How being pro-Brexit is actually the “woke” option in terms of the European question
My sense here is that I am going to lose pretty much everyone with this article. But what I’m about to say needs to be said. It’s an argument no one is making and I feel strongly that someone has to, so it’s fallen on my shoulders to make it. Buckle up, bumpy ride ahead. I only ask that you read it all the way to the end before you judge my proposition.
Here goes: being pro-Brexit isn’t in reality some anti-woke stand, one that lines up with gender critical attitudes, patriotism, love of Britain’s history and culture. It’s the exact opposite of that, in fact. Brexit is pretty woke when you stop and think about it in any depth. Woke as f**k, in fact.
I know it doesn’t feel that way because of the way the culture war has designated the sides. But that’s only because the culture way is mostly stupid and causes people to act like sheep, being told what to like and what not to like and accepting those positions as being part of one team or the other. When you examine the evidence, the idea of being pro-Brexit meaning you are anti-woke does not stack up.
To demonstrate, take these two phrases: “Transwomen are women” and “Brexit means Brexit”. They are on opposite sides of the culture war and yet are remarkably similar.
The first statement begs the now familiar question, “If transwomen are women, what is a woman then?”, to which the woke answer is something along the lines of “a woman is whoever chooses to define themselves as a woman”. This answer opens up a never ending sea of questions, the answers to which get crushed by circular logic over and over again. “If a woman is whoever chooses to define themselves as a woman, then “woman” loses any real definition. If so, what does the statement “transwomen are women” even mean when “woman” has no definable meaning?” What’s the woke answer to this question? You know already: transwomen are women. If you don’t intrinsically understand this, you are a bigot, a transphobe, a hate-filled person. How dare you even question any of this. You’re asking for a logical answer when this is people’s identities we’re talking about here?
Then we come to “Brexit means Brexit”. That’s another circular argument. A logical thing to say would be, “If I had no idea what Brexit was in any sense, “Brexit means Brexit” would have no meaning for me whatsoever. Can you at least tell me what Brexit will actually mean in practice?” To which the answer comes again, “Brexit means Brexit.” If you don’t intrinsically understand this, it’s because you hate working class people and you hate Britain. You are a hate-filled Remoaner. How dare you even question any of this. You’re asking for a logical answer when this is people’s identities we’re talking about here?
What’s magical about the above two paragraphs for me is that almost no one in Britain would agree with both of them. That’s because we have been organised into tribes that have strict rules on what you’re allowed to think and not think. This is the great failing of anti-wokeness, by the way - they critique the woke for being mindless sheep that follow everything the “new liberal elite” tells them to think, only to go along with literally every single thing the anti-woke brigade tells them to think. 15-minute cities, WEF as world government, you name it, nothing is too stupid to get the anti-woke masses to go along with it. At least the woke sort of own up to their own brainwashed state of mind.
Here’s an anti-woke, anti-Brexit argument: leaving the EU was an act against the western alliance in a time of great danger for western values. The west has to stand united against both the external enemies who wish to destroy it - Russia, China, Islamism - and its internal enemies who are trying to achieve the same goal - woke leftism principally, which is seeking to undermine the moral foundations of western society. By leaving the EU, the UK weakened the bonds between European nations needlessly. Only the socialists could cheer on Brexit and the further weakening of the western alliance it brought with it.
Now, here’s a woke, pro-Brexit argument: the breaking apart of the European Union is an important step in allowing the decadent, capitalist, imperialist west to fall apart as it must do to bring on the next stage in human evolution, communism. Brexit benefitted the west’s enemies and therefore must be a good thing. Brexit was deeply anti-capitalist in nature, and so it was a good step towards international socialism. It has also required a form of post-modern, woke thinking to keep it afloat, one that avoids reality at all costs, which is good in many senses, not least of which is that it further erodes logical thinking throughout British society, clearing the path for more woke thinking and thus more societal breakdown.
The ultimate point here is that Brexit shouldn’t be involved in the culture war at all. It has no place there. And if you have to insert it, being pro-Brexit has more in common with being woke than the other way around, whatever the culture war is constantly trying to tell you. Brexit is woke as f**k, as I said at the top, whether you choose to accept that or not. If the only reason you’re still going along with the idea that Brexit was a great idea, really when you truly search your heart and soul, is because Brexit is supposedly anti-woke, perhaps that’s a bad reason to cling onto a failed, woke project so hard.
Thanks for reading. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please do. I’ll be back next week with the worst of Brexit.
No one needs to make the argument that Brexit is the woke option because Brexit has nothing to do with being woke. You can be woke, and pro Brexit. You can be an anti-woke remainer. They are not mutually exclusive.
Also you can be totally woke yet believe trans women are not women.
Your logic (woke is fanatical orthodoxy, therefore any fanatical orthodoxy is woke) is an obvious fallacy.
Hi Nick Tyrone,
This: ‘… woke leftism principally, which is seeking to undermine the moral foundations of western society.’ is complete nonsense. I’d like to think I’m ‘woke’, and I’m definitely a leftist, and I’m in no way ‘seeking to undermine the moral foundations of western society’. Leftism just means seeking a caring society, looking after the vulnerable, regulating business so that the big guy doesn’t always gobble up the little guy. It doesn’t mean global communist revolution. I think you imagine this is the 1930s?
Best of luck,
Eoin O’Brien