I’m not sure if there’s a stipulation that Brexiters must be off-the-scale hypocrites, but it’s definitely popular. As those pushing for a Brexit that will almost certainly negatively affect the UK are seen doing things like moving abroad; protecting their assets; lining up to profit from EU withdrawal; or prioritising their own career interests, it looks more and more like contagion.
Here are the worst offenders.
Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage, who has spent his entire career arguing for Brexit, and slagging off the European parliament from his seat in the … European parliament, has announced that, no, he will not be giving up his £73,000 per annum EU pension. Because, as he understandably explained: “Why should my family suffer?” Quite right. The rest of our families, bracing for an economic hit, a shortage of NHS staff to take care of us, a possible destruction of relationships and a narrowing of travel options, can suck it up. Then again, Farage is not new to hypocrisy. A privately educated former banker who rails against the establishment. An anti-immigration, anti-free-movement politician who has a German wife, and two of whose children have German passports. (Oh, and letting a French politician stay in his London home.) I half expect him to come out against tweed suits and pints of beer.
Nigel Lawson
To another Nigel: everybody’s favourite climate change denier, Nigel Lawson, who has also been a Eurosceptic for his entire political career, and remains president of the Conservatives for Britain, as well as a member of Leave Means Leave, and was also chair of Vote Leave, and has shocked us all by being another integrity vacuum – Lawson has lived in France for a number of years, and has now applied for his French residency card. This is pretty merde behaviour, given that Brexit will make it much more difficult for the rest of us to move freely to France and settle there, should we so wish. Then there’s the fact that we’ll be stuck queuing in airports, but Lawson won’t. “I love Europe!” he once said: “That’s why I live in France.” As long as Lawson is happily sipping wine in Gascony, that’s all that matters.
Arron Banks
Where to start with Arron Banks, who told us last week that he found Brexit “exhausting”. After screwing the future of the country, he is exhausted. Bear in mind this is also the guy who said the working class was being mugged off, while presiding over offshore tax companies. Perhaps if he had put the minimum £6m he spent on Brexit into paying more tax, he might have helped the “left behind” rather better, whose lot is about to get worse. Still not entirely sure where he gets his money from by the way – it’s like he just found it down the back of the sofa. Which almost certainly is a disgusting white leather number. Oh, and Banks is another anti-immigrant one married to a foreigner (Russian, obvs) living in the UK.
Andy Wigmore
Banks’s sidekick, Andy Wigmore, with a haircut that even a neo-Nazi would reject for being a bit too fascist, has announced plans to up and leave to Belize, where he has citizenship and is a former diplomat.
Theresa May
Theresa May is someone who knows the destruction Brexit will bring to the UK, but is pushing ahead regardless, while spouting things she knows to be false. Brexit dividend? She kept her head down for most of the remain campaign, with an eye on a future leadership bid, which turned out to be tactically sound. But she did give a speech to Goldman Sachs in which she said of remain: “I think the economic arguments are clear. I think being part of a 500 million trading bloc is significant for us.” And then went on to talk about the security benefits of being part of the EU. She’s a defender of the Good Friday agreement, but doesn’t seem to understand that her Irish border policy (I use the word policy loosely) threatens it. She is not beholden to the DUP, but also totally is. Her latest about-turn is promising Dominic Grieve and other Tory rebels a meaningful vote in the event of no deal, and then afterwards denying the whole thing. Absolute wind-up merchant.
Paul Dacre
This is the guy whose Daily Mail acted as a sort of Brexit Pravda, variously insulting high court judges (despite championing sovereignty) and half the population on its front page. Paul Dacre, of course, is a rich man. Before stepping down two weeks ago as editor of the Mail, he was earning a salary of nearly £2.5m a year. As one recent book put it, Dacre is a man ferried around, who “lives on carpets”. This is why he is a Brexit hypocrite: estates owned by Dacre have received £460,000 since 2011 in EU agriculture subsidies. Maybe he can afford to lose those – many farmers cannot.
Jeremy Corbyn
There’s something phenomenally rude about lapping up the support of young people to win the Labour leadership (twice) and then campaigning to stay in the EU (which 75% of 18- to 24-year-olds support) with all the fervour of an Arsenal fan cheering Tottenham.
David Cameron
This is the guy who plunged us into the mess by allowing an internecine Tory party beef to rip us out of the EU. Of course, before and after the result, David Cameron vowed to steer the ship. That plan lasted a matter of hours. Nobody’s seen him since, apart from when he boasted that he’d spent £25,000 on a shed. We’ve all done it.
The entirety of Vote Leave
Remember MEP Dan Hannan’s “nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market”? Because that seems like a rather big threat at the moment. Remember how, Boris Johnson, a lead Brexiter, actually drafted two versions of a Telegraph article – one for remain, one for Brexit – because he was so on the fence about which side would be better for his career. Does he really believe Brexit is better for the country? Who knows what Johnson really believes in, except himself. Here’s what he wrote in the pro-remain piece that went unpublished: “Shut your eyes. Hold your breath. Think of Britain. Think of the rest of the EU. Think of the future. Think of the desire of your children and your grandchildren to live and work in other European countries; to sell things there, to make friends and perhaps to find partners there.”
Couldn’t agree more, mate.
- Hannah Jane Parkinson is a Guardian columnist