The Language of Dictatorship

Overheard yesterday morning:

Chairman: "Someone I was speaking to yesterday used the term senile dementia. You don't hear the word senile in front of dementia anymore. Now who was it who mentioned it?"

Hay: "It was Len - I think you've got it!"

Later:

Hay: "Veronica is looking for a handyman."

Chairman: "I can do that."

Hay: "Someone competent."

Chairman:  "Not me then?"

I was listening to Iain Duncan-Smith on radio 4 yesterday morning and was interested in his use of words. The EU was constantly referred in a manner that indicated we'd had no input whatsoever over the last 40 years. The word dictate was used in regards to EU rules - again, as it we had no influence over their creation. or voted for them through our elected representatives.

The Brexiteer lexicon is framed by the repeated accusation of the EU being a dictatorship. When I challenge people to provide an explanation, they fail miserably. Some people need to look up in a dictionary the meaning of the word - a country, government, or the form of government in which absolute power is exercised by a dictator, a dictator being a person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession. There is no way the EU, which is comprised of 28 member countries, each with elected representatives, is a dictatorship.

This use of inflammatory language is deeply worrying, especially when Uber Brexiteers call legitimate opposition traitorous; call an independent judiciary traitorous; call the House of Lords traitorous.

Look up "EU Dictatorship" on Google images and it's evident that Brexiteers can't seem to make their minds up as to whether the EU is a right or left wing dictatorship, which in itself is telling.