I’ve long been puzzled as to why so many people want their country to be run by some other country. Is this peculiarly British or is the same feeling to be found in some other countries?

During my lifetime, I’ve seen the attraction to domination under the empires of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and now the European Union. Although their political ideas were and are very different, they tend to attract the same sort of people – mainly the ‘better educated’ middle class academics and professionals. It is a puzzle.

 Although I cannot claim to have a complete answer, it does seem to me that we must discount ‘intellectual’ arguments. As students of human nature will tell you, these are dreamed-up to conceal the underlying emotions which drive us but are not seen as ‘respectable’.  This leaves us with the conclusion that the drive for domination by others is a human instinct related to our deepest pack instincts.

 On top of these instincts, the brain is programmed with dependency as a necessary survival strategy during the long period from birth to maturity. It is now accepted by most biologists that the human brain takes 20 or more years to become fully developed.

In preparation for the ‘final’ adult state, there is a rebel period during our teens. This is when we want to break away from our parents but feel their loss at the same time.  We attempt to fill the void by joining forces with our peers, especially those with strong leaders like those found in gangs. During this rebel period, we drift away from those religious or political beliefs which are associated with authority.

Academics and politicians foster these feelings by proposing alternative theologies. Stalin and Hitler made use of these teenage feelings to give them, simultaneously, leaders to act as surrogate parents and philosophies aimed at destroying the existing society. To complete the process, they presented written works to provide the intellectual backing for their ideas:  Capital by Karl Marx and Mein Kampf  (My struggle) by Adolf Hitler. In this way, a philosophy becomes a new father.

This brainwashing process continues today in the universities where a majority of middle-class children are still in their rebel stages of development. You have only to study the reading lists for subjects such as Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) to note the predominance of Marxist literature and the paucity of other viewpoints.

As one PPE graduate said to me: “You cannot be intellectual and right wing.” On questioning, he admitted never having read Adam Smith, Ludwig van Mises nor any other of the champions of liberty.

One plank of left-wing philosophy in the universities is promotion of ‘one world’ government - globalism. This was heavily promoted by the Soviet Union under the title of ‘Mir’. This translated as Peace – but was defined as the peace which would come about when the whole world was communist.  

But there is a problem for Marxists and their vision. They know from experience that ordinary people do not want the brave new world they propose or, if it does come about, as in Venezuela, the people soon become disenchanted and vote with their feet.

They therefore promote disdain for ordinary people and the democratic process. In the EU, for example, they disparage democracy by calling it ‘populism’ - as if it’s some undesirable disease.

The Brexiteer and historian Robert Tombs said his academic group called Briefings for Brexit has unearthed evidence that those protesting most vehemently over Britain’s EU referendum result have nothing but scorn for the nation’s largely white working class, and the fact their decision has so clearly shaped the future of the country.  

Mr Tombs says Remainers are motivated by “identity politics” and associate Brexit with the working class and are arrogantly taking their fury out on Leave campaigners. They simply cannot get over the fact that those deemed insignificant by comparison have carved out the UK’s future without them.

All this helps to explain why most Remainers are the product of our universities. They are not the best educated but the most thoroughly brainwashed.

The great sadness in all this is that young people are denied the right to become properly educated, fully-fledged adults with their own convictions – rather than those imposed on them by indoctrination and selective reading.

This process of indoctrination starts early, in our schools. For example, young GCSE English students have to study the novel ‘An Inspector calls’ by J B Priestley. It’s a fine novel and I do not disparage it. But there’s no getting away from its political message that the innocent working class are the victims of unthinking capitalists.

How much better if students in the same year also had to study Animal Farm by George Orwell. This gives the other side of the coin by pointing out the dangers of power in the hands of immoral communists. Students reading both books would learn to make up their own minds. This would be true education.

If the policy were to continue through into university, there would be fewer ‘useful idiots’ and far more educated democrats. I live in hope!

Norman Taylor, 24 December 2018