Monday 24 October 2011

The BBC version

It is interesting to contrast what happened in Parliament today with the BBC version of what happened in Parliament today, as now being reported.

The imperative, it seems, for the BBC is at all costs to keep the issue of EU membership as an internal Tory Party squabble. For this to work, no mention must be made of those MPS from the other side of the House who supported the motion.

Certainly the Tory rebellion against the three line whip was large by the standards of these things, but so was the Labour rebellion, which I believe was 25, but I haven't seen confirmation of who voted for democracy yet.

The BBC has a job to do; that is push the Establishment interpretation of events with as much subtlety as it can manage. The fear of the Establishment is that contagion will break through the quarantine and start affecting the population. As long as the narrative holds that this is nothing but a rightwing obsession, then they are safe.

The task of patriots is to recognise this fact, and put aside tribalism, at least on this one issue. It the day ever comes when we do get a referendum, then we will need more than a few Daily Express myths, and we will not be able to rely on any deep-seated animosity towards van Rumpy and Barroso. Neither will slogans like 'British jobs for British workers' take us very far, neither indeed will bewailing red tape. We have to aim higher than this.