Let’s kill some Brexit myths: there won’t be riots if it doesn’t happen by October 31
No riots, we’re British: Isn’t it odd that, with pro-Brexit pundits all over the TV and papers saying there will be riots if Brexit doesn’t happen, the only large public demonstrations on the subject have been by Remainers?
Are you sick of being told a lot of drivel by pundits in the TV politics shows and the newspapers, that there will be riots if the UK doesn’t quit the EU on October 31? I am.
It is patently absurd to suggest that Leave-supporting UK citizens will riot, because they simply don’t have it in them – as Simon Wren-Lewis points out in his Mainly Macro column online:
When we failed to leave in March, despite repeated promises we would, you might have expect a very angry reaction. Farage addressed a demonstration in which he called the Houses of Parliament ‘enemy territory’. The demonstration was news because anything Farage does seems to be news and also some right wing thugs got aggressive. But in terms of people, we are talking about a few thousand people. A petition for a No Deal Brexit gained a bit more than 600,000 signatures.
If those numbers seem large, compare it to around 6 million signatures for a petition to revoke Article 50 and stay in the EU. Or regular large marches all around the country for a People’s Vote, with the biggest in London involving hundreds of thousands of people, all entirely peaceful.
In terms of anger and passion, it seems Remainers outnumber Leavers by between 10 and 100 to 1.
The number of people passionate about Brexit is limited to a few thousand people who have convinced themselves it matters to them, politicians in the ERG and Brexit party, the Brexit press, right wing thugs, and those frightened of no longer being able to avoid tax in the EU.
These are the facts of the matter. Leave supporters won’t riot because they don’t have much to gain from Brexit – while Remainers have a great deal to lose.
There won’t be any riots if the UK fails to Leave at Hallowe’en. There will be relief.
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Interesting to note the parallels with the Tangerine Twit from across the pond who is also so deluded that he’s predicting riots if he’s impeached !
If we don’t leave I envisage a ‘mountain’ of strongly written correspondence to the Daily Mail and isolated pockets of sad deluded placecard holding protesters standing at roundabouts and road junctions. Living in Wales I for one will react with a mixture of jubilence and relief!
I have shared your cynicism about the idea of riots coming from the Brexit-supporting voters who tend, on average, to be slightly older and slightly better-off than Remain voters. They would also tend to be people for whom “respectability” is important as is “acceptability” to those above them in the social hierarchy.
They would need a focus for their riots but they can hardly march on Downing St or Parliament as both are run by the Brexit-supporting Tories.
More likely, far-right terrorists will target individuals, notably BAME people and members of Remain-supporting Parties.
They do not have the numbers for real riots but a small number can be persuaded that they are being “patriotic” when they attack others.
These, like most things in the media, are all assumptions. You, nor anybody, can claim to know what it is in the minds of other people. The people who voted to leave have a democratic mandate so, there is no reason, yet, to protest, or petition and rioting is just not something that is seen as very British (not that it never happens). If we were actually prevented from leaving, for example, if Article 50 were to be revoked, it might well be a different story,
Would you riot?
I think it would be after a no deal Brexit when Riots could occur, when people lose their jobs, the economy collapses and the shops are empty, but if so it would be curtailed by Operation Yellowhammer /Redfold.
For that matter, Danny Dorling’s recent book on Brexit reveals that a large bulk of Brexit voters are to be found in Tory constituencies in the Midlands and South. The sheer numbers of Brexit voters in “Labour” areas of the North are much smaller because the number of voters who turned out in those areas is much smaller. So, for sheer overwhelming numbers of rioters we would have to rely on Basingstoke or Godalming or Cheltenham. Good luck with that!
I don’t think people will Riot because Brexit hasn’t been achieved but I think there could be protests that could turn in to Riots if people take to the streets when the food runs out and the lights go out probably following a NoDeal Brexit. A bit like the Bread Riots in the 19th C. but on a bigger scale.
he has the money to pay unscrupulous folk who need money desperately.as was seen in the election process that got him into the presidents chair.