Monthly Archives: November 2018

The Disaster of Brexit

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EU original 2

Firstly let’s be sure what a no-deal Brexit means. Apart from the disastrous economic consequences it means the dissolution of the United Kingdom. We will break the Good Friday agreement in Ireland, and Scotland will justifiably vote for independence. Neither Scotland or Northern Ireland voted for Brexit and they will not accept it. The negotiated Brexit deal on offer from Theresa May leaves us in a worse position than our current membership, with no voice in Europe. We can see both Ireland and France from our own shores, yet now we are setting up trade barriers with them. Let us not forget that nearly half of our trade is with the EU. I have lived through a time when I could travel to the end of a continent through many, many countries, with no encumbrance. There has been the longest peacetime ever recorded in Western Europe, for which the EU received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. Historically that is glorious and unprecedented, and now we are about to throw it away. I personally regard this as a betrayal of all that my parents and grandparents fought for in the 20th Century, through two World Wars. Not surprisingly there is no support for Brexit in parliament, and ministers are leaving the government in droves as a result. Indeed, as Joe Johnson phrased it in his resignation speech, the present choice is “vassalage or chaos”. There will either be a general election or another referendum.

Meanwhile we have wasted two years of our political life squabbling, and the fifth (or ninth) largest economy in the world has made itself into a laughing stock. I said the day after the 2016 referendum that this is basically about the Tories fighting amongst themselves, they have torn their own party apart as they scrabble for power, and damn the consequences. Let us not forget it was the Tories who invented the referendum, believing it would solve their own internal problems. As of 16 November 2018 there are eighteen senior Conservatives who have resigned over Brexit in less than six months, including two Secretaries of State for Exiting the European Union. How can you run a government, never mind a country, in these circumstances? Our chief Brexit negotiator, Mr Rabb, has resigned since he cannot support the deal that he himself negotiated. A pretty pass, which I am sure will be paid for at the ballot box.

The 2016 referendum itself was a farce. It was essentially a protest vote, which was quite understandable in the circumstances. Yes, 37% of UK citizens voted against austerity, immigration and David Cameron, and for Brexit. The level of debate within the Remain campaign during the referendum was of a pathetic and hubristic nature, they thought they couldn’t lose. The ignominy of David Cameron wandering around Europe, looking for a better deal, followed by the betrayal of his self-serving lieutenant, Boris Johnson, were enough to swing the vote for Leave. The Electoral Reform Society described the campaign as “dire” with “glaring democratic deficiencies” which left voters bewildered. Let’s not forget, you could only vote for Tories!

A few days after the referendum I was in a minicab with an Irish driver. As we chatted, I asked about the vote in Northern Ireland and the potential problems with the Irish border. He sounded like a Brexiteer (naturally, as Brits, we didn’t actually say how voted), but he had no idea that the vote would have any effect on the border situation. I didn’t regard this as a reflection on my driver, but as a comment on the wholesale failure by the Remain campaign to raise the relevant issues. We now know how large their failure was, since this has proved to be an insoluble problem, yet at the time hardly anyone appeared to know about it. The pro leave Democratic Unionist Party of Ulster (who have kept Theresa May in power) didn’t appear to appear to realise a hard border would be created by Brexit. Now they have been hoist by their own petard.

My other major issue with the campaign and the media is a severe case of amnesia, if not dereliction of duty. We had already voted to stay in the European Community in 1975 by a huge majority. This verdict was given by a vote with a bigger majority than has been received by any Government in any general election, more than 2 to 1. Today all the politicians say they are fearful of a second referendum, no no no it will be the third referendum! We were asked in June 1975 “Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (the Common Market)?”. There was a resounding Yes! Yet it’s like this event happened in some alternate universe – no-one ever mentions it, but the fact is the current score is one all. Maybe it’s time for a decider.

Drapeau-europŽen-MEF-VA-003

Since 1973 we have been European, you can’t turn back time. In the long run the past never defeats the future. We came from Europe and shall forever be part of it.

Postscript 13 January 2019
It may turn out that Brexit was a chimera, that is according to the OED a “A thing which is hoped for but is illusory or impossible to achieve”. The Tories held an advisory referendum on a supposition they could not deliver. The Good Friday Agreement prevents a hard border in Ireland and so precludes the possibility of Brexit. If only our politicians had been wise enough to know that. After 2 years the Tories have failed to square that circle, and I imagine no-one ever will. Still if parliament unexpectedly agrees to Theresa May’s deal, we can look forward to another two years of bloody negotiation on the final trade arrangements. She has only agreed the framework withdrawal agreement at present, the rights of businesses and citizens remain largely untouched between Brexit day on March 29 2019 and 1 July 2020, which may be extended to January 2021. That is the transition period. Yes, Brexit aka “To hell with the rest of the world” has paralysed British politics. It is destroying British industry, investment and our place in the world, and will continue to do so. That’s some legacy for our children and the 1.3 million British Citizens living in the EU.

16 January 2019
Quotes from European newspapers after the the greater ever government defeat
“Shipwrecked by Brexit”
“It’s great theatre – but tragic.”
“A politically hopelessly divided and lame Britain”
“No country has landed itself in such complete and utter chaos”
“It’s the sort of mess Greece would get itself into.”
Quotes from The Guardian

And hopefully in conclusion:
Brexit is an advisory illegal chimera constructed by the Conservative Party to solve their own problems. They have failed.
We voted 2-1 to stay in the European Community in 1975 and it’s 44 Years too late to undo all that. We are Europeans.

6 February 2019
A special place in hell? The Brexit promoters most likely to burn.

3 September 2019
Tory Party becomes the Brexit Party, as Boris sacks all the Tories who will not back a no-deal Brexit. Tory Party now attempting to run the country without a majority and with an unelected leader. No-one ever voted for any of this.

9 September 2019
Leo Varadkar, Irish Prime Minister says:
“The story of Brexit will not end if the United Kingdom leaves on 31 October or even 31 January – there is no such thing as a clean break. No such thing as just getting it done. Rather, we just enter a new phase.
If there is no deal, I believe that’s possible, it will cause severe disruption for British and Irish people alike. We will have to get back to the negotiating table. When we do, the first and only items on the agenda will be citizens’ rights, the financial settlement and the Irish border. All the issues we had resolved in the withdrawal agreement we made with your predecessor. An agreement made in good faith by 28 governments.”

†

Update 1 June 2023
Unfortunately Brexit did get done, thanks Boris. It is finally officially a Disaster:

It’s been a complete disaster. The reality is it’s been a lose-lose situation for us and Europe. …. And the reality of Brexit was, it was just was a bunch of complete and total lies.
– Guy Hands, City figure and Tory donor, 31 Jan 2023  Radio 4 Today

Brexit has been a fucking absolute unmitigated disaster.
– Noel Gallagher, Big Issue 12 May 2023

Brexit has failed.
– Nigel Farage, Newsnight 15 May

Immigration has gone up, not down, since we left the EU.
The Guardian, 19 May

British households have paid £7bn since Brexit to cover the extra cost of trade barriers on food imports from the EU.
– London School of Economics (LSE), 24 May  The Guardian

56% people in the UK would vote to rejoin the EU.
John Curtice, Poll of polls  May 2023

Historic economic error.
– Larry Summers, former US treasury secretary,  1 June  The Guardian

There Were No Countries

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Without countries, the whole question of nationality dissolves. Nearly all countries have been invented in the last few hundred years. Germany and Italy only became nation states in 1871. The Act of Union creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was passed by Parliament in 1800. The United States of America was named in 1776, but only became the country we know today in the mid 19th century. If you look at France it is even stranger. From a series of completely separate fiefdoms with different languages, after the revolution of 1789 they gradually became a unified country, with one language mandated by 1880. This unification and language normalisation all took a long time. In the 1940s, more than one million people in France still spoke Breton as their first language. Until you all speak the same language, you really shouldn’t really be called a country. So France was hardly what we would now call a country until maybe the 1950s. The same goes for many other countries, excluding Belgium of course, which has three official languages in various dialects. Canada also has two official languages, French and English, yet it has managed to remain a unified country. This is a complicated subject.

Does a language define a country? Well maybe it should, for how else can you do it? Obviously where someone is born no longer defines nationality. It is a matter of chance, we could be born anywhere, and often are. Place of birth does have a bearing on our cultural beliefs and behaviour, but not in a readily definable way – it all depends on our personal history. The fact is that language is a primary factor, since the structure of language already contains a hidden and unconscious stack of social rules and behaviours. You only have to look at the structure of a particular language to see it echoed in actual social behaviour –  84% of Dutch people do not believe you are Dutch unless you speak Dutch. Language has become the defining cultural factor of what we call nationality.

Following this reasoning, in a world where English is now the first or second language for most people, the so called English aka American language is about to take over. Soon we will all be “English”. Mandarin Chinese may be spoken by more people, but it is not a numbers game, it is an influence game. Many African countries are now adopting English as their first language, for economic reasons. In the light of this information the United Kingdom’s departure from any influence over the European Community seems like a betrayal of historic partnerships. We have already won the battle of language, now we retreat? However, slowly, with many bumps in the road, we are all coming together, becoming one, like it or not. News, sport, music and cinema are already global concerns.

The evident craziness of the country concept becomes obvious at the level of sport. Now the passport of the sportsman is up for grabs, following rules which can change, and are different for each sport. Many English sport-stars were born in another country, became naturalised here, and became English. I’m referring to Johanna Konta from Australia, Mo Farah from Somalia, Linford Christie from Jamaica, for example. My mother was born in Indonesia and my uncle in Peking; they both represented Scotland at university level athletics. But of course now they could represent China, Scotland, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Borneo, England or nearly any other country in the world, depending on their residency history. Neither ancestors nor place of birth define your sporting nationality, there are choices to be made. So in the recent European Championships, Israel is represented by Lonah Chemtai Salpeter, a Kenyan runner who has lived in Israel for eight years, Turkey is represented by Jak Ali Harvey from Jamaica, who previously had run for Jamaica at high school level. Of course in football, with so much money running around, the rules are even more byzantine. That is presuming a footballer worth £10 million can get a visa.

Of course if you are rich enough, the world is your oyster. Indeed for the super rich there are still no countries, nationality is just another commodity. Citizenship can be bought in over 20 countries round the world. Even in the USA, so mindful of immigration, residence is awarded to foreign nationals who invest $1m in the economy and create 10 full-time jobs for US citizens within two years of arrival. If you want to live in Europe you can buy an EU passport in Malta for only 650,000 euros. In the UK may I suggest joining the Tier 1 Investor Programme with £2,000,000 in your pocket. Come on down, join our country!

The entire concept of nationality is built on a colonialist concept of the world. Borders were invented by Victorians drawing lines on a map, now we have to live with these arbitrary lines as if they were god-given. Of course they slice through many tribes and communities, which the Victorian map-makers often had no notion of. Only 70 years ago a line was drawn partitioning India into two countries, along religious lines, and over 14 million people were displaced. The most nefarious effects have been in Africa, leading to ongoing conflicts, most recently in Sudan, but their blight can also be vividly seen in the Middle East.

Cornell University – PJ Mode Collection of Persuasive Cartography.

We have to get over the idea of nationalism, it is meaningless. The recent DNA investigations of our genetic origins make a joke out of our petty racist behaviour. Apparently most English people came from first Northern Portugal, then Middle Europe,  Germany and Denmark. We have only been here for 6000 years and the Welsh have more right to be called English, if you follow the law of the soil argument,  than most people in Kent, who arrived from Europe more recently. Genetically speaking, Israelis and Palestinians cannot be separated, so why build a wall? We should look at nationality like supporting a football team, a completely arbitrary decision based on random cultural associations and proximity to the ground where the football is played.

It might seem as if I’m saying where you come from does not matter. It absolutely does, it defines our cultural and social identity – you might rise above it, so to speak, but you will never escape it. We are who we are, our identity cannot be subsumed. In our new modern world, our global village, the possibilities seem endless, but they are a chimera. We can’t all just go and live where we want, in our rapid transit world that is a recipe for chaos. Realistically, residency has to be a managed process, however hard that might be. We have yet to come to terms with this new reality, now that you can cross continents in a few hours. The situation where the best educated Asians and Africans came to live in the UK, to work in our National Health Service for example, should be coming to an end. They are needed in their own countries, where they can accomplish so much more. We should no longer be encouraging them to emigrate, but training them so they can return home and improve their own societies. We should all be encouraged to visit, just don’t miss the last bus home.

World government already exists, it’s called the UN, for better or worse. Since 1948 it subscribes to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is a cool document in over five hundred languages and it should be taught in all of our schools. The United Nations might still be structured in terms of countries, but the decisions they make are world decisions. That is the only way forward.

Originally stardust
Then bilateral
Now I am Human
I live on Earth, I am an Earthling
I came from Africa
I am a member of the United Nations
I am a European
I am at present a member of the European Union
I am a member of the currently privileged Western Elite
I am a Scotsman
I am a UK citizen
I have the right of abode in the United Kingdom
I was born in Romford, Essex
I may be Scenglish
I do not identify as English, except when England play football

My father was born in Dunfermline, Fife
My mother was born in Sumatra, Indonesia
My brother is a Kiwi
My sons are Jewish UK citizens, soon to become Germans

I am roughly 4% Neanderthal
Some Asians are a bit Denisovan
We are the sole survivors of the genus Homo
We are all Homo Sapiens

Forget Countries
We are the World

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