's PVV in the Netherlands, are without doubt trying to build a coalition of strong-in-the-arm factions to take on their enemies, the so-called liberal elite.

They hate the tolerance we have garnered over the last few decades. They despise the idea of legal same-sex marriage, multi-coloured neighbourhoods, high standards in areas like food hygiene, the environment and healthcare, and seek to deregulate it all in order to sell to the highest bidder for profit and to the detriment of the little guy. So they created a word for these people: every time someone defends liberal values in public, these people accuse them of being a snowflake.

And herein lies the most basic of all the paradoxes - it's the little guy that put these people in charge in the first place. It's always the little guy who holds all the cards, but no awareness of this superpower. That's why the ones at the top try so hard to garner their support. Look at the crowds cheering Trump at his rallies - with all due respect, they are generally out-of-town, poor, religious, uneducated, or all four. The rallies have taken place in locations like Youngstown Ohio, Huntsville Alabama, and Duluth Minnesota. Their lives have never taken off and they want someone to blame. Along comes the demagogue and sweeps up their votes, even though they'll never see an improvement in their own lives.

Look at the areas that voted for Brexit in large numbers: run-down seaside towns like Redcar, Blackpool and Clacton; post-industrial towns like Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton and Burnley. These are also places where the population has largely been forgotten. So these are prime places for the demagogue to ply his trade. This is where change is going to be instigated, but where nothing will ever be better for those people without firm action by the government of the day.

I am not sneering at these people, in fact I have a lot in common with them. I also spent years living from day to day without any sign of advancement in my life. I had little positiveness in my life and I was often two meals from starvation. I know what it is like down there. I grasped at anything I could that had a positive element to it, whether a potential job offer from a dodgy agency, or even a good write-up in the daily horoscope. Anything at all. So I can also understand when a person with good rhetorical skills can articulate the frustrations of the poor to the nation. The poor and downcast are so desperate that they will latch on to anything that promises to bring them out of their misery, even if it is obviously a lie. Those running the Leave campaign were very aware of that, the Remain campaign focused mainly on the negative implications of leaving without trying to demonstrate all the good that the EU does.

So if Brexit were cancelled: what would happen in the country?

I personally think the following:
10% of people would be very angry indeed, and would provoke protests and riots.
25% would be upset for a week before returning to normal.
65% would be very glad that this was no longer filling their news feeds every day

But 100% would be livid that the government put the country through such a waste of time and money, and for what? To settle an internal dispute in the Conservative Party. I would hope this débâcle would split the main two parties enough to cause them to break apart, so that we would have four or five main parties, and we can eliminate that stupid First Past The Post "system" for good.

We can live in hope...

Will Brexit bring about greater democracy and prosperity? Simple answer: no. More complicated answer: below

The first things all Brexiteers bang on about are:

1. The money the UK throws at the EU when it could give it to the NHS
2. The democratic deficit at the heart of the EU
3. Immigration issues
4. EU law and human rights
5. Corporate freedom
6. Independence
7. Because the UK is always isolated and never gets its own way

These are smokescreens for the the general consumption of those who like their news delivered in handy little soundbites that they can quote later to Bill down the pub. The real truth is somewhat greyer and a lot less savoury. As someone who lives and works on the inside, I would like to put the record straight on a few of these.

MONEY, FUNDING AND THE NHS
Firstly, let us consider a few things concerning the distribution of funds. The UK puts in a lot of money as it is one of the richest. It works a little like the tax system: the more money you make, the larger your contribution, so of course you are going to pay proportionally more than, say, Spain or Finland, but sizeably more than the Czech Republic or Slovenia. That is normal. Why are Brexiteers complaining about this? It seems they want to be clients, not team players. Where's the solidarity in that? And what the country gets in return is never discussed as it's not in their interests.

Yes, the EU can be a little profligate with the funds, but the fact is: agriculture, science and research, infrastructure, education and many other aspects of life would not receive the funding they need, and I include the NHS here, because I think herein lies the rub: the EU funds these things without subjectivity, based purely on need and the effect it will have on the improvement of people's lives.

Do you really think, deep in your heart of hearts, that the Conservative/Neoliberal alliance at the top of and above the UK government really cares about those things? I don't; I think it is another chance to grab more public money. Why waste it on schools when it could be invested in private enterprises and corporate landgrabs? 
At least, with the EU, those funds get to where they are supposed to. Take it away, and watch the NHS falling and being sold off, schools getting privatised, infrastructure budgets being cut, and farms being sold off to rich landowners who can turn them into supermarket-run agri-factories.
Do you trust the UK politicians to look after the NHS, farms and schools? Honestly???

DEMOCRACY
There is the supposed democratic deficit at the heart of the EU. Well, shall I tell you what a democratic deficit looks like? It looks like people who act in their own interests whether they are elected or not. Democratically-minded people do things in the public interest anyhow, whether elected or not. The expenses in the European Commission are incredibly stringently controlled by the Court of Auditors, and you will not see the civil servants being chauffeured about in black cars. You will, though, see the politicians (yes, those in the European Parliament too) being chauffeured about, because they are politicians and to leave them to public transport would be like asking a Yorkshire terrier to do your accounts.

But the Commission is pretty apolitical and works for the benefit of all, and despite its many foibles, is actually more on the side of the people than the politicians. There is a European Ombudsman that anyone can use to blow the whistle on improprieties; there is a European Consumer Rights and Law commissioner, who makes sure we get value for money, like reducing mobile phone tariffs across the EU; and there is a scheme whereby any EU citizen can go into the embassy of another EU country when abroad and get proper representation. But you don't hear about these things because it's not in the interest of the EU's detractors.
But it's a terrific trick of national governments that they get the Commission to do their dirty work, taking one for the team, time after time after time, so that they don't get blamed. The fact of the matter is, though, the 28 national leaders of each country, known as the Council of Ministers, sit down around the world's most expensive table to discuss what they wish the Commission to implement. So, the Commission is, in essence, just carrying out orders of national politicians. In the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Prime Minister, "Almost all government policy is wrong... but frightfully well carried out."

IMMIGRATION
This is the scare story du jour. And it's a complete fallacy. Let's be honest, shall we? The country is not overcrowded; it is just underdeveloped and badly maintained. The infrastructure was built 150 to 200 years ago after the Industrial Revolution for the society then, and it has been slow to be updated. The roads in the UK are far narrower than in France or Germany, the houses smaller, the hospitals and airports built in far smaller plots. Look at Barajas Airport in Madrid - it is on a plot 5 times bigger than Heathrow. Charles De Gaulle, Frankfurt and such are massive in comparison. But the main issue is housing. It is not that there is no space; it is that the developers have artificially created a bubble by not building on the land they were designated, and so the demand sky-rockets and the prices go up. It is not in their interests to build because the prices will tumble and their profits too.
Furthermore, do you really think the country will sink into the mud because Poles, Lithuanians and Romanians, the large part of whom have a greater work ethic for less pay, are doing all the manual jobs? No. Because, sadly, Brits have become colonialists in their own country. Don't blame the new arrivals - blame mean-minded bosses for not being willing any more to pay full price for a proper day's work. Do you think this will clear up after Brexit? Do you think the gap will return and the market will be filled with British workers in the fields, on building sites and under the kitchen sinks? Rubbish. The market demand is insatiable and even if you started to train up locals now to take over, the full quotient would not be ready for employment for a good few years. And do you think prices and wages will remain the same? No. Because British people still expect a bargain, but workers will not accept the same payment rates as those who come to Britain for work out of necessity. What you will end up with is a skewed law where the cheapest will get all the work and hourly rates will fall everywhere in all sectors of work.

EU LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS
It is claimed that too many people are abusing the EU's Human Rights legislation. Too many people are taking advantage of the current law to get out of prison or to get more benefit payments for themselves. This is not a falsehood, but it is an exaggeration. The UK government has suggested withdrawing from the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights), drawn up by British lawyers after WW2, and implementing its own Bill of Rights. They can go ahead if they want, but the fact that all EU citizens are guaranteed the same rights is enshrined in EU law, meaning equal treatment for all.
Do you really think, Dear Reader, that the British government will make the situation better? I can answer that one now: of course not. If anything, it will make it easier to implement other laws that restrict the rights and freedoms of everyone in the land. I cannot imagine a more sinister power-grab than this. Imagine something simple as EU law concerning consumer rights: let us say you buy a kitchen and it is riddled with problems. EU consumer protection law dictates that the company has to either correct it or replace it without cost. The same goes for clothes, furniture, computers, everything. You have the right to return your goods to the shops within 14 days of purchase, all because of EU law. 

The four very elements that the Leave campaign is highlighting are the four very elements that everyone should be worried about. It is a myth that things will improve if the UK leaves - the EU guarantees so many more freedoms to its citizens:

• The right to work in other EU countries without needing visas, residence permits or the filling of quotas
• The right to study in another EU country for all or part of your university course (Erasmus)
• The right to the same mobile phone roaming costs and no nasty bills no matter where you are in the EU
• The right to the same standard of healthcare as back in your own country
• The right to vote in local and European elections wherever you are
• The right to live where you want and be treated by the local councils and national governments the same as locals
• The right to the same consumer law as everywhere else
• The right to jump on a train, plane, boat or bus to France, Belgium or wherever and not need to worry about declaring your alcohol or tobacco
• The right to go from Lisbon to Warsaw without showing your passport

And many other things.

THE SILENT TAKEOVER

Just remember one thing: once the UK frees itself from the EU shackles (in other words from keeping it on the straight-and-narrow), there will be nobody else to keep an eye on the opportunism and impunity with which the corporate elite will act. This is your future. Nobody can tell you this because this is much more inflammatory than the stuff that the In and Out camps have been propagating thus far. The In campaign dare not say these things because some of them would be believed.

But the time is coming for you to make up your mind. Do you want to guarantee your own subjugation to a corporate elite? Do you want to hand over the things you most cherish about social democracy to faceless (and often heartless) drones in glass towers? Would you rather your tax money went to help the landed gentry to buy up the rest of the countryside and pay for their own limousines or would you rather your taxes guaranteed a harvest? Would you rather your money went to help poor people up the social ladder a little? Would you rather your taxes paid for infrastructure and education, whether here or in the EU at large?

I know where my allegiances lie - and leaving the largest trading bloc the world has ever known is not going to bring you prosperity. It will bring more prosperity to those who already have it, while turning the country into a feudal state.

INDEPENDENCE

Independence from what?

The UK is already independent. 

But I'll tell you what they want you to believe:

That outside the EU "we" will be able to make our own laws. What kind of laws? Do you think it will be for the benefit of UK citizens? I don't. It will be for the benefit of the One Per Cent.

Furthermore, we need to remember who we are and not who we were. We are members of a club of 28 nations, some of whom are "more European than others", so to say. It is time the UK started acting more European and stopped sniping from the sidelines. The EU is more heavily supported by smaller countries than larger ones, and the answer is simple: the President of the European Commission is Luxembourgish, the previous one Portuguese. the President of the European Council is Polish, the previous one Belgian. The thing is, it gives the chance for smaller countries to shine on the world stage like they would never be able to if they were independent. 

The larger countries of the south, like Spain and Italy, are also by-and-large pro-EU because they understand the prestige membership brings them. The prosperous and fiscally careful countries of the north and central areas, like Sweden, Denmark, Poland and the Czech Republic, are more sceptical because they also like their freedoms, but none of them would think leaving the EU would solve their problems. The largest countries, like France and Germany, have found it hardest to assimilate to the EU because they have needed to shrink, or at least take on fewer airs of a large country although this is of course very difficult, especially when it seems nobody else is on your side. Just ask Angela Merkel about refugees and the "solidarity" she received. 

Even Greece, the country with the biggest reason to be upset with the EU, does not want to leave. It might want to leave the Eurozone, but most definitely not the EU. So the UK is a little bit like Denmark, and a little bit like Germany. What it needs to do is just relax into its role as a counterbalance to the Eurozone's largest powers and stick up for those countries that wish to remain outside. It needs to engage more, be more understanding and empathetic, and stop thinking everyone should act like them.

Do you really think independence will guarantee self-control? I don't. I can't see how voting to leave a club but having nevertheless to pay membership fees to access it will really make the UK independent. The conditions would remain similar but the UK would not be permitted a say in any matters. Furthermore, it will take years to undo all that constitutional paperwork.

Which brings me on to...

HAVING A SAY IN EU AFFAIRS

The UK is alone and isolated in EU negotiations? Rubbish. The UK has had a great deal to say about the EU and its workings. 

• For one thing, the UK was central in introducing the call for tender system known as TED to allow for a more simplified and equitable EU-wide system of provision of goods and services so any company anywhere can bid for a supply contract. 
• The UK, as the largest non-Eurozone member state, is the de facto leader of the outside pack and recently negotiated more rights for those wishing not to join the Euro. 
• The actual running of some of the EU institutions has in recent years become much more familiar to British civil servants than to French ones. The streamlining of administrative processes, the cutting of costs and bureaucracy, the accountability of every job posting, the justification of every business journey made, the pricing of every cup of coffee poured in an EU building... everything in the EU institutions is accounted for, down to the limitation of photocopies for language trainers. 
• Furthermore, English is the prevalent language these days, and French is now a more and more distant second. German is waiting in the wings to be promoted if the UK leaves the EU. And English will, in one night, become obsolete as the Lingua Franca of the EU. It will lose its status as the working language of the EU institutions, and French, German and probably Polish or Spanish will get a much bigger role to play in the EU.
• There are disproportionately more British (and Irish) staff in managerial positions than other nationalities, although due to the geographical position of the EU institutions, French and Belgians make up a large part of the admin staff. In the Court of Auditors, English is the only language and to get a job there it is essential to speak it to a level good enough to work in.
• In negotiations, the only reason why it seems the UK is isolated is because the UK government really does not get the EU. It acts like a yob in Torremolinos, wanting all the home comforts but without the disadvantages. It was shocking and shameful for me to see my government try to negotiate favourable treatment in the EU and at the same time refuse to play any single part in the Syrian refugee crisis. 

If you really think the UK is hard-done-by it is all smoke and mirrors. The government just needs to stop moaning and get on with teamwork. If you think the EU is a gravy train, try speaking to assistants and administrators in Luxembourg at the bottom of the EU pyramid, where they earn less per month than local bus drivers, gardeners and cleaners. This is because staff in all EU institutions in all cities earn the same, calculated on Brussels salaries.

Finally, the EU is incredibly bad at promoting itself, which is both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, it means it is too busy doing what it is supposed to be doing rather than spending time and money advertising itself - the quiet ones are those who are getting on with the job rather than looking for reward. At the same time, it means people are malinformed and misinformed about the good it does. 

Get informed before you decide.