Freedland and the land of the free*

There have been some silly arguments in the Guardian displaying thinly disguised hatred and spleen at the Brexiteers, getting more hysterical as the clock ticks, but this one is egregious.

J Freedland starts off with an imaginary cosmopolitan cultural history, evidently confirmed after visiting a display at the British Library he assumes we will know about,  that is used to berate an equally imaginary racist depiction of Little England: 

what will befall these islands in less than 50 days is of epic significance, breaking a thread that has run through our long history. Even in the age of Mercia, the kingdom strained hard to connect with its neighbours in “Francia”, Rome and Ireland [but not to join them in an economic union] The 10th-century court of Æthelstan was a cosmopolitan magnet to scholars from all over the continent [who all wrote in Latin of course and all shared the same religious beliefs -- all members of a dominant feudal elite in other words] . And need we mention that the Anglo-Saxons were themselves migrants [rather a polite term] from northern Europe? The Faragiste tendency, [unlocated as ever] which imagines a British past pure and unsullied by the taint of Europe, imagines a past that did not exist.... Even the softest, mildest Brexit-with-a-deal represents an act of national folly that would have had Cnut [that well-known English patriot] shaking his head in disbelief. 

No one can make a positive case for [Brexit] , [no-one has made one for Remain except via imaginary reforms] listing the concrete benefits [that sets the agenda of course] it will bring...The government’s own figures show that Brexit in whatever form will make us [I love that 'us'] poorer.

Waiting for a referendum is too risky so:

I think pro-Europeans now have to make a different move. They can’t wait for the starting gun of a referendum that may or may not ever sound. Nor is it good enough to devote their energies simply to campaigning for such a vote, or to Commons manoeuvres to get one. They need instead to make the anti-Brexit case to the public right now, as if the referendum campaign had already begun. Don’t wait. Put up the posters, book the halls, spend the money right away. Do it now....The first task is to persuade the public that Brexit has to be stopped: that leaving the EU will bring ruin, while staying in and making it better [the old vague promise] is the confident, open, patriotic choice.

Why might it work?

The polling sage John Curtice reported today that his poll of polls now has remain leading leave by 54% to 46%, with pro-Europeans way out in front among those who did not vote in 2016 (often because they were too young to do so). More striking is the small but distinct erosion of support for Brexit among those who voted leave last time.

In a petit-bourgeois Trotskyite turn to deploy rank and file to seize the streets:

“We’ve been far too up our parliamentary arses,” admits one people’s vote strategist, promising that the battle will now move to street level, with another mass demonstration on the way. He admits that they’ve paid too much attention to Westminster, which is the weather, rather than building public opposition to Brexit, which is the climate.... [But] as pro-Europeans make their case, they need to be mindful that economic catastrophism – even the sincere warnings of medicine shortages and actual corporate decisions to relocate jobs – is not cutting through. As Gary Younge wrote on these pages last week, remain needs to tell a story that goes beyond economics and speaks to national pride.

So back to an imagined history to appeal to our patriotic pride, the sort of thing cosmo journalists think might appeal to the unemployed in the North-East:

such a narrative is there, ready to be told. It is the story of a nation that has always been plural, hybrid, forged of many tribes; of a confident people who have reached across the seas to touch their closest neighbours [and often kill or rob them, and vice versa] , and who have never feared any kind of international club or alliance, because they had the confidence, even the swagger, to know they did not just belong in such a grouping, they could help shape it....The nation whose earliest works are now on display at the British Library would see the European Union and know in an instant that its place was at the heart of it.