In response to Richard White: Time to campaign for a No-Deal Brexit, Robert wrote:
Elsewhere today on this site, there is an article referencing George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Few understood the importance of language more than George Orwell when it comes to brainwashing people with political deceit. That’s where the problems arguing for how great it will be to leave the EU lie. The language of the discourse over our departure from that bureaucratic empire-building project has been taken over by those who wish us to remain subjugated to it.
To use terms like ‘brexit’ – ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ – ‘crashing out’, ‘no deal’, ‘cliff edge’, ‘divorce’ and so on is to relinquish the language of the discourse regarding our exit from the EU to those who would have us subjugated to public servants in Brussels at the behest of our quisling public servants in Whitehall and Downing Street. The word ‘brexit’ itself was coined by those who, prior to the Referendum, wished to stay in the EU and wanted a neat, disparaging word to mock those who wanted to leave the corrupt, expensive, unnecessary, minor regulation-spewing, protectionist and anti-democratic body of overseas public servants in Brussels. When the vote didn’t go their way and the word took on a new meaning – their defeat – they had to amend it with a ‘bad’ version – ‘hard brexit’ – and the ‘good’ version that entailed staying subservient to bureaucrats in Brussels – ‘soft brexit’.
In short, then, don’t use the language of ‘project fear’, the words of those who wish to keep us shackled to the EU ball and chain. Say ‘leaving the EU bureaucratic empire-building project’, not ‘Brexit’ – ‘hard’ or ‘soft’. Say ‘leaving under WTO rules’ – not ‘crashing out’, ‘cliff edge’ and so on. As Martin Howe QC notes here, all the forecast trade problems are spurious.
As for the word ‘divorce’ – a classic ‘project fear’ word with all its connotations of great difficulty, drawn-out arguments and acrimony – don’t acknowledge it as a legitimate metaphor for our departure from the EU’s bureaucratic empire. The best analogy for our departure is that of Commonwealth countries gaining their independence from the British Empire.
