Liberal opponents of Brexit are fond of listing all the falsehoods that were propagated by its supporters a decade ago. Prominent champions of the Leave campaign such as Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage certainly deserve all of the scornful criticism that’s been flung in their direction for a record of serial dishonesty. But they’re not the only ones who have presented a false image of the European Union over the last decade.

The 2016 referendum helped enshrine in British political debate a misleading view of how the EU actually works. For their own separate reasons, supporters and opponents of Brexit have both presented the EU as if it were a bastion of liberal, progressive values with a welcoming stance toward immigrants and refugees. They have tacitly colluded in diverting our attention from what has really been happening on the other side of the English Channel over the last decade.

The progressive image of the EU was already deceptive back in 2016 — after all, the referendum came less than a year after the brutal beating administered to the Greek government for daring to challenge the Troika’s austerity regime. But since then, the gap between British rhetoric and European reality has widened into a chasm. Many of the positions linked to the pro-Brexit right in Britain are now deeply entrenched at the heart of the EU itself.