Shahmir Sanni: we must face the rotten societal issues of Brexit Britain

We are leaving the European Union today, based on a vote cast by the British public three years ago, in June 2016. It is Britain’s ‘greatest democratic exercise’. Cerebral questions of ‘how we got to this point’ are answered with the all-too simple retort – ‘a democratic vote’. Though people are divided and angry, we say, ‘trust in the democratic process’, that ‘we’ve got to accept that this is democracy in action’. The most common justification for all the drama both Leavers and Remainers have faced over the last few years has been that ‘this is democracy’. And this has been made clear after the referendum, not just by the Leave camp, but by Remain too.

But herein lies the problem. 

Democratic votes and exercises rely entirely on free, fair, and factual elections and referendums… Brexit was anything but. The referendum was not a democratic exercise. It was a crime scene. When we came forward with evidence that proved Vote Leave’s guilt, that they had cheated during the referendum to beat spending limits and win, we were thrown into one of the most serious cover ups this country has seen in a long time. I believe the BBC coordinated with Vote Leave staff to platform the leaders of a criminal campaign, and subsequently spread disinformation about the evidence and myself. Downing Street said that I only came forward to get back at my ex-boyfriend in an official statement (I was outed in the process) and several of the most famous journalists and politicians in the UK actively coordinated and worked with the people involved in the electoral crimes. Dominic Cummings as a result was held in contempt of Parliament, but is now the senior advisor to Boris Johnson. The man that outed me was given a peerage and became a Lord, and some of the most powerful people in this country that came after journalist Carole Cadwalladr, Christopher Wylie, and myself still continue to disseminate lies and disinformation through dozens of publications and broadcasters knowing full well their involvement in the perversion of democracy.

“This country’s institutions are so morally bankrupt that no matter what we said or did, they would see the perversion of democracy, lies, and deceit as merely politics” – Shahmir Sanni

We became stuck in the middle of a cluster-fuck of political hacks that were trying to politicise the revelations in a way that would push their own agendas further: on the Leave side, they touted me as an example of how far the ‘rich Jew’ George Soros was willing to go by funding a ‘Remainer plant’ in the Vote Leave office. Then, on the Remain side, the evidence was being used as just another week’s worth of ammo to fight the Leave establishment and the government. Ultimately, the gravity and scale of corruption that we exposed with Carole Cadwalladr and Christopher Wylie was turned into nothing more than a ‘lovers spat’, and at most an ‘unfortunate ticking of the wrong box’. This moment should’ve been seen as the single gravest obstruction of justice and electoral law-breaking this country has ever seen in our election process. 

So, you might be asking: does this mean that this whole time we’ve been fighting over something that should’ve been stopped years ago and rerun? Quite simply, yes. The political will just wasn’t there to accept that corruption was rife, and the entire political establishment – including Labour, the Lib Dems, and the Greens – just weren’t willing to take the same risks that myself and other whistleblowers took to expose the sheer disgusting things the Conservatives were willing to do to achieve their ambitions. It was almost blasphemous. If any other country were to have the Prime Minister involved in a campaign that broke the law and then knowingly tried to cover it up, we in Britain would publicly shame them – claim they were traitors of democracy. But when it happens on our own soil, why do we not approach it in the same way? 

“The great battle from today onward is not to fight Boris Johnson, but to unify and unlearn what we have all as Britons been conditioned to unquestionably believe: that Britain is a democratic nation” – Shahmir Sanni

It’s because of privilege. Cognitive dissonance. A deep lack of self-awareness. This country’s institutions are so morally bankrupt that no matter what we said or did, they would see the perversion of democracy, lies, and deceit as merely politics. And that was where many of us realised we could never win – because the other side was never playing the same field, they were somewhere entirely different, devoid of any truth and reliance on ethics. This is what Steve Bannon’s culture war wills and desires, to set the precedent for the media and public to accept and normalise deceit, lies, and mistruths – in Britain’s case, even criminality – to the point where every single voice that speaks up against corruption and deceit is labelled a ‘cuck’, ‘woke’, ‘PC patrol’, or even just a bitter Remainer. 

Across the Atlantic, the progressives are faced with the exact same problem. There is no one solution, and I don’t believe that anyone has the answers yet. But from my experience in the world of Vote Leave and outside of it, I can say that if Britain does not accept the very fundamental fact that democracy in itself has been perverted, then we cannot deal with the politics, economics, and social issues of Brexit Britain. If we do not acknowledge that white supremacy is the norm, that racism is justified, and that most of this country does not care about racism, sexism, or homophobia, then we can’t tackle the structural and institutional problems of this country. The great battle from today onward is not to fight Boris Johnson, but to unify and unlearn what we have all as Britons been conditioned to unquestionably believe: that Britain is a democratic nation. Once we do that, we can take action against men like Johnson and his goons who willingly pervert the democratic process, and have them out of our politics for good.