The Houses of Parliament reflected in a puddle following Prime Minister Theresa May's speech at Lancaster House, where she outlined plans for Brexit. Yui Mok/PA Wire/PA Images. All rights reserved. We face a general election for which it is widely accepted that the only real issue is Brexit. Every TV news broadcast seems to feature interviews with former Labour voters stating that they will break the habits of a lifetime to vote for Theresa May, because they believe she will ‘deliver Brexit’. Despite last year’s referendum result having come as a huge shock to pollsters, Remainers and the entire political establishment, coherent explanations as to why and how this situation arose seem few and far between.
The right-wing press has been pushing a consistently Europhobic narrative since the signing of the Maastricht treaty.
Of course the factors leading to the Brexit vote are multifarious and complicated. Yes it is true that data-processing wizards Cambridge Analytica generated carefully cultivated data on voters in order to target them through social media. Yes it is true that millionaire right-wing fanatic Arron Banks spent an awful lot of money (see the New Statesman on both of these stories). More importantly, it is also true that the right-wing press has been pushing a consistently, and often fantastically, Europhobic narrative since the moment that the Maastricht treaty was signed, and that this has been consistent with the xenophobic politics which it has promoted, almost without respite, since the 1970s at least. (The best available guide to all these and other factors, in my opinion, is here).
