Express & Star

COMMENT: It's the great EU propaganda war

The blood-curdling warnings and dire threats will get worse and worse over the next couple of years, writes Nigel Hastilow.

Published

Whenever the referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union gets mentioned, it will be accompanied by terrifying prognostications.

The seers will look into the glass darkly and proclaim we're all doomed if we vote to leave the EU. Or, to be fair, doomed if we vote to stay in it.

This is a propaganda war. Neither side will tell the truth because the consequences of staying in or getting out are a matter of opinion.

There are few facts to be had and those facts which may seem to exist now will melt away if they are subject to much scrutiny.

Remember the Scottish independence referendum? When it looked briefly as if the Scotch might vote to quit the United Kingdom the warnings flew thick and fast.

They were told they would be without a currency, that the revenue from North Sea oil wouldn't power the average lawnmower for more than a couple of months, and that thousands of terrified businesses would rush south of Hadrian's Wall.

In short, the Scots were scared into voting to stay in the UK thanks to the combined propaganda of big businesses, the three main political parties and the efforts of the great-and-good.

Of course we can never be sure what would really happen if Scotland voted for independence.

Their Government would almost certainly be short of money but the money itself would still be the pound whatever politicians claim to the contrary. As for the flight of businesses, that would depend almost entirely on the policies adopted by a Scottish Government.

The whole 'No' campaign depended on effective scaremongering much more than it did on promoting the virtues and benefits of the historic union between Scotland and the rest of the UK.

The same kind of nonsense will now descend on us for the duration of the war over David Cameron's in-out referendum on the EU.

No doubt the Prime Minister will come back from Munich after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel waving a piece of paper and declaring 'peace in our time'.

He will wring a few cosmetic concessions from the EU so he can claim to have re-negotiated Britain's membership. We will be told it's the best any leader could hope for and much more than we deserve.

Again, the power of the British establishment will be deployed on only one side of the argument. This is a referendum it has no intention of losing.

We, the voters, may have a chance to toy with the idea but don't think for a minute we will be allowed to lead the nation through the out door.

First, of course, it's lost jobs. We will be warned an exit would cost one million jobs. Or three million. Or any large and frightening number you care to invent. Those lost jobs are just the start. We will be assured businesses would move to Frankfurt, Paris and Rome.

Europhile economists will claim Government revenues would plummet, leading to higher taxes and harsh spending cuts. Little old ladies will die of hypothermia if we vote to leave the EU, we will be warned.

We will be told we're bringing shame on our country by even opening up the debate. We will be informed endlessly by the BBC and other EU propaganda outlets that our friends across the English Channel think we've gone mad.

Left-wing Europhiles will say we are giving up our influence, our seat at the top table, our place in the world. They will warn 'Little England' would not be able to fend for itself in this great, big, scary world.

They will ask how we could expect to survive, let alone prosper, as a small island somewhere off the coast of the world's largest trading bloc.

We will be warned about the consequences on all those Brits who have made their homes elsewhere in the European Union. What about the plight of retired criminals on Spain's Costa del Crime? Don't they deserve our consideration as well?

Then there's immigration, of course. Are we seriously suggesting that every barman and waitress in Britain should be shipped back to Poland and Romania?

Truth is the first casualty of war and the war over Britain's membership of the EU has already started.

Yet nobody really knows whether leaving the EU would be better for Britain or worse. All they can do is invent arguments to support their chosen view.

What we can be certain of is that the consequences of leaving, or staying in, will not be anything like as dire as the propagandists will claim.

Last year I wrote a novel called 'Murder on the Brussels Express' about how the EU establishment adopted Nazi propaganda techniques to brainwash our leading politicians, businessmen and broadcasters.

That was fiction. Over the coming months we will find the truth is a lot stranger.

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