Leave and get set for 'isolationism'

As leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), xenophobia enthusiast Nigel Farage is the figurehead of the Leave campaign, urging Britain to rescind its 43-year membership of the European Union in today's referendum on the matter.
Immigration into the UK, or the halting thereof, is the single policy upon which he draws the majority of support - uniting bigots, racists and Little Englanders in a collective frenzy of small-mindedness that is willingly splashed across the right-wing press almost daily. Lazy, unsubstantiated promises of remedying the strain on public services and job creation are an attempt to hang a legitimate facade on the obvious poisonous undertone. Ironically Farage's wife is German, which surely enforces the notion that, on the whole, immigrants will only do the jobs the British don't want.
Farage's bombastic rhetoric has epitomised the Leave camp's insidious operation of misinformation that has dogged this hateful business since the referendum was announced in May of last year. At its most harmless, the practice has led to the rewriting of Winston Churchill's views on Europe and at its worst, murder.
A 'quote' purportedly taken from a speech from the wartime prime minister to parliament in 1953 ending with: "If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea," was lapped up by supporters of the British exit (Brexit) despite the fact it was a fabrication. Former mayor of London Boris Johnson's claim that the UK pays out £350 million every week to the Union was quickly revealed to be a lie. The figure is closer to £190 million, which is still a vast sum, but as a proportion of gross domestic product and trade benefits including access to the open market make it a sound investment. And then we come to Farage himself who just last week unveiled a poster, reminiscent of Nazi propaganda, showing a line of refugees travelling across the countryside under the headline 'Breaking Point. - The EU Has Failed Us.'
Specifically designed to draw on a fear of "the other", the poster was a lesson in attempted base manipulation and utter disregard for taste and decency. On the same day as its launch, Labour MP and refugee activist Jo Cox was fatally shot and stabbed in her constituency by a 52-year old white nationalist. The killer, Thomas Mair, when asked to identify himself in court, stated: "My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain."
There are countless reasons why a bleak future awaits the UK if the nation votes to go it alone, but perhaps none more terrifying than the notion that state-sanctioned isolationism, as a result of state-encouraged fear and hatred, will have prevailed.