Fuck Off John Oliver

The irony of John Oliver openly mocking England tradition and culture, whilst deluded unpatriotic Bremainers cheer him on. 

Beside going off on a tangent slagging off UKIP with one candidate scapegoated over a comment about a Sri Lankan not being British enough to be in Parliament, a representative for a district council in Kent saying "I have problems with negros", and Kerry Smith saying "chinky" in reference to a Chinese person. This does not represent the manifesto or view of all UKIP supporters. In much the same way that Prime Minister Cameron himself (note, not a lesser representative) labelling Afghanistan and Nigeria as "fantastically corrupt" in conversation with The Queen in any way means the view is unanimous between all Tory voters.

Oliver should also be ashamed for the way he plays on the death of Jo Cox in a disgusting manner to tarnish UKIP by somehow implying association means you condone or dismiss her tragic death. This was a vile attempt at leveraging the death of a much loved MP as ammunition to distance yourself from the Leave campaign.

Let's get into the actual arguments.

1) Financial Contributions; Oliver quotes Boris Johnson saying about £350 million a week that we have no control of going to the EU. Ignoring the rebate (which I'll return to in a moment) the actual figure was £342.3 million a week in 2015 which isn't a huge misreprentation. The rebate/investments become irrelevant in the argument that we have immediate access to essentially £350 million a week outside of the EU. The rebate is not applicable until the following year depending on projections, investments and returns meaning at the point of contribution, yes, we do pay in the £342 million per week.

The EU has been in financial decline excessively since the UK joined back in 1973 becoming economically stagnant and static. Since 1980 the share of world output accounted for by the EU has almost halved from 30% to 16.5%. The financial model is fast becoming redundant in the global climate, and the benefit of remaining associated with a plummeting economic bloc binds our wrists from independent trade agreements that could be struck with faster growing economies and sentences us to a slow death alongside the rest of the member states.

2) Onerous Regulations; admittedly the 109 Pillow Regulations was a poor attempt by Brexit the Movie at illustrating and highlighting the overbearing bureaucracy of the EU. Nevertheless, there is currently 19,639 acts of EU legislation in force. (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/browse/directories/legislation.html). This is excessively overkill. There was at one point genuinely a regulation ((EC) No. 2257/94) specifically for just bananas that laid out extensive provisions such as minimum length, thickness, degree of curvature, firmness, colour etc for a banana to qualify for sale. This level of red tape and regulation creates unneccesary issues for start ups and small business' allowing multinational big business to leverage unfair competitor advantage. There are over 1,400 regulations pertaining solely to Fisheries (CFP), which have served to destroy the entire UK fishing industry. Look it up, I'm not just making it up for the sake of argument. (http://www.thecommentator.com/article/6092/the_eu_s_betrayal_of_britain_s_fishing_industry)

3) The fact that Obama, China, Japan, India, and the EU want you to stay in... and some irrelevant skit of an Austrian politician with a poem. I fail to see how "these other countries want you to stay in the EU" justifies a selling point in a political argument? Without context of reasoning, it's an moot point and completely obsolete even mentioning it.

4) HM Treasury, BoE, IMF, OECD, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, pwc, Oxford Economics, Centre For Economic Performance all "predict" a negative affect on GBP. Let me open with the argument that the financial security of the UK is a tetchy subject for a disenfranchised working class. The economic divide, the disparity of power evident in class warfare; Brexiters are not xenophobes or racists, we are simply fatigued of being at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder within a failing economy. The upper echelons grossly misjudged the extent of unrest among the working class who break their backs to afford the upper class an affluent life of luxury and excess. Had they known the degree of disdain, the Referendum would never have been on the table. I sincerely believe the economic inequality resulted in the hedging of an EU departure; not racism as so many Bremainers rush to accuse. In a population of 65 million in the UK, the poorest 10% have an average original income of £3,738... the richest 10% have an average original income of £102,366... and the 0.1% at the very top have an average original income of £941,582. (https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk). For the working class, our concerns are simple; a breadline existence has resulted in a bleak and one dimensional perspective. We care for little, content in the knowledge we will never achieve the high ranking economic status of the elite, however we nevertheless yearn a basic standard of living in comparison to that of our peers. I appreciate (and do not take for granted) that our standard of living far supersedes that of the third world, but when compared to that of the elite, we know we are being exploited. We feel violated, belittled, taken advantage of as economic slaves, breaking our backs for scraps from the metaphorical table. The economy could be saved if the elites want it to be; but regardless of being in the EU or not, and the strength of the GBP - the lower bracket are losing either way so it's not a great concern to us.

5) Reduce immigration; when citing a poster as "nazi propaganda" you need to differentiate between migrants and refugees, something I'm not getting into here. If you want a good trade deal with EU, you need to abide by their rules, meaning it's not worth it to leave as free movement of people will persist etc. No. The UKIP and Brexit stance is not to entertain such an approach to the EU. "In April 2016 the value of exports (EU and Non-EU) increased to £25 billion, and imports (EU and Non-EU) increased to £41 billion, compared with last month. Consequently the UK is a net importer this month, with imports exceeding exports by £16.0 billion." (https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Statistics/OverseasTradeStatistics/Pages/OTS.aspx). We purchase more than we sell in a global market. We do not need the EU to be our sole buyer, and we can purchase what we get from the EU from elsewhere in the world if they are forcing free movement of people as part and parcel of the deal.

Ironically as a Brexit supporter, I note Oliver didn't even touch on TTIP in the arguments presented. The common collective knowledge of TTIP is admittedly not much, and that alone makes those aware of it very nervous and suspicious. The low hanging fruit of economic benefits does little to sway the public opinion of those on a breadline existence, notably less so in favour of reducing and watering down regulation and quality assurance such as food safety law, environmental rules and banking regulations. Reducing EU standards to match those of the US already sits unfavourably with those of us aware of the reduced standards in the States; combine this with rumours of ISDS provisions allowing US corporations being able to sue democratic Governments in private courts over loss of profits (effectively resulting in multinational and foreign corporations influencing law and policy) alongside rampant privatisation and the prospect of US corporations owning and controlling vital UK public services such as transport, education, water and health. TTIP by definition is toxic, providing a small financial contribution in order to ultimately leverage open the EU to be deconstructed and sold off to the USA.

So yeah. I eagerly await your rebuttals.