Comment by thu2111
5 years ago
It was and still is purely organic. The entire establishment aggressively suppressed euroskepticism of any kind for decades to the level that it required a total outsider, who was himself frozen out completely, to create an entirely new political party twice and bring them to winning enough votes to ensure the Conservatives couldn't ignore it anymore.
You say "the Sun" as if a single tabloid the vast majority of all powerful people and decision makers don't even read was some decisive factor. Now consider the total and complete opposition of the BBC, the Guardian, the Economist, the Financial Times, the Times, the Civil Service, dominant factions in both political factions, etc.
To say Brexit wasn't organic is to innuendo into existence some vast but vague conspiracy. "Obviously" it wasn't Russia you say, but it had to be someone right? Isn't this the same sort of rhetoric that has lead to the Capitol just being stormed? Isn't it far more likely that parts of the British press reported bad stories about the EU for decades simply because there were bad stories to report, as you'd expect there to be? And reporting stories about governments is the sort of thing a free press is supposed to do?
Do you live in the UK? It's hard for non-residents to understand the impact of The Sun. It's the most read newspaper by far - having a greater readership than all the other papers you mentioned combined.
After the victory of John Major in 1992, the Sun ran the headline 'IT'S THE SUN WOT WON IT', a line that's since become a sort of mantra in english politics - nobody has won an election since without the support of The Sun.
The second most read is the Daily Mail, another euroskeptic paper. In fact, if you look down the list of papers by readership [1], you can see the euroskeptic press (Telegraph, Mail, Murdoch papers) is almost the entirety of newspapers that are in circulation.
I'm not saying there's some vast conspiracy. I'm just saying that Rupert Murdoch is not a fan of large, big-state regulatory projects, and as a result, his papers (which include the Times, for instance) have followed an anti-EU line. He traditionally takes a very active role in this kind of editorial decision making, and is very public about this fact.
Obviously, the establishment in england are traditionally liberal, internationalist, and the argument for Brexit is a hard sell on pragmatic grounds for obvious reasons - and that's why the vast majority of powerful people were against Brexit, and it took 'outsiders' to push the campaign through.
However, these 'outsiders' were able to do so because they knew the issue sold well with both conservative core demographics and swing voters. And, if you think that your average midlands swing voter would have opinions about supra-national trade standards without some serious narrative building, I have a bridge to sell you.
[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/529060/uk-newspaper-mark...
Not any more but I used to. Yes the Sun has a lot of readers compared to the FT. None of them are the sorts of people who are anywhere even close to power or influence, except in the vague way that any large group of people has power in a democracy.
You do have to be careful not to assume forwards causation. The argument that the British people dislike the EU because the successful parts of the press publishes negative stories about it can also be rephrased as, many people dislike the EU and successful newspapers don't ignore that. That is people's views drive newspaper coverage, not the other way around.
if you think that your average midlands swing voter would have opinions about supra-national trade standards without some serious narrative building, I have a bridge to sell you
But if you think the EU is actually only about supra-national trade standards, then I have a bridge to sell you too ;)
If the EU was just a European ISO that issued standards on goods labelling nobody would have ever cared, you're correct. It's obviously nothing even close to that, and very keen on trade standards being even less of what it does in future.
> None of them are the sorts of people who are anywhere even close to power or influence,
Isn't that exactly the point? Brexit happened because of a referendum where normal people got a vote.
> That is people's views drive newspaper coverage, not the other way around.
I think if this was true, nobody would bother printing them. It's not like they make much money. I'm sure there's an element of organic xenophobia that would make people sympathetic to the EU free movement idea, but I don't think that's enough to create a demand for daily updates on how 'bonkers brussels bureaucrats ban bent bannanas!' (a genuine story).
I don't think anybody ever has picked up a paper because they were dying to get the details about that particular scoop - and honestly, that was one of the most memorable ones.
I can see some grounds on which Euroscepticism was organic in england, but I also have absolutely no doubt that such an idea would never have been successful without the amount of media support it got.
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Political union was a stupid idea, Europeans all have different values that I doubt can be reconciled for the sake of good governance. I doubt the average German cares what a French cheese is called or what the dimensions of the wheel are, as long as it's safe to eat. Similarly, the average Frenchman gives absolutely zero shits about what's happening in Germany as long as there aren't troops forging through the Ardennes.
That and the structure of the EU government is a mess, the parliament has precisely zero impact on decision making and everything is run by the unelected bureaucrats in Belgium.
I get the argument, but I think if you look at the history of small nations sandwiched between large ones, you draw the opposite conclusion.
The UK has essentially walked away from a position of power in a very large nation, to take a position as a small nation on the periphery.
That might be fine for ten years, it might even be fine for fifty - but inevitably, the difference in negotiating power between the UK and its neighbors will show, to the UK's detriment.
It's already been showing in the brexit negotiations, where the EU held essentially all the cards.
What an interesting conclusion to draw. I wonder where you get your news from.
The UK/EU deal isn't perfect but Norway and Switzerland already pricked their ears up and senior politicians in both countries are now publicly questioning why they can't have the same sort of deal. The EU backed down on many things they'd previously claimed were requirements, like the ECJ. And the UK has signed over 60 trade deals in preparation for leaving.
There's a sort of assumption here that might makes right. But the richest countries in the world are all small ones: Switzerland, Singapore, etc. Meanwhile empires spent most of the 20th century collapsing, often due to internal corruption and decay.
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