After Blasting News revealed the extent to which the EU controls people's lives in a previous article, I can speak from my personal experience at school and university that they do deploy education as a weapon to increase support for the European project.
"I was aware of my country's past and proud of it"
I have been interested in politics since 9/11. I was 11 then. I became passionate about history and politics at an early age as a result of that event. After September 11th, I was hooked to the news and history books. I was, and still am, interested in British history, particularly the Second World War.
By the time I was 12, I knew more about the formation of the UK than the majority of my classmates. I read This Sceptred Isle by Christopher Lee at 13, which provides readers with an overview of British history. I was aware of my country's past and proud of it. And that is why, despite the amount of brainwashing the educational institutions I attended attempted to inflict on me, I quickly saw through what the European Union was doing.
My one school was plastered with the same EU poster, which had a caterpillar holding the flags of different European countries that were members of the trading bloc back in 2003. I was taught in geography that the UK had to join the EU because Britain's trade with the rest of the world was declining.
Years later, I learnt that we used to import cheap Commonwealth food and our economic growth rate stood at 7 per cent before we joined the Common Market in 1973. What I was taught in geography was a lie. I was informed that the European Union was a positive project designed to keep Europe at peace. I was lambasted with a 'European Week' and a 'European Languages Day', which gave my schools excuses to plaster their buildings with EU flags.
If this kind of brainwashing happened in all schools during the 1990s and 2000s, like it did at mine, it is no wonder over 70 per cent of Generation Y voted to remain in the trading bloc on June 23rd 2016.
"One tutor marked me down in an essay for arguing the EU has a democratic deficit"
By the time I arrived at university in 2009, I was already a Conservative Party member and a Eurosceptic.
I was mocked by a fellow student on Facebook for suggesting Britain should leave the EU if the Lisbon Treaty materialised into something more than a political project, being called 'Dick Griffin' on one Facebook photo (in reference to the then BNP leader). I was made to feel ashamed for being Eurosceptic. On top of that, my one tutor marked me down in an essay for arguing the EU has a democratic deficit.
These experiences only made me more determined to argue that the EU is flawed. During my A-Levels, I was taught Britain would struggle to strike trade deals if it left the trading bloc, or lose influence over deteriorating situations at the time, like in Iran. When David Cameron was Conservative leader at the time I joined the party in 2007, I believed this was the man who could truly reform the UK's place in the EU.
I was mistaken. What I learnt during my A-Levels was false. The EU is the biggest barrier to this country striking trade deals and becoming wealthier, but I did not know this because schools do not educate students about the Common Commercial Policy, which robbed nations of their sovereignty in negotiating trade agreements. And no British prime minister can ever reform the EU, as the Greek financial crisis taught us.
I am proud of my journey from a young Eurosceptic to a Brexiteer. The more I learn about the EU, the more grateful I am I voted and campaigned for Brexit. My biggest regret is not realising I was being brainwashed at school sooner.
