There is always the danger of preaching to the converted; of merely reinforcing the strong views we have already heard and internalised. Rather, Nick Heenan would like to hear from people who honestly believe in the benefits of Brexit.

London4Europe blogs perhaps represent one small example of the “echo-chambers” that can develop when views being expressed are not being properly challenged by outsiders, simply because “outsiders” are ridiculed and driven away or choose not to engage in such “pointless” discussions in the first place.

I would like to understand from the first-hand knowledge of others, how Brexit has delivered what they wanted. Just a single verifiable case to begin with, where UK citizens or our economy is better off being out of the EU, rather than at the heart of it as we were before.

It seems to me that for the foreseeable future, all the bad economic news is going to get blamed on the Covid lockdown and the cost of the UK’s economic recovery from that. Perhaps that is why the government is so keen to permanently end the lockdown, and with it any legal requirement to Track and Trace, wear masks etc. Would it be too cynical of me to suggest that allowing another massive wave of Covid to rip through the UK is an exceptionally good way to ensure that the economic damage being done by Brexit can remain in the long-term, as falsely attributed to Covid?

If the national broadcast media have an obligation to balance their news coverage and to present both sides of a debate, they are not always so successful in doing so. Nor are they always very good at separating the issues, nor at identifying root causes. Personally, I am not a fan of the VoxPop approach to journalism, where members of the public are carefully selected to give a five-second opinion on the news story of the day. Why is it that there are usually two such people supporting the view of the news reporter, and just one opposing it? Do such shallow remarks really add anything to the debate, except perhaps to illustrate how difficult it is for ordinary people to articulate their own views on a subject, when what little they know is often only acquired through similarly shallow news reports?

In spite of having most of the national print media behind it, should we surprised this government is seeking to ‘control’ the other parts of the print and electronic media which do not overtly support it? For the past five years, the BBC has been strongly criticized by No. 10 for being biased in favour of the “Remain” campaign of the referendum. Boris Johnston has repeatedly threatened to abolish the TV licence and to undermine the BBC’s resources. There are news stories of mismanagement at the highest level of the BBC, for which heads have rolled.

More recently, it has been the turn of Channel 4: for too long it has (apparently) been too independent and too well funded. It produces documentaries and factual dramatizations that criticise government policy on climate control, fishing, and the “Leave” campaign of the referendum, to name but a few. So now the Government wants to sell off Channel 4, having first undermined its capacity for supporting high-quality investigative journalism, and related documentaries. This of course, would leave a gap that could be filled by the embryonic (but well-funded!) GB News. Much hailed as the UK’s version of Fox News, it just happens to be very supportive of right-wing government policies and controlled by that well-known “kingmaker” of governments: Rupert Murdoch.

So given the sorry state of our media, I again make my plea: could somebody please tell me what are the tangible benefits of Brexit?

Nick Heenan
L4E Committee Member

London4Europe blogs are edited by Nick Hopkinson, Vice-Chair. Articles on this page reflect the views of the author and not necessarily of London4Europe.

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