"Throughout this saga, the media has reported the smokescreen, not the manoeuvres."

I think that's the crux of the matter. Media has proven to be propaganda, whether intentional or not. Regardless of veracity, regardless of intent, if someone watches a news outlet say the same thing over and over, they start to believe it.

And since it not just a matter of intent, but also human neurology, you can't just say to the media, "Play nice." The media playing nice got us Brexit. Playing nice got us Trump.

The only way to "fix" this problem is the break the media's dependency on advertisement funding. Increasingly, news outlets take the easy story because it's fast (getting the article up earlier means more clicks) and engaging (emotional responses get longer reads and more clicks).

But make no mistake, objective truth was never the end goal of news outlets -- it has always been a marketing tool, a selling point to get more readers. What the media has found in the past decade or so is that the vast majority of readers just don't give a shit about veracity and nuance. They want the emotional response. So the media gives it to them, and gets those sweet advertisement dollars in return. And so truth falls by the wayside, and bad actors use the cover to push their own agendas like Brexit and Trump.

I always look forward to a Monbiot column. I think this probably is where the funds and impetus for the Leave campaign (a multi-decade effort) were seeking. News this week that we're 'looking again' at the working time directive is a harbinger of things to come.