Project Fear Squared

As we enter the closing phase of the EU Referendum campaign, we find ourselves confronted by two competing but equally negative and unpleasant visions of the future.

Rather than evaluate arguments for and against a positive and progressive prospectus, we are being asked to decide which is the lesser of two evils. We are being asked to consider which threats we find most compelling. It's all stick and no carrot. And the problem is, this grim choice is entirely spurious.

The debate is being framed as a decision between an economic meltdown on the one hand and an immigrant invasion on the other, both equally implausible. Even those in the official Remain campaign now argue in favour of the EU on the basis that it is a more effective way of controlling immigration, rather than question the underlying erroneous assumptions about immigration on which the Leave campaign relies. We are being asked to choose between what's bad and what's worse, rather than to engage with an energising prospect of how to make things better.

The Scottish Independence referendum was contested two years ago between a self-styled "Project Fear" and the Yes Movement, a progressive alliance who viewed self-determination as an opportunity to promote a positive agenda. In contrast, on this occasion, with the EU referendum, we have two opposing fear projects and no progressive alliance. It's Project Fear Squared.

How did it end up this way?

The campaign has effectively become an English Independence referendum, an opportunity for the English to assert their identity, and this has had some adverse consequences.

During the Scottish Independence referendum two positions were set out which one might broadly characterise as optimistic and progressive on the one hand and conservative and cautious on the other. "Things can only get better" versus "if it ain't broke don't fix it" as it were. This is not a viable set of options on this occasion. An English Independence referendum can only be based on fear and negativity. Why do I say this? The starting point for the English is already one of relative advantage, and so the only way to stimulate them towards change is threat. "Things can only get worse".

An English Independence referendum cannot be about a national community seeking a degree of autonomy and self-determination it has previously been denied. England is the dominant constituent country in the United Kingdom and can out-vote the rest put together. Compared to the other countries, England has an enviable degree of de facto autonomy as things stand. Its priorities can never be neglected, while the most the other constituent countries can hope for is that those priorities coincide with their own.

It cannot be about opening up avenues to social justice that have been closed to it hitherto. The interests served by austerity are located in London itself and the extent to which they are reflected in policy is a matter for an English-dominated Westminster administration. Austerity is England's choice, implemented by the government they voted for. Economic policy reflects the democratic choice of the English people for a Conservative majority government. The super-rich benefit from austerity and push house prices in London out of reach of the common people: this is an internal English discussion about English priorities, not a matter of self-determination.

It cannot be about creating opportunities to promote peace and abolish weapons of mass destruction, as if these opportunities do not already exist. Westminster could get rid of Trident any time a majority of English MPs felt like it.

It cannot be about supporting greater confidence in the expression of a unique culture and set of values. Our broadcasting services and cultural institutions serve a primarily English audience and provide content tailored to their preferences, based on their experiences and outlook. In Scotland we are used to seeing ourselves represented on our television screens as something foreign and exotic, at one moment enticing, at another threatening, mere ciphers carrying the burden of a plot devised to entertain another set of viewers. The English complain about how they are portrayed on American TV? They should try not being English while watching British TV.

There is no alternative version of England that cannot be achieved already with the powers already available to the English people. There is no need for significant constitutional adjustment to do so. There is no positive vision of England that can only be articulated in a way that explicitly or implicitly requires Independence. England is to all intents and purposes independent. "English Votes for English Laws" merely formalises what was already a reality.

And when everything you could hope for is already within your power, those who would influence you must resort to fear rather than hope, and goad you with the threat that your power will be denied. They must deprive you of hope rather than inspire it.

Initially the referendum was a "blue-on-blue" internal Tory party dispute in which the fate of the rest of the country was hostage to the careers of a couple of over-privileged Etonian caricatures. The referendum provided a means for opposing sides in this leadership contest effectively to use the rest of the people of Britain as human shields.

But as this contest became more ugly these citizens became more involved. And when your starting point is one of pre-existing dominance and advantage all that remains to appeal to you is toxic fantasies of victimhood. The vocabulary in which these fantasies are articulated is one of nostalgia for the Britain whose casual conflation with England is all the more blatant since devolution and the Scottish Independence referendum led to the clear formulation of a Scottish alternative. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have become spectators now that the debate is about how England sees itself. And when your starting point is one of relative advantage, calls to achieve equality and justice are redundant. Only a supremacist war cry catches your attention. "Make Britain Great Again" as it were.

What we need to understand is that this was the intention all along. The main reason it has ended up like this has nothing to do with sovereignty or self-determination or immigration or Britain's status as an EU member. The entire campaign has concerned itself with questions that are ultimately irrelevant to the purpose of the referendum and the consequences of leaving the EU. The whole thing is an exercise in misdirection. Our buttons are being pushed. Britain is not the target. The EU is the target.

Around the world workers' terms and conditions have been under sustained, co-ordinated attack from unaccountable, often anonymous, global corporations who seek to abolish or circumvent every impediment to their commercial interests and imperatives that they encounter as a result of the policies of democratically elected governments, trade union activity, and community initiative.

The president of Brazil was recently impeached for corruption. But she was replaced by someone significantly more corrupt than she was. However he is also significantly more "sympathetic to investor interests". The coup in Brazil is "good for business" we are told. This is of course code for the erosion of maternity leave, health and safety regulations, the right to strike, and so on, all entitlements only officially recognised after successive "left wing" administrations replaced a military dictatorship.

In France we see the people taking to the streets in huge numbers to protest against new laws aimed at placing limits on terms and conditions of work there. Around the world we see treaties being negotiated that include dispute resolution procedures that can be initiated by corporations in secret against countries on the basis of commercial disadvantage caused by government policy without any recourse to democratic transparency, oversight or accountability.

The Brexit debate should be interpreted in this context. The EU, for all its faults, is a powerful and democratically accountable potential advocate for all the measures that inconvenience corporations, from workers' rights to environmental safeguards, controls over food quality to stop companies poisoning us to health and safety regulations to prevent them putting us in harms way on behalf of their profit margin. We are being manipulated by false dichotomies and distracted by straw men while workers' rights around the world are being dismantled. The EU Referendum is an instrument to allow English nationalist sentiment to be manipulated using manufactured grievances in the interests of a corporate agenda.

It is easier to control someone who is trying to stop things getting worse than someone who wants to make things better. The former do as they're told. The latter think for themselves.