Leo McKinstry
has been sounded against the intellectual pretensions of the pro-EU brigade. This weekend it was revealed that a new organisation, Briefings for Brexit, has been established by a group of distinguished academics, rightly fed up with the perverse idea that Remain has a monopoly on intelligence.
Unlike several of the pro-EU lobbyists such as Best for Britain, which is partly bankrolled by the international billionaire financier George Soros, Briefings for Brexit is entirely independent and self-financed.
It is a vital initiative. For by its existence, it demolishes the fashionable theory that there is something “stupid” about supporting Brexit. Among its backers are some of the most impressive names in British academia, such as the brilliant political journalist, historian and academic Sir Noel Malcolm of All Souls, Oxford, and David Abulafia, professor of Mediterranean history at Cambridge.
The two founders of the group are equally renowned. One is Graham Gudgin of the Judge Business School in Cambridge; the other is the same university’s professor of French history Robert Tombs, whose 2014 book on the story of England enthused: “England has been the richest, safest and best-governed place on earth,” – words that contradict the Remoaner claim that we are too weak for self-rule.
Briefings for Brexit is a welcome attempt to bring some balance to the discussion about our future. Yet the fact such a body is needed exposes the narrow-mindedness of intellectual and civic life in Britain. Open debate should be integral to a pluralist culture, but slavish devotion to the EU predominates in the universities, the broadcast media, the arts and much of the public sector.
At the BBC, one recent study found that two-thirds of guests on Any Questions and Question Time over the past 18 months were anti-Brexit. Another analysis showed that, in the decade from 2005, just 3.2 per cent of guests on the Radio 4 Today programme supported EU withdrawal. Similarly, in the book trade, 78 per cent of staff backed Remain, a figure that rose to 88.5 per cent in academia. Referring to the climate of indoctrination, one 19-year-old at university complained on LBC: “Students can’t say anything while the lecturers go on about how Brexit was wrong and should never have happened.”
VANITY and their own self-interest lie at the heart of the Remoaners’ intellectual posturing. Support for the EU has become a sign of supposed modernity and eagerness to embrace global change, as opposed to the Brexiteers’ alleged insular and nostalgic outlook.
But so often the Remoaner mentality degenerates into nothing more than anti-British self-loathing. George Orwell’s famous condemnation of progressive intellectuals who “feel there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman” could be applied today to the fanatical pro-EU brigade. While they proclaim their enthusiasm for free movement, they are not the ones who pay for its consequences, such as a fall in living standards and the pressure on the welfare state.
Far from representing stupidity, the return of our independence is an act of intellectual courage. There is nothing clever about trying to thwart our national destiny – or the will of the British people.
‘Self-interest backs Remoaner argument’