How dirty will the campaign to stop the British Exit from the EU (Brexit) vote get? The pro-European Union politicians and their Big Banking, Big Business, Big Labor, Big Media allies appear ready to do just about anything to scare British voters into staying in the EU. Will they open up the French side of the Channel Tunnel and allow thousands of Middle Eastern/African/Afghani Muslims encamped at Calais to flood into England? As we reported last Friday, that is precisely what is being proposed by one of the most influential globalist think tanks, the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Will students who check out pro-Brexit websites on computers at school be turned in by school political correctness police to the actual police? Well, that outrage has already happened, as the U.K.’s Express newspaper reported last week.
Have the EU Commission and Parliament temporarily shelved many new taxes, regulations, laws, and policies until after the Brexit vote on June 23, so as not to anger voters and thereby aid the movement to leave the EU? Do they plan to introduce these controversial, intrusive, and oppressive measures if the Brexit fails? Are the protections in the “reform” agreement that Prime Minister Cameron secured from the EU a sham with no binding legal force?
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Yes, yes, and yes to the above questions. There are many reasons why residents all across the EU have become increasingly distrustful of and increasingly hostile to the European ruling elite in Brussels, from corruption and wasteful spending to regulatory overkill, dictatorial mandates, and usurpations of national and local authority. However, the issue that has served to crystallize widespread anger and galvanize political opposition is the ongoing migration crisis that exploded across the EU in 2015. Germany alone took in more than 1.1 million migrants/refugees last year, after initially saying “only” 300,000 would be coming. And Angela Merkel’s government now says it expects to take in another 2.5 million over the next five years. If recent history is prologue, then the actual numbers could end up being several times those currently projected, which means Germany could end up with 5-8 million “refugees.”
The massive and chaotic influx already has brought disastrous social and economic consequences not only to Germany, but to other EU countries as well, since many of the new entrants fanned out in all directions, taking advantage of the absence of national border controls within the EU. The one positive outcome of the fiasco may be that Merkel will be toppled from power, as her star is fading quickly.
Using Migrant Threat to Sabotage Brexit Vote
A February 22 op-ed by Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a Danish academic and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), warns that the EU is “not going to play nice” and may inflict “terrible consequences for anyone leaving.”
Signaling just how dirty the anti-Brexit campaign could get, Kirkegaard’s piece, entitled “The Odds Remain Against a Brexit,” proposes that Cameron and the EU use the threat of opening the Channel Tunnel to floods of Middle East Muslim refugees. Kirkegaard writes:
Cameron and the European Union should remind British voters that it is French authorities who guard their borders. The French government could warn that France is prepared to nullify its bilateral border agreement with Britain providing for control of migrants in various places, including the Calais camp, if Britain leaves the European Union. And if that doesn’t work, Paris can send its gendarmerie in Calais home for a weekend ahead of the vote in late May, facilitating the exodus of camp inhabitants through the channel tunnel . The spectacle of thousands of migrants streaming into southern England might remind British voters about the benefits of maintaining the status quo on border control inside the European Union.
Or it may remind British voters how villainous and conniving are the EU officials, as well as their own politicians, such as Prime Minister Cameron, who connive with the cabal in Brussels. The threat is not an empty one — nor is it entirely new. Last August, in a fit of pique over British criticism of France’s failure to prevent refugees from using the tunnel, Emmanuel Agius, the deputy mayor of Calais, threatened to “let the migrants through.”
“Thought Police” Roust Student for Accessing Brexit Internet Sites
When 15-year-old Joe Taylor logged on to a school computer to do research following a classroom discussion on immigration, he wasn’t expecting to be harassed and interrogated by police. But as the British press reports, teachers acting as pc police at Wildern School in Hedge End, Southampton, where young Taylor attends, reported him to the local police for visiting the website of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), a legal party that favors the Brexit. Taylor was hauled out of class on February 24 by agents of a special police unit whose purpose, ostensibly, is “preventing vulnerable youngsters from being groomed and indoctrinated by Islamic State (ISIS) jihadis.” He was stunned to find that the school said he had raised concerns by visiting “politically incorrect websites.” During his interrogation, a police detective reportedly accused him of being a UKIP “activist” and told him visiting the UKIP website was “not right.”
Mick Taylor, the boy’s father, related his experience with the police over the incident. “I receive a phone call and they said he’s been looking at some politically incorrect material at school,” Taylor told the Express. “My first reaction was to ask them if it was porn, but they said no — it was the UKIP website. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
“We went into reception with the police officer and their first question to my son was ‘why are you a political activist for UKIP’?” Taylor reported. “I asked why are you worried about the UKIP website and they said ‘well, we don’t think it’s right’.”
The UKIP, a Eurosceptic, libertarian party, is the largest U.K. party in the European Parliament, and in the U.K.’s 2015 general elections received the third largest vote share. Nigel Farage, the UKIP’s articulate and outspoken leader (and an elected Member of the European Parliament, MEP), is wildly popular amongst much of Britain’s population — and is much hated by the U.K.’s ruling establishment. However, his regular speeches before the European Parliament — many of which address the migration crisis — would be considered by any reasonable person to be a legitimate source for a student to consult on a controversial political issue of the day.
“I was furious that they flagged him for looking at the UKIP website. I think it’s outrageous really,” said Taylor over the treatment inflicted on his son. “They tried to call him a political activist for UKIP and they asked him ‘why do you believe that’s the way forward?’ I’m a UKIP supporter and I said ‘what’s wrong with that?’ They really quizzed him over UKIP. They are almost like the thought police. It’s shocking really…. I just find it in this day and age that you’re being monitored, so are we in a free society? That’s what it comes down to.”
Understandably, the UKIP is also outraged over the Wildern School incident. UKIP’s education spokeswoman, Louise Bours, responded to the harassment, saying: “I find it astonishing beyond belief that officers saw fit to interview a child who was simply trying to complete his homework and I am deeply disturbed that both the police and this school appear to consider UKIP an extremist organisation.”
“UKIP is Britain’s third largest political party and was backed by four million voters at the last General Election,” Bours noted. “This is just another shocking example of the pervasive left-wing culture which has infected large parts of Britain’s public service.”
Putting Noxious Measures on Hold — Until After Brexit Vote
The EU politicians and their supporters in national governments are anxious not to give any additional offense to British voters. So they are holding back on a number of onerous measures until after the Brexit vote, hoping that a majority of British voters will be frightened into believing that Britain will be worse off outside the EU than inside. On February 25, Politico quoted a number of EU officials admitting that they are putting controversial spending, tax, labor, migration, and other measures on hold until after the June 23 Brexit vote so as not to further antagonize Brititsh voters. According to Politico, the measures that have been put on hold include “a mid-term review of the bloc’s seven-year budget, which could result in a fight over a proposal to increase EU spending by €20 billion; the launch of the Commission’s labor mobility package, which would set out new guidelines for the freedom of movement of workers; and the EU’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights, which the U.K. government strongly opposes, claiming it would infringe on the sovereignty of the British legal system.”
One of the EU politicians quoted by Politico was Pedro López de Pablo, spokesman for the European People’s Party group in the European Parliament. “Everyone knows this is not a good time because of the problems with the U.K.,” de Pablo said. “The [EU] Commission has been very cautious on all of these things. Nowadays we’re in a public opinion environment that everyone attacks the European Union.”
So between now and the June 23 Brexit vote, residents of the EU countries may expect the EU’s aspiring dictators in Brussels and Strasbourg to be less officious and offensive than usual. They don’t want to jeopardize the anti-Brexit efforts of Prime Minister Cameron, who is trying to convince British voters that his “reform” deal with the EU will solve the problems of autocratic rule by the EU Commission and EU Parliament. However, if the Brexit vote fails, British voters will likely soon be kicking themselves for having failed to see that the EU’s current conciliatory posture hides a pending avalanche of oppressive legislation and regulation. On the other hand, something along the lines of the Kirkegaard/Agius proposal mentioned above, to “let the migrants through” the English Channel from France, to disrupt the Brexit vote, could backfire, stirring widespread outrage. It could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, not only for many British voters, but for voters in Germany, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, and elsewhere throughout the EU.
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