They say across the pond that no one has ever gone out of business for underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer. We can say the same about the British voter: no one has lost an election or, more to the point, a referendum for underestimating his intelligence either.
This is lamentable, for an electorate unable to evaluate the facts and make logical inferences makes democracy inoperable: people can’t vote their interests when they can’t understand what their interests are. That makes them easy prey to purveyors of lies, to any tout peddling falsehoods in the secure knowledge that no one will see through them.
The other day, for example, John ‘Edwina’ Major, whose cleverness is only matched by his taste in women, attacked Eurosceptics with spittle-sputtering venom that never looks natural in an Englishman. (Where an Italian screams “Che cazzo!!!”, an Englishman half-whispers “Rather unfortunate, that.” The other way around just doesn’t seem right.)
Sir John now preaches what he practised back in 1990-1992, as Chancellor and PM. Then his commitment to European integration cost the Treasury £3.4 billion in one day, known as Black Wednesday. Now the same genius agitates for more of the same – and people, mentally castrated by our ‘education’, listen.
As if to vindicate this grim assessment of British voters, yesterday’s poll shows that one out of six think Brexit would see them banned from European holidays. It’s no wonder that, terrified at the prospect of holidaying in Blackpool, 88 per cent of that group plan to vote Remain.
The past may not be an unfailing predictor of the future, but it’s the best we’ve got. Hence over 15 per cent have to believe that European resorts had been off limits to the British before Major signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.
Yet this isn’t the case. Back in Victorian times the English practically owned such French resorts as Biarritz and Nice. Why do you suppose Nice’s most picturesque walk has been called La Promenade des Anglais since 1860? Because English tourists were banned?
But forget history – most of our school graduates already have: some 64 per cent don’t know the century, never mind the dates, of the First World War. Let’s stay firmly lodged in the present.
A simple extrapolation, one of those the British en masse can no longer make, would suggest that, if EU membership is a prerequisite for European travel, then citizens of countries not blessed with that distinction can’t show their foreign faces on the continent.
No Americans with their loud voices. No Chinese or Japanese with their cameras. Darren and Tracy, when you last lived it up in Ibiffa (Ibiza, as it’s otherwise known) or Costa del Sol, was that your impression? No? Yet none of those nationals carry red EU passports.
Ten per cent of the respondents harboured different fears. They suspected they’d still be able to turn Ibiza and other EU hotspots into hell on earth, but thought it would be too dangerous to do so. The locals would be so cross with Britain for doing the runner that they’d take it out on the tourists.
Chaps, take my word for it: the Europeans don’t bear such grudges. For example, the French love the Germans to bits now, and one would think the memory of 1940 would still rankle. Wayne and Lee, go through your holiday photographs and you’ll see how imbued Europeans are with the spirit of Christian forgiveness.
Remember when you got pissed on cheap beer with shots and wallowed in your own vomit on the dance floor? Remember those chairs you tossed through restaurant windows? Remember copulating with Sharon and Kylie right on the crowded pavement? You got away with it, didn’t you?
So don’t worry about continentals getting overexcited about Brexit. If they don’t mind your vomiting, they won’t mind your voting.
The Remain shills have done their job well: 52 per cent of the respondents say they’re confused about what Brexit would mean to them. Our systematically dumbed down masses confuse easily, and the spivs of all parties know how to exploit this with the sleight of hand to do a riverboat gambler proud.
Even less inert minds might feel inundated with the torrent of scaremongering details dumped on them by the Remain campaign. You show me your figures, I’ll show you mine: which are more believable? For most people, those that appeal to their primordial fears.
Figures, ladies and gentlemen, ought to be at the margins of the debate, if present at all. It’s not about a few pennies on the exchange rate here or there. The real question is so simple that even my hypothetical Darren, Tracy, Wayne, Sharon, Lee and Kylie would have no trouble understanding it.
Do you, Darren, Tracy, Wayne, Sharon, Lee and Kylie, want Britain to be a sovereign nation in charge of her own destiny or a chattel to a giant, monstrously corrupt bureaucracy in whose shenanigans you’ll have no say? Think of this on your flight to Ibiffa.