Diary Day 831: New Year’s Day

Diary Day 831: the Mayor of London’s firework display to celebrate the New Year featured the enormous wheel called the London Eye illuminated in dazzling blue with gold stars. We rejoiced as the powerful image was seen round the world. London is European, proud and defiant. Corbyn and May, and their Lexiter and Brexiter supporters, could only fume with rage.

The author of the Mainly Macro blog, Prof Simon Wren-Lewis, pointed out very pertinently that Brexiters fail to understand how emotionally charged the issue of European membership, of belonging, is. That is part of why Theresa May’s extremely annoying message to us all to unite around her, or her Bad Brexit Deal, or whatever we were supposed to be loyal to, was doomed to failure.

Another factor is that decent people do not want to have anything to do with types who so lack empathy that they see nothing wrong with ruining the lives of European citizens who came here lawfully, settled peacefully and are our neighbours.

May’s regime is charging them to apply for “settled status”. A video advertising this scheme has been doing the rounds on Facebook, promoted at considerable cost to the public purse. An alert viewer pointed out on social media that scenes of happy families in the ad were not of real EU citizens but had been taken from stock images and previously appeared in advertising in Australia and elsewhere. It’s the perfect scam to illustrate that everything about the May regime is bogus.

How the country can be reunited after having been split in such a fundamental way, I don’t know. I do know that it won’t happen unless and until May and Corbyn’s respective leaderships are over, because neither of them have a clue about the emotional charge I am talking about.

Communities are being set against one another. Contrary to Brexiters’ claims, EU freedom of movement is not unfair to people from the rest of the world. It is not comparing like with like. The EU member states have done a deal with the UK for reciprocal rights and freedoms, whereas countries in the rest of the world have not.

I took to calling a number of prominent Brexiters liars, because they are. I was pleased to see that Lord Sugar, the TV personality, founder of Amstrad and now reputedly billionaire, said in a speech in the House of Lords that if those in charge of Vote Leave and its £350m a week claim – he named Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – had been promoting a prospectus for a public company they would have been prosecuted. He expressed the view that they should be jailed. I agree and have been saying this for years.

I had protracted disputes – they don’t merit the description debates – with abusive, sneering people, or at any rate profiles (some are definitely fake), in a couple of Facebook groups supposedly for the purpose of civilised political discussion, but actually dominated by Brexiters reinforcing each other’s prejudices with disinformation and inflammatory comments. They are samples of the silo phenomenon that I suppose previously existed in a less extreme form with newspapers and their readerships. It is far worse in Facebook because of the way the algorithms work to show more of what the user likes and less of anything that contradicts it, all free of journalistic standards. It’s dangerous.

Some of the people in the groups are set on driving me away with insults. It has not worked yet, so some have blocked me from seeing their comments instead. More than half the comments that I know exist, because their total number is visible, are hidden from me. It’s insane in there.

Much media excitement over a small number of people crossing the Channel to the Kent coast in dinghies. The Government deployed patrol boats. Brexiters are loving that. It is all deliberately manufactured panic, I think.

Meanwhile a ferry contract was awarded by the Government to a company that has never owned or operated a ferry, but seems to have links with associates of some Conservative Party donors. Why are people,surprised?

I went to the pictures, ate mince pies, got some good books, had some time off from living and breathing the Brexit saga. The interlude won’t last.