Brexit: Manufacturing Consent?

While there are certainly some convincing left-wing arguments for leaving the European Union, none of these featured in most Leavers' reasoning in 2016, in the original push for a referendum or in the current Tory party's attempts to manufacture consent for a no-deal Brexit.

As the UK sits at the precipice of another general election, we must try and understand why and how the Conservative Party, and large parts of the economic elite, are doing this. The media (most major newspapers and television news including the BBC) are certainly pushing for this outcome and are engaged in a substantial propaganda war against Jeremy Corbyn and Labour.

It's worth re-visiting this great documentary, Manufacturing Consent (1992), featuring the ideas and work of Noam Chomsky. In this film Chomsky asserts that the media always works this way, in the interests of vested interests and big money. Brexit and this current election are no different.

Brexit is about Tax Avoidance

BREXIT: Funny how the EU's major Anti Tax Avoidance Directive NEVER comes up in the discourse, isn't it?

Can you honestly watch the likes of Farage, Johnson and the super rich eurosceptic Tory toffs of the ERG and believe they do what they do in the interests of ordinary British citizens?

While there is a left-wing case for Brexit (the fabled Lexit - EU is not remotely socialist after all) the Brexit project has never been a remotely left-wing cause. Since its inception it has been driven by the most right-wing actors in UK parliamentary politics. 

The hidden forces behind Brexit (and much of the current global shift towards right-wing populism) go completely unreported and unanalysed by most of the media. This well-researched answer on Quora comes closer to revealing the economic and material forces at work:

1 . Tax avoidance

Throughout Europe, corporate tax avoidance is a colossal problem. The EU’s Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (first proposed in 2016, implemented in 2019) seeks to tackle the thriving culture of corporate tax avoidance. It affects numerous major companies in the UK accused of tax avoidance, including several football clubs, retailers, technology firms and the Daily Mail newspaper.

Continuing membership of the EU, or just the single market, would keep the UK aligned with this anti-tax avoidance policy.

This is the plain and simple reason why the Daily Mail and so many leading Brexiteers who happen to be business tycoons suddenly began proclaiming that Britain had to leave the EU, the sooner the better. As soon as the tax-avoidance proposal was announced, and even more so when it was ratified, they set about portraying the EU as the great enemy of Britain, an “undemocratic elite” deliberately causing misery for ordinary Brits.

Sadly, many ordinary Brits fell for it.

But then things didn’t quite work out as planned.

After she became Prime Minister, Theresa May spent a long time working out a pragmatic Brexit deal with the leaders of the EU. When her Withdrawal Agreementfinally came out, however, some Brexiteers were very unhappy with it. Why? Because at the back of the huge document, there in black-and-white was a commitment by the British Government to retain the EU’s code of conduct for business taxation, including the new anti-tax avoidance laws.

May was suddenly a ‘traitor’.

But if another Prime Minister could be found — preferably an unprincipled opportunist who will say and do anything to get the job — perhaps he could convince the people of Britain that it would be best to just tear up May’s deal, blame the EU for something-or-other, and then simply wait for Britain to crash out of the EU with no deal whatsoever.

Then there will be no corporate tax laws for the tax avoiders to worry about.

Read the rest on Quora.

If anyone has any doubt that this is THE political issue driving things globally, have a look at today's news about Trump, US tech giants and tax.

Donald Trump warns no free trade deal if UK taxes tech giants.

What about sovereignty you say? What about taking back control?

Have a close look at who is taking control of what.