In 1962, Thomas Kuhn published a book called, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he popularised the term “paradigm shift”. A paradigm is a coherent worldview, and a paradigm shift is an event that occurs when a particular view of the world is challenged and then, eventually, changed. A paradigm shift is not about “reform” of the existing system, but “fundamental change” to a new order of things. In other words, a revolution.

These thoughts mirror the premises of a recent blog post in which Pete North challenged his readers to “embrace uncertainty”.

The idea reflects Khun’s notion that knowledge and understanding do not advance via the progressive accumulation of accepted facts and theories, but from periods of revolution, during which “anomalies” are recognised and new paradigms are constructed. Uncertainty creates the opportunity to move the debate beyond the mere “puzzle-solving” activities of the previous generation, to change the entire game.

Leaving the EU presents Britain and the rest of the world with such an opportunity. The positive energy that would accompany Britain’s affirmation that independent self-government and equal co-operation will be the means through which our domestic and foreign affairs are to be ordered in the 21st century would provide a beacon to all of the nations and peoples of the world still struggling for the kinds of freedoms and representation that we so foolishly take for granted and for which we seem so reluctant to fight, even when “fighting” means writing a letter or a blog post or even just starting a conversation.

To see a group of establishment selfservatives attempting to choke off that possibility for hope and renewal is something far worse than a scandal. To see the legacy media ignore and misrepresent the struggle to prevent the “leave” campaign being used as a vehicle to further their own squalid little ends is a disgrace.

However, it is not for the Westminster bubble-dwellers and others who are trapped in an exhausted and soon to be extinguished paradigm that I write; it is for those who are capable of listening to, understanding and making use of new information. The journos have their narrative: the “eurosceptics” are “squabbling” or “in-fighting” or “bickering”, as usual. What our media does not understand is that there is a point of principle at stake. A very important point of principle.

Vote Leave is not campaigning for Britain to leave the EU.

I am aware that must sound strange. But the assertion is based wholly on statements made by Vote Leave spokespersons, all of which are publicly available and readily verifiable.

The group is campaigning only for a “vote to leave” which the Tory Party can then use as a means to secure “proper concessions” and “associate membership” in a two-tier EU. Those are the words of Vote Leave Director, Daniel Hannan MEP, spoken plainly and matter of factly during an interview with Andrew Neil on the BBC Daily Politics programme. And, just this evening, The Telegraph published an article by Vote Leave adjunct Allister Heath in which he urges Tory politicians to support the “leave” proposition on the basis that: “you really can back Leave even if your real aim is to negotiate a much looser relationship rather than secede fully.”

It is as simple and as profound as that. Vote Leave is not campaigning for Britain to leave the EU—and in what will be a hard fought campaign in which kind, warm-hearted and generous people will expend their time, their energy and their money to support a cause in which they truly believe, the continuance of The Great Deception is something that should not be allowed to stand and must be challenged.