During the European referendum campaign and after ‘Leave’
voters have complained about being called racist and xenophobic whether they
actually are or not.
At the beginning of the campaign I didn’t start as an active
remainer. I started as someone who was going to vote ‘Remain’ or not vote at
all, as I felt the entire referendum wasn’t really relevant to Scotland. In my
arrogance I thought any fool could see Scotland was better off in the European
Union at least as long as we were in that other ‘union’ the UK. At that time it was not so much what the EU
has done for us recently, it was more what it protected us from with a constant
Conservative Government in London.
The actual European Referendum campaigns were in my opinion awful from
both sides.
We had a second Project Fear from the UK Remain side. I
assume the thoughts on that one were that Project Fear had worked for the Scots
during their independence referendum campaign in 2014 so it would work on the
UK as a whole. The anti-independence side won (but only just) validating that
type of campaign. In Scotland we had a rather lack lustre Remain campaign which
was different. It was a campaign based on the benefits of being in the European
Union. Despite the UK being in the EU almost all of my adult life at that stage
I had no real idea of what it did for us, and indeed until the EU referendum
campaign came up it was an extremely rare occurrence to actually see or here
anything that was happening in the European Parliament except when it was
portrayed in a very negative way by the English tabloid press.
It was only as the campaign went on that I became an active
Remainer, despite my discomfort at several sections of EU policies which I
believe were not in the interests of people but just of big business.
My activity on the Remain side was due to the Leave campaign
which I found morally repugnant. It seemed to be based on two premises. It had its
own version of Project Fear which hardly enamoured me to it, but that also
applied to the other side. What it contained was a Project Hate campaign of
encouraging the fears of the unknown, of being over-run by foreigners from the
other EU member countries, of the EU being opened up to Turkey a Muslim
country, of being opened to vast numbers of migrants – in other words the
classic far right reactionary xenophobia angle. Neither campaign was based on
fact which made this type of campaign all the easier to employ. 
And so we got to the counting of the votes. In general this
resulted in a strong Leave vote in the areas of the UK (outside Scotland) that
received most in assistance from the UK’s membership of the EU. The Leave areas
tend to be the poorest, those most left behind in the new non-manufacturing
economy created by the Conservatives and continued by Labour Governments since
the 1980s. This is why they receive the most assistance from the EU. It can
therefore be credibly argued that the EU was being blamed for the ills which
were actually created or exacerbated by the UK the Government.
The Leave areas
also tend to be those areas which are least cosmopolitan and have had the least
immigration meaning that immigrants from Europe are more unusual and therefore more
strange or foreign. And therefore more scary making the xenophobic type of campaign more effective.
Following on from it can be deduced that these areas are
also in for a rude of awakening when #Brexit actually occurs, as they have
actually made their situation even worse.
Since the vote the Conservative Government in London has
taken the vote to be a vote as being a vote against uncontrolled immigration
from the European Union. And this is the plank of their policy over Brexit
above everything else despite what harm it may do to the economy. It has been
shown time and time again that European migration has actually helped the UK
economy (particularly in Scotland).
The reason therefore why Leave voters are being called ‘racists’
or ‘xenophobic’ is quite simple. Just like the success of the Better Together
or NO campaign validated the Project Fear campaign employed by the Remainers on
this occasion, the success of the Leave campaign which was mainly based on
racist and xenophobic language and images has validated that language and behaviour.
And this is what Leave voters are perceived whether rightly or wrongly to have
voted for.
