Reading Paper #14: “Brexit: The Movie”

Allison Brown 4215: European Union Dr. Anderson March 23, 2021 Reading Paper #14: “Brexit: The Movie” Author: Martin Durkin -- both wrote and directed the film. With a budget of £300,000 (~ 415,101 USD) from crowdfunding. Durkin is an English television producer and director for Britain's Channel 4. The Channel itself isn’t known for its legitimacy, in 2007 they screened “The Great Global Warming Swindle”, a highly controversial documentary calling the climate crisis “a lie” and “the biggest scam of modern times”. This film wasn’t produced by Channel 4, but Durkin’s background with Channel 4 builds on why and how this movie was made to attract average Britons Durkin had experienced through his work at the channel. Published: The film was produced by Wag TV, a small-scale production company based in London that claims to be “one of the world's leading producers of factual television” (Wag TV Website) which says a lot. Wag TV itself doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page and is not recognized by IMDb (Internet Movie Database). The production company has other “hits” such as: “NASA: the unexplained files” and “Britain’s Trillion Pound Horror Story” (directed by Durkin as well). Date: May 11, 2016, the film was put out a little under a month before the UK would have a vote on the EU referendum vote, the film was circulated on YouTube and other popular sources of media. Throughout Europe in 2016, there are various terrorist and violent incidents as well, listed are a few locations with deaths and injuries: Ankara (34,125), Brussels Airport, and Maalbeek metro station (32,316), Nenzing, Austria (2,11), Žitište, Serbia (5,22), and Munich (9,27) to name a few. The previous year’s Paris Attacks still remained in the minds of many as well, with suicide bombers targeting a football match, restaurants, and a connect at the Bataclan theater. There were over 416 known injures and 130 deaths, the attacks were the deadliest in France since the Second World War and the deadliest in the European Union since the Madrid train bombings of 2004, ISIL would claim responsibility. It is clear how the violence in the EU during the year paired with the EU referendum vote in the UK, and the arguments the film makes about violence on the rise in Europe endangering the UK. Thesis: The UK is being economically ruined by the EU on multiple fronts and dictates the average Briton’s life and decisions, the only way to escape the EU’s neurocritical political, economic, and societal control is to vote in the referendum for Brexit. Gist: This film, through lacking evidence and failed arguments, tries to make the argument to average UK citizens that the only chance to save the UK and their own autonomy in their lifetimes (and even their children’s) is to vote for Brexit. To build this argument, the film makes various arguments that are all failable and not even backed up by legit evidence in their own film. Additionally, there are clear trends of xenophobia against other member states and outside EU countries and British nationalism is apparent in many arguments. Telling Examples: 1) Finishing Grounds in the UK being “lost” and “powerless” to the EU, the film makes this argument using conditional evidence at the mouth of the Thames and the account of an older British fisherman. Throughout this segment, no real numbers of a decrease in fishing or EU control in the region are actually provided. Issues like these that relate to how things “used to be” before the EU took control of the UK is convening for rural populations who are usually older Britons that are more susceptible to arguments of the “good old days” 2) Scapegoating with Germany?, the film never really head-on addresses the idea that is unfair that the UK received less US funding through the Marshall Plan than West Germany, but they definitely allude to it. Then, they continue to build that argument that Germany had a deregulated and free-market and economy that allowed for more commerce and innovation than the UK’s market and economy. The unspoken argument that Germany was unfairly allowed to spring back from WWII because it was not being controlled by the bureaucracy was able to be a competitive market that grew with time, “powerhouse Germany” 3) Common Market/Jean Monnet, “was steeped in the French bureaucratic big state tradition”. The film argues that Jean Monnet in particular is to blame for the Common Market’s “failures” in all of Europe in the UK, it was so long “it took two strong men to carry it” into the debating chamber when signed. After the establishment of the Common Market, it reflected the opinions of the “university-educated, political elite”, this period led to an establishment of the EU’s bureaucracy and the control of the “little people’s lives” with higher monetary demands and power. 4) EU Regulations, the EU is “obsessed” with what member-states are doing, even in their personal lives, determining how and by whom Europeans can have their hair cuts by or where and what vacuums they can be. Regulations determine everyone’s lives in the EU because of its bureaucracy. They attempt to make this argument with the “average” European’s morning with the different rules and regulations around common items and surround “us like invisible barbed wire”. However, big corporate interests and elites love these regulations because they “destroy smaller businesses” and the average European. Lobbying in Brussels has bought off all of the policymakers to value the “big man” and “big cooperations”. 5) Racism and Xenophobia, the arguments with a Chinese enterprise, calling their markets and innovations “oriental charges” and poorly making the argument that because they use math and make products that are more advanced. The film argues that tariffs and EU regulations only push up prices on the UK’s own products, which even they themselves depict as worse in quality and lacking in innovation. Throughout the film too, there are very stereotypical depictions of other European countries, the French man in the same part of the film mentioned above is wearing a barret and is dressed like a mime, and of course is selling wine and cheese. These depictions of both new innovations from Asia and other European countries build into the film’s overall argument for Brexit, that new people and bureaucracy threatens the existence of the “traditional” Britain. The film plays off of the centuries-old conflicts and perceived recent “bad blood” between the UK and France and Germany as well. 6) A Rise in Political Extremism, the film argues that the EU has more far-right scares and forces than the UK has. There is a fear that the UK is not safe anymore in the EU, there are dangers where the UK could be dragged into nationalistic conflicts in the EU, and security is not guaranteed by the “unstable” union. I find these arguments again to be more disturbing given recent events, and the film completely ignores the increasing growth of the far-right in the UK, especially surrounding the vote for Brexit. Criticism: This movie is both hilarious in its ridiculous arguments and data-lacking lines of thought against the EU at the same time as being eerie, obviously propaganda like this film worked and led to a vote of 52% for leaving the EU in the referendum. As I have spoken of throughout this reading paper, tones of xenophobia and “Euroskepticism” are high, and the film has no boundaries of promoting misinformation and leaving out crucial information about the EU in order to build a fear-mongering argument of their perceived UK’s future with the EU. When watching this video on Youtube an ad popped up on the right of my screen to autoplay a video from Ben Shapiro titled “Biden Takes a Very Slow, Dishonest Victory Lap”. It’s clear how having watched this video indicated that I could be interested in other misinformation and even far-right content, an issue that is very much on the forefront of tech companies and the government in the United States today.