Turkey Is Joining The EU - NOT

Turkey, we were assured by the Vote Leave campaign in the run-up to the referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, was "set to join" the European club. Leaflets were sent out telling voters that the country had a population of 76 million, and although it was not stated explicitly by that group, we were left in doubt that most of those were Scary Muslims (tm). As an added incentive to put their crosses in the Leave box, Vote Leave pointed out that Iraq and Syria shared a border with Turkey.

This carefully nurtured conceit was pushed incessantly, and especially when conflicts across the Middle East and the associated refugee crisis, were in the news. 76 million Muslim Turks, and they were all coming Over Here. The borders were about to be opened to them. This act of persuasion undoubtedly swayed some undecided voters.

And it was utter bullshit, as events overnight in Turkey have demonstrated. A military coup was attempted in the country yesterday, and although this now appears to have been unsuccessful, it is blindingly obvious to all who observed the night's events that the country is nowhere near the level of stability and normality that would be a prerequisite for even being considered for EU membership.

There may be those whose creative reinterpretation of what has happened in Turkey tries to suggest that the country will remain on track to join the EU, even with the demonstration of instability and its causes - the increasingly authoritarian rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the fraying of modern Turkey's secular fabric - left unaddressed. They are plain flat wrong.

It is true that countries which were, in living memory, ruled by authoritarian regimes, have now joined the EU. But the order in which events unfolded should prove instructive: the Greek colonels, the Falangist dictatorship in Spain, and the Estado Novo in Portugal had all been consigned to history and democracy established - Spain additionally showing that the military had been put back in its political box - before those countries were accepted into the European club.

No, what was demonstrated last night was that while Turkey is a vital partner of the EU, especially in helping with the refugee crisis and providing that buffer against a currently unstable clutch of Middle Eastern states, it is so far from satisfying the accession requirements for the EU as to make that possibility so distant that it need not concern us during this decade, the next, or indeed the one after that.

The events of the past 24 hours have merely confirmed that Vote Leave, as with their fraudulent "£350 million a week" claim, and the woefully simplistic talk of instant post-EU trade deals, have conned the electorate once again. Worse, the print and broadcast media have shamefully allowed that con trick to be performed by failing to hold those making the claims to account.

Turkey is not "set to join the EU". Another Vote Leave pack of lies is duly busted. When will the penny drop, media people?