The charming woman next to me on the plane back from Kalamata was a Greek living in Cardiff. She said that she was frightened. So were her friends: Italians, Poles and other bubbles living in Britain. How could they plan for the future when it looked as if they would be booted out post Brexit?
I asked: Who said this was going to happen? Which of the leaders of the vote leave campaign: Boris, Gove, Priti Patel, Nigel Farage, Carswell, Gisela Stuart, who? She did not know but she said that on social media it was everywhere. My wife reports that our Greek friends in Bristol have the same worry and their fears are intensified every time they meet the lefty friends of the Mrs who insist, incorrectly, that Brexit was driven purely by Xenophobia and racism.
The truth is that no Brexit campaigner, not even nasty Nigel Farage, said anything about repatriating EU migrants who were already resident in Britain. They arrived legally and that is the end of the matter. Indeed Brexit campaigners stressed that there would be not a single expulsion of such folk.
But that does not matter to those in Project Fear. They lied ahead of June 23 and they continue to lie. At every chance the smear the 52% of us who voted for Independence day as racist little Englanders and they smear our leaders as bigots as they try to thwart democracy by making us all vote again by pretending the last vote was somehow dirty.
Those folks on the liberal left who claim the moral high ground need to realise that what they are doing is spreading fear and panic amongst those they claim to support, EU Nationals who are residents in this country, immigrants. The sanctimonious left are telling lies as part of a cynical campaign and causing misery and fear among, often vulnerable folks, as a result.
They should be ashamed and desist. But they will not because they are always correct and holier than now and anyone who disagrees with them is simply a wicked right wing neanderthal. As such there can be no discussion of facts. Here endeth the lesson from the book of Toynbee.