BRITAIN... UNDER MOBSTER RULE?

Roberto Saviano - a man who recognises true "corruption"

World-renowned expert on the Italian mafia, Roberto Saviano, has called the UK the most corrupt country in the world, and stated Brexit may make the situation "even more disastrous."

No shit.

Even so, half the British public are currently stumbling blindly into disaster, calling for the UK to be handed over to Eton's equivalent of The Krays. It's the one bit that no one seems to be discussing or acknowledging as a problem, though it quite literally terrifies me. I for one believe the EU could be the last line of defence for rights and civil liberty in this country.

If Brexit goes ahead, by the time the British public realise the enormity of what they've done, it will be too late. The UK will become little more than an isolated capitalist dictatorship; an overcrowded island of suppressed, insular and ill-informed people not able to travel freely within Europe or reside outside the UK without formal permission. An island at the mercy of Rupert Murdoch's propaganda machine and Theresa May's "Snooper's Charter", with no outside authority at all. Quite simply, no one to appeal to.

An island with very few resources, just privatised (sold-off) assets and celebrity culture, dependent solely on finance - on low-paid workers, foreign investment and military industrialism. Any fiscal savings from Brexit would be negated by a highly insecure geopolitical marketplace, and any such savings would never ever make their way into the taxpayer's purse any way! They'd line the pockets of the rich, like everything else. But perhaps more important than anything is that we'd become an island on the doorstep of countless foreign neighbours who'd despise us, and unilaterally punish our economy any way they could. Make no mistake about that.

However much out-campaigners try to frighten us with tales of Albanians and Turks arriving by the train-load, the UK is not part of the Schengen "free-movement" zone of mainland Europe. The UK is in fact able to control its borders better than any other leading EU nation, and is one of the richest to boot. If we proclaim to the world that our xenophobia and suspicion of foreign neighbours has won the day, even in spite of preferential treatment, it makes a very deliberate and irreversible statement that I doubt shall go down well on the continent at all.

Take a second to actually envisage what environment that could hypothetically create for the next generation of this country?

Europe has been at peace for less than a hundred years: a drop in the ocean of European history. So as much as Brexiteers try to belittle the suggestion as sensationalism, if we cause a domino effect that destroys this European Union, there will inevitably come a fallout, and very possibly a reckoning too. If on the other hand the EU doesn't fall apart, instead we've actively created the German led super-state that Winston Churchill/Tony Benn/Margaret Thatcher etc feared so much in the first place! And instead of having a voice and a seat at the table, we'll have upended that seat in a childish, arrogant tantrum of nationalistic superiority.

Like it or not, any student of history would probably admit that's exactly the sort of geopolitical event that can one day lead to armed tensions and conflict. Only this time, Britain has no empire/colonies to balance the scales: just a really low rate of corporation tax (that invites wolves from every nation to the door).

"If Brexit goes ahead, by the time the British public realise the enormity of what they've done, it will be too late."

To my friends who currently support a Brexit, if any of you are reading this, I understand your grievances, and even agree with some of them. I really do. It is not an easy choice we must make, but perhaps it is unfortunately a case of choosing the lesser of two evils. Lamenting that we should never have entered in the first place is categorically not the same as walking out, potentially toppling the economies and relations of countless other nations in the process.

Please look beyond the issues of immigration, the smokescreen of supposedly weakened British sovereignty (nonsense), and the jumbled incoherent figures constantly thrown about by both sides. Instead, start to consider the long-term geopolitical and social implications of an isolated Britain under Tory rule: a Britain none of us would be able to escape from, or appeal against. A Britain tied economically to either America, China, India or Russia by default, surrounded by European nations who'd hate us. Is that really what you'd prefer, Britain? Because from where I'm sitting, it doesn't seem a very smart move for our economy, or our security.