Can you see what's
wrong with this scene?
The trick is called
forced perspective.
It was used to shrink the Hobbits
in The Lord of the Rings.
Deceptive framing has also created
false assumptions about the EU.
Some very dark,
and some comical.
This is the story of how a mythical
EU dragon was conjured up,
and the striking
truth behind it all.
Headlines like these
have been a reliable way
for British newspapers
to win attention.
In 2015, the UN Human Rights
chief urged the UK
to tackle tabloid hate speech after
migrants were called cockroaches.
The article in the Sun began:
“Show me pictures of coffins,
"show me bodies floating in water,
play violins and show me
"skinny people looking sad.
I still don't care.”
You referred to a plague
of feral humans.
I mean, are
they all feral?
Is it actually
a plague?
It's because you look at them
and think you are nothing like me.
You don't understand
how our culture works.
In these individuals, from
some of these cultures
they come from,
are feral humans.
The UN described a
nasty underbelly of racism
and noted that Nazi media also
referred to people as cockroaches, rats.
Brexiteers sailed in on
fears built up over decades.
This campaign poster
captures the deception.
The migrants aren’t heading to
Britain and have no way to reach it.
The lone white face has been
covered by the campaign slogan.
When challenged Nigel Farage
felt no pressure to apologise.
Your poster has been taken by
many people as deeply offensive,
upsetting, racist,
anti-Muslim.
Would you like to
apologise to them tonight?
Well you know, I issued a very
similar poster to that two months before,
with very little debate. The problem
with the poster wasn't the image.
After all it appeared on all
of our front page newspapers.
A leaflet played on the same
fears, with more subtle deception.
It claims these countries
are set to join the EU.
In reality they
have applied,
but Turkey applied
over 30 years ago,
and couldn't be
further from joining.
Syria and Iraq
have not applied.
They are shown
for the fear factor.
A second leaflet
is less subtle.
Turkey and Iraq are
almost the same colour.
The arrow, part of the
visual language of invasion,
includes all the
colours of the region.
Let's move the camera
for a clearer view.
This is what the NHS
spends by age group.
Add education and pensions and we
have half of all government spending.
These are the demographics
of immigrants.
They are exactly what Britain needs
to support its aging population.
There is overwhelming
consensus among economists
that immigration is
good for Britain's economy.
Studies show they
boost public finances
because they pay
more in indirect taxes
and make much less use of
benefits and public services.
What do they know? What do they know
about the impact of immigration
on school places,
on hospital waiting lists?
In fact, immigrants pay for
more places than they use.
European migrants made a
positive net contribution of £20 billion
to UK public finances
between 2000 and 2011.
That's enough to pay for an extra
80 million GP visits per year.
Immigrants also
reduce waiting lists
by easing the
NHS’s recruitment crisis.
This year the NHS has
3,000 fewer EEA nurses
and 4,000 doctors are
considering leaving the UK.
Here's the
second graph.
It shows that most Leave voters
live in areas with very few immigrants.
9 of the 10 districts with the highest
Leave vote had low immigration.
Lambeth in London, which recorded
the highest Remain vote of 78%,
saw a net annual influx
of 4,598 immigrants,
while Castle Point in Essex
saw only 81 new immigrants.
But 72% of people
there, voted Leave.
At first this might
seem surprising,
but it's a well-established trend
that when we meet immigrants,
we lose our
fear of them.
The illusion
is broken.
The UK media is the least trusted
in Europe by some margin.
Perhaps even more
readers need to recognise
the deception before
things improve.
The leave campaign also drove
fear of losing democratic control.
We cannot hope to govern
an independent nation.
We cannot hope to have an
independent democracy in this country,
as long as we are
members of the EU.
Since 1999 the UK has voted
in favour of EU laws 95% of the time,
and against,
only 2%.
In search of an example
of losing control to the EU,
Boris suggested that the EU
banned odd shaped bananas,
a myth debunked
over 20 years ago.
You cannot sell bananas with
abnormal curvature of the fingers.
Other comical myths
hardly need debunking.
In his resignation letter, Boris
pointed to a more serious example.
He said, “If a country cannot pass a
law to save the lives of female cyclists
"when that proposal is supported
at every level of UK government,
"then I don't see how that country
can truly be called independent."
The laws he refers to were in fact
put forward by the EU and passed,
despite some resistance
among the UK government.
Other EU achievements include taking
sewage off bathing beaches,
cheaper phone calls, fighting tax
evasion by global companies,
banning spam emails and
major breakthroughs
in science and medicine
through collaborative projects.
But for Boris, the EU was like
an alien force taking over Britain.
Let's fight against the great complacent,
mutinous armies of the establishment.
We can win. We can
win on June 23rd.
Campaign between
now and June 23rd.
Take back control
of our country.
Vote Leave and let’s make sure
that June 24th is independence day.
The framing of Boris and
his colleague, Jacob Rees-Mogg,
as fighting the establishment,
was also very forced.
Jacob's father was
the editor of The Times.
In his own words he was effectively
born into the establishment.
He is for foxhunting, against abortion
under any circumstances,
and personally delivered a Daily Express
petition against foreign aid.
But the message resonated
with people who had suffered
years of income stagnation
while the rich had grown richer.
The leave campaign
blamed this on immigration,
but studies show immigration
does not deflate wages,
and the real causes
are well established.
The 2008 financial crisis
and government policies
criticised by the UN as failing
to promote social mobility.
People without degrees,
perhaps feeling trapped
at the wrong end
of income inequality,
were far more likely
to vote Leave.
Central London is
the EU’s richest region
and yet 30 percent of UK
children live in poverty.
A hundred thousand more have fallen
below the poverty line in 12 months.
Boris and Co seem unlikely
candidates to deviate from this path.
Projecting a fight against
the establishment
allowed the Leave campaign
to brush research data
and expert advice
under the carpet.
What economics body is
there that they should believe?
All the ones, all the ones that are part of
the sort of institutional infrastructure
of big government,
be suspicious of.
I think the people in this country
have had enough of experts
with organisations from
acronyms saying...
People of this country
have had enough of experts?
What do you
mean by that?
In a poll of top
economists 80% agreed
that people in the UK would be
poorer as a result of Brexit.
Only 2% disagreed.
Here's why there's
such a consensus.
Putting up trade barriers
is bad for your economy.
The withdrawal from the EU is a
form of putting up trade barriers.
Full stop. You are ruining
your competitiveness
specifically with your
largest trading partner.
It is a fact of life. It's one of
the few things in economics
we can talk about as a fact
of life. The gravity applies.
The UK trades more with
Ireland than with China.
Yet Jacob Rees-Mogg
says a No Deal Brexit
would boost the
economy by £1.1 trillion.
Trump has of course
employed a similar trick
branding the whole
mainstream media as fake
and projecting his
own alternative facts.
Perhaps the Leave
campaign’s greatest trick,
after dishonestly sowing and stoking
so much groundless fear themselves,
was to steal from that
cheap Trump playbook
and accuse Remainers of
being guilty of their crimes.
Just as Trump, the master creator
of false facts, shouts fake news
and whatever goes against
his agenda, so the Brexiteers,
the arch instigators of
electoral fear themselves,
routinely labelled all the warnings
from experts: “Project Fear”.
Expert warnings which
have come starkly true
throughout this shambles
of a negotiation period.
Project fear.
The truth is beginning to outshine
the mythical dragon of the EU.
Polls show that most people
would now rather remain in Europe,
and there is increasing support
for a vote on the final deal.
Something Jacob Rees-Mogg
once supported.
And you could have two
referendums and as it happens,
it may be more sense to have
the second referendum
after the renegotiation
is completed.
Should the will of the people
change when they have
clearly put the
deal before them,
would he respect
that will of the people?
If in 30 years time the
UK wants to rejoin
that would be a matter
for the electorate then,
but this result must be respected
and it must be implemented.
Perhaps in a final vote, facts
would start to overcome fears.
Wouldn't that be a win
for informed democracy?
