Fog in the channel conceals sneaky Eurocrats...?

We appear to have – in Theresa May – a Tory leader prepared to stoke wild, if not paranoid, xenophobia in order both to rally her troops for a so-called “hard Brexit” and to prepare her alibi when she fails to negotiate any sort of satisfactory agreement with the EU 27.

The Grauniad is reporting her saying “the events of the last few days have shown that - whatever our wishes, and however reasonable the positions of Europe’s other leaders - there are some in Brussels who do not want these talks to succeed.

Who do not want Britain to prosper.”

She has said; “Britain’s negotiating position in Europe has been misrepresented in the continental press. The European commission’s negotiating stance has hardened. Threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials. All of these acts have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the general election that will take place on 8 June.”

If we thought last year’s referendum result meant we had heard the last of anonymous “Eurocrats” trying to straighten our bananas we clearly have another think coming. Theresa May wants voters driven by English nationalism putting their crosses next to her candidates in order to teach these interfering Europeans a thing or two in a farcical rerun of the tragedy of the referendum result.

Theresa May is not, of course, the ranting idiot which her comments today make her appear. She knows why she is saying such nonsense.

The Tories want to fight this election on Brexit both because they wish to conceal the mess they are making of everything else and – most importantly – because an election fought on the issue of nationalism can be used to marginalise the socialist alternative offered by Labour (just as the increasing dominance of the nationalist-unionist distinction in Scotland is eclipsing our Party north of the border).

The Liberal Democrats welcome the opportunity to call this a “Brexit election” because they hope that rallying remainers to their pitiably few banners is the best route back from the oblivion they brought upon themselves through coalition with the Tories. Really though this is the “food bank election”, the “zero hours contract election” and the “redundant teachers election.”

We have to fight this election on the real issues confronting our people in our everyday lives – the funding crisis in the National Health Service and in schools, the lack of affordable housing and the deterioration of public transport, declining living standards and precarious employment. We need to mobilise working class voters to vote in our own interests.

Politicians who wrap themselves in the flag are invariably up to no good. When they have a largely tame media dancing to their tune all we can do is campaign about the issues which matter in our lives and do all we can to get through to people.