A few months after the Brexit vote I met an old friend for dinner. In the crowded restaurant we whispered to each other how we had voted. The relief when we found out that we had both voted for Brexit was palpable. The fact that we had to whisper that we were both Brexiteers was an admission that it was like being in a secret society.
If Jeremy Corbyn wants an explanation of irony he need look no further than the championing of the EU as the embodiment of good and us Brexiteers as the epitome of evil. Somehow, in the distorted world of politics, the EU has become synonymous with anti-racism and virtue. Calling oneself a Brexiteer is now seen to be as dangerous as being accused of racism – the contemporary version of the medieval accusation of witchcraft. Both can lead to shaming and loss of livelihood.
Virtue-signalling Remainers ignore the fact that the EU has some very discriminatory policies towards African countries. For the apparatchiks who run the EU, are far more important than promoting their ideologies in the developing world, or even at home.
In 2001 the EU passed a law which banned member states from growing or importing any genetically modified organism (GMO) crops.
The EU is Africa’s biggest trading partner. Many smallholder farms in Africa grow GMO crops, so this law stops these farmers from earning a decent living. Despite this the EU continues to ban GMO imports, a capitulation to pressure from Greenpeace.
Last month this law was expanded to include CRISPR gene-editing technology. New strains of cassava, corn and sweet potatoes are being developed by researchers in some African countries but these future crops won’t be purchased by the EU, damaging even further the livelihood of African farmers. Those who have an abundance of food have the luxury to indulge their anti-science dogma. But it is immoral to do so at the expense of those who need food security made possible by GM science.
Perhaps the biggest irony of all is the latest trend among the metropolitan elite to blame the escalation of anti-Semitism on Brexit. A recent article by Ben Judah in The Atlantic started off so well until he lazily blamed Brexit for anti-Semitism, and other forms of racism. According to Judah, we Brexiteers are now ‘extremists’. I strongly disagree. The only extreme politics come from the Remainers, with their sneering disdain for the democratic process, and from the Left, with their burning hatred of Israel and Jews. Unlike Judah, I am glad that British Jews are ‘no longer polite’. Most of my fellow Jews now recognise the warning signs of hatred towards us. This previously muted community is finally standing up for itself instead of cowering behind closed doors.
Trying to pin the blame for anti-Semitism on Brexit is like saying ‘the dog ate my homework’. You are fooling no one but yourself. This is made even more absurd when considering that the EU is virulently anti-Israel and advocates policies which harm the Jewish state. Surely those who support Israel would want nothing to do with the EU, yet like the stubborn moderates who cling on to the disaster that is Corbyn’s Labour, they too ignore the evidence showing them to be making a grave mistake.
Perhaps they should be reminded that Israel’s relationship with the EU is at breaking point. In 2015 the EU implemented a law which requires all Israeli settlement products – goods produced by Jews – to be labelled. The EU also finances Palestinian organisations which advocate boycotts against Israel, employ terrorists and propagate blood libels against Jews.
The EU fiercely defended Barak Obama’s obtuse Iran deal, which saw billions given to the Iranian terror regime. Last week it gave Iran more than £16million, part of a £45million ‘aid’ package. Like Obama, the EU is guilty of giving money to a regime which finances Assad in Syria, arms Hamas in Gaza, controls Hezbollah in Lebanon and participates in a proxy war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen. This Islamist regime is not only a threat to Israel and Jews worldwide but also to world peace. Why is the EU funding it? Those who think that this money will find its way to the needy, and not the regime, are delusional.
Despite repeated false mantras that the EU keeps Europe peaceful, we need only to look at the chaos generated by its free movement policies and porous borders to know this to be untrue. Some economic migrants who arrive in the EU originate from cultures where anti-Semitism is a core part of their belief systems. By staying tethered to the EU, Britain will never be able to control who comes into the country, including virulent anti-Semites. We have enough of them already. The threat to Jews comes not from Brexiteers but from arch-Remainers who want to keep us tied to the EU and its policies which harm European Jewish populations.
Remainers are frantically defending the indefensible EU with more and more outrageous excuses. Anti-Semitism has many causes but Brexit is not one of them. To conflate Brexit with racism and anti-Semitism is one of the more ludicrous and irrational assertions made by the Remain camp. It is disingenuous scaremongering. I would counsel them as I would a friend going through a bad relationship break-up – the EU needs us far more than we need them.
