ONE of the problems of our age is that we exist in the permanent present. The malaise is new – it arrived with the screen in your pocket. Since 2010, when smart phones triumphed, the ability to think broadly and long-term seems to have gone the way of the telephone directory and shrunk to oblivion.

We aren’t making the connections that we should be making. We aren’t seeing how yesterday’s events caused the events of today, and how today will effect tomorrow. Instead, we exist in a constant crisis of the now, fixated on the atomised and petty rather than the canvas of moving history.

This isn’t a treatise on the evils of the mobile phone, but an attempt to explain one of the key facts we are failing to understand as we begin the most crucial year this country has faced since 1945. What we haven’t grasped is that Brexit has deep roots in the lies and bloodshed of the Iraq war. Brexit contains within it all the demons that were released by that very great sin.

Before the Iraq war, it was common to discuss apathy by the British public when it came to politics. People were bored, uninspired. After Iraq, apathy turned to disgust. The invasion was based on phoney claims cooked up by the Blair government, trailing after the Bush government. Saddam was meant to have weapons of mass destruction, and in the aftermath of September 11, he had to be removed. But there were no WMDs. It was all lies. Intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were pressured into massaging facts to build a case which could be sold to the public. The word could became would, perhaps and maybe became definitely.

This was a war on truth, and the manipulation of reality by scientists, analysts, politicians and media pundits eroded forever the belief that experts should be trusted. When it came to Brexit, Issac Newton could have come back from the dead to tell us that Brexit was a bad idea, but many would still not have listened because Iraq taught us that ‘elites’ lie.

The media also failed abysmally during the build up to the Iraq war – many newspapers, often the same newspapers cheerleading for Brexit today, weren’t just reporting as truth the lies of the Bush and Blair administrations, but amplifying them. There were infamous front pages warning that Brits were "45 minutes from doom". If Tony Blair is consigned to the history books with blood all over his hands, then many in the media should share his fate.

It is little wonder, then, that the refrain from Brexiteers, and many other socially insurgent groups such as Trump supporters, is one of hatred and distrust of the so-called MSM – the mainstream media. And so, we arrive at a place where the entire media is distrusted in the UK – where those who are telling the truth about the dangers of Brexit are no more trusted than an inveterate liar. It is a bad case of the boy who cried wolf – some sections of the British press have lied so much that, in many eyes, every newspaper and broadcaster is now suspect and not to be believed. And so truth stagnates.

But Iraq also summoned up the old demons of Empire. It was Britain’s last shudder of the imperial great game – it would be Blair’s Falklands. Instead it became a bloody intractable mess with no winners and everyone – especially the Iraqi people – losing. The conflict simultaneously reinvigorated imperialism while shattering it. It was a national humiliation, which brought into clear perspective that the UK was truly an American lap dog. Brexit is the psychodrama of empire – a drama which would not be on the stage without Iraq.

One million people took to the streets of Britain to say no to the war – and they were not heeded. Again, the lesson was that the 'elite’ will not listen, that your voice is meaningless – another mantra of the Brexiteer. In the run up to Iraq, Britain pulled towards America, while the big players in Europe opposed the war. You may recall the French portrayed as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". Another wedge between Britain and Europe.

Amid all this, a man took his life because of the war – Dr David Kelly, a weapons inspector caught in the middle of claim and counter-claim about WMD. An innocent man became collateral damage – and for many the Britain of Tories and Labour, the House of Commons and the committee system was now a bloody sham that needed to be changed forever.

Most political parties colluded in this corrosion of faith – creating in the minds of many a belief that only some sort of upheaval could change a rotten state of affairs. It’s interesting to note, however, that today’s main anti-Brexit parties were also the anti-war parties – LibDems, SNP, the Greens, and Plaid Cymru.

Iraq didn’t just create the national circumstances that helped bring us to Brexit – it created the international circumstances as well. While Blair’s government was telling us that toppling Saddam would stop terrorism, any idiot knew it would fuel terror. And so it did – from London to Glasgow to Manchester.

The Iraq war also led to mass migration of refugees. Iraqis fled the sectarian hellhole that their country had become thanks to British and American military endeavours. And the invasion of Iraq also set the stage for much of the Arab Spring and the revolution within Syria, which in turn led to refugees from across the Middle East seeking safety and shelter in Europe and the UK.

Terror and migration lay at the heart of the Brexit fantasy. Fear of the other was stoked as a means to win the referendum. We bombed people out of their own homes, demonised them for fleeing their country, and turned our backs as they begged for help.

The cancer of Iraq rotted Britain from the inside out. I don’t believe in karma, but you would be forgiven for thinking that Brexit is what we’re about to reap for the wickedness we sowed. This March won’t just be the month when Britain faces up to its choices outside Europe, it will also be the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. It’s unlikely many will remember that, though.