I’m worried, are you worried! Not about what the vote will be (actually I am quite worried about that, however that is the subject of an upcoming blog.)

I am worried about the paucity of intelligible argument from either side of this debate. I am worried about how easily smart people are being confused.

I am worried by the stench of racism from the right wing that is emerging under the barely plausible cover of immigration.

I am worried about that fact that whilst we are distracted by this insane and poorly held discussion that something terrible is happening in our country.

Neither side seems to be able to make a plausible argument that convinces anyone, this has become the usual fare of nonsense served up by politicians. So it’s left to ordinary folk to try and make the case from their personal experience. Some of the most compelling pieces on the EU Referendum ( I refuse to call it Brexit – because it’s not a Brexit ) have been on Facebook from my friends or their friends speaking from genuine experience, doing actual research and sharing the links so people can go further.

My 14 year old daughter is constantly discussing it, she is concerned that a decision is going to be made by poorly informed people that will be long gone by the time she has to face the consequences.

This is big, we can wait out an appalling government and frankly we can stop most things regardless of how apathetic we are as a nation ( I accept we couldn’t stop a war but let’s not get involved in that madness ). But we are going to find it increasingly difficult to leave or remain again anytime soon.

This decision is far more important than a general election, as it stays with us for longer and yet we find ourselves with a lower standard of debate than we have ever seen. Everything is denied by each side and leaves those without access to information in a no man’s land of information. All that is left is for people to go with emotion as they roll the dice for the future.

Why people can’t find information out for themselves is beyond me, humans increasingly resemble the sad remaining humans from Wall-e who have lost the ability to do anything for themselves, their huge carcasses carried around on chairs that float above the ground unable to perform even the simplest of tasks.

The only choice left to people who refuse to understand any actual information, is to believe the current crop of politicians we have at our disposal. So who do we believe the preening bloated prime minister, Dave, or the smartest boy in his class at Eton, the buffoon and closet future prime minster, Boris, off of the telly. I am truly saddened.

What this means is that we are left with emotive decision making at a time when we need people to think clearly. This should be a debate about our economic prosperity and the future prosperity of our children. A debate for the shape of our continental future. Instead it has become about “Claiming back our country”, as if in someone there are only 2 choices for the outcome of our future. This is a choice but how we go about will define us, and that is the piece that no one is thinking through.

We are seeing some interesting strains emerging in our culture. I’m being overly polite, we are seeing the reemergence of racism. Just to be clear it never went away, I’ve watched it carefully sliding into nooks and crannies of conversations, people keeping to the safe slating of the French etc. But it’s been there the whole time, and now people have the cover of immigration and terrorism to conveniently hide behind. But let’s be clear this is racism. The poster of the deplorable Farage, smiling, showing everyone that people are queuing up to get into Britain says it all. There aren’t any German, Spanish, Italian or the much maligned Polish, or other counties represented in the faces of those in the queue. No these faces are brown and clearly the “bad” kind. Just in case you were in any doubt that who we are trying to get our country back from.

How is it even possible to have this poster? Racist, racist, racist.

So we vote on Wednesday, full of emotion unable to discern fact from lies, unable to see the wood for the trees, unable to make intelligent decisions, exactly where the wealthy and the politicians want us.

Meanwhile whilst we are all distracted the government have passed the Investigatory powers bill, it has another turn through the Lords, but it is a frightening law. See more below, but in summary it enables the following.

Investigatory Powers Bill  (<<< this is a link)

1. When the bill was first proposed Clause 71 led the news agenda. This requires web and phone companies (CSPs) to store records of websites visited by every citizen for 12 months for access by police, security services and other public bodies.
2. In practice this would take the form of an itemised list of each citizen’s browsing history. This would not be a list of the specific web pages but the main domain (so computerworlduk.com but not the specific stories you read) so a basic online footprint can be drawn up. One concern here will be around the security of this data, especially in the current climate of TalkTalk customer hacks and data dumps.
3. The bill seeks to make the power for security services to acquire bulk collections of communications data explicitly legal. For example this could mean a bulk data set such as NHS health records.
4. Security services will also be legally empowered to bug computers and phones upon approval of a warrant. Companies will be legally obliged to assist these operations and bypass encryption where possible 
5. The science and technology joint committee report tackles the possibility of public concern over the power to hack devices, stating: “The tech industry has legitimate concerns about the reaction of their customers to the possibility that electronic devices could be hacked by the security services,” before stating that the government has a responsibility to inform the public about the extent to which this power may be used.
6. Oversight for these operations will change, with a new “double-lock” where any intercept warrants will need ministerial authorisation before being judged by a panel of judges, who will be given power of veto. This panel will be overseen by a single senior judge, the newly created Investigatory Powers Commissioner.

So basically whilst we have been looking the other way, we are moving a little closer to the government being able to read our emails and web history.

I am worried, but then I’m always worried.