The Cabinet Meeting at Chequers, Friday 6 July 2018
[ RIP D Davis and B Johnson ]
When faced with the problem of Brexit,
May gets out her muscle to flex it.
Dave leaves in a huff;
"Enough is enough"
Says Boris, "I'm Churchill" and wrecks it.
I wonder if older readers remember where you were ..... no, not when Kennedy was assassinated or England won the 1966 World Cup ..... but when you first became aware of the existence of Welwyn Garden City. I recall it clearly; until the mid 1950s breakfast was all about cornflakes, with porridge making the occasional appearance, then suddenly, wartime rationing and austerity over, we are excited and disappointed in quick order by the arrival of the cardboard hump that was Shredded Wheat and the soggy mass that was Weetabix. I was so incensed by the former that, for the first and last time in my life, I studied the text on a cereal packet. Learning that it was produced in Welwyn Garden City. I vowed instantly never to go near so dull a place and subsequent visits to that fellow beacon of new townships, Milton Keynes, provide ample evidence that I was correct.
I mention this because, when I first heard reference to ' Brexit ', I assumed it was a verbal amalgam of ' breakfast ' and ' Weetabix ', yet another cereal to illuminate the Tesco shelves. Conscious also of Exlax chocolate, that once favoured cure for inaction in the human waste department [ the gentle alternative to Senokot ], I was horrified to discover that this was in fact the chosen term for our leaving the European Union. How undignified, how infantile and how naff, I thought.
I then realised also that this title was extremely ill-suited for the purpose intended. If BREXIT means Britain exiting the European Union, we should remind ourselves that Britain [ or more properly Great Britain ] comprises England, Scotland and Wales [ plus adjacent islands ] but does not include Northern Ireland, which is nevertheless part of the United Kingdom. So with perspicacious irony the province of NI was omitted even from the title of this pantomime process and it clearly then disappeared from the public consciousness. Ulster rises now, as it has done so often before, to bite us.
So Brexit is a silly name and a misnomer; if only the powers that be had chosen a title and an acronym which commanded interest and respect. My preference would be for DUKE, the Departure of the United Kingdom from Europe.
Never mind, you may say; we can live with silly, irrelevant titles; it's the vote that counts. But a vote in what context? We live in a parliamentary democracy; we vote for individuals we respect, representing a party with which we are in tune, and we entrust to them the responsibility for making decisions and laws on our behalf. The more significant and complex the topic, the more it should be left to them; they know or can inform themselves of the challenging issues. We really haven't a clue unless we are to study the subject and take a test on it as a qualification for earning a vote but the franchise resting with the intelligentsia is probably a trifle dubious in 2018! Otherwise, however, human nature may find us voting on a whim for single issues. You can give it the social media Love Island treatment; you can dish out a bloody nose because you are fed up with austerity, elitism or the weather; you can vote for the enchantingly absurd -- the Boaty McBoat Face syndrome.
And if we can decide on Europe, why can't we have plebiscites on more straightforward issues such as capital punishment and badger culling? Perhaps we should not be so keen; knowing the inimitable British enthusiasm to despise each other while empathising lovingly with the animal kingdom, every badger in or on God's earth would be spared, while all human miscreants guilty of stealing a goat would be dispatched to the gallows.
There is no doubt that this referendum, always more to do with purging the sins and stains of the Conservative party than resolving matters of Britain's place in the world, has had an unforeseen consequence of a much less desirable kind. With the Leave campaign's fiery and persistent emphasis on controlling borders and restricting movement, dark forces of suspicion, intolerance and racial hatred have been unleashed -- a xenophobia fostered by a populist nationalism which sings Rule Britannia with arrogance and venom as encouragement for the long disappeared empire to strike back. Some might say this constitutes a gross attack on the core of British values -- the toleration of others and the appreciation of difference.
We should remember too that those in the Leave campaign, who promised boundless acres of greener grass with rivers of milk and honey flowing through these Elysian Fields, have in all probability, with their slogans and stigma, led honest people to the very opposite of the promised land. If you're called Boris or Jacob, are worth many millions of pounds, spreading your favours between your London apartment and your home counties mansion, the loss of 10% of your wealth will hardly touch you. To forfeit that same proportion if you are on the breadline in Stockton on Tees may mean penury and a shorter life.
The previously revered but now dismissively reviled Church of England sometimes gets things right. In its governing body, the Synod, if a major decision affecting the status quo is to be taken [ eg women bishops or gay priests ], it has to be passed by a two-thirds majority of each of the three component assemblies [ bishops, priests and laity ]. Their philosophy is that there are reasons for things being as they are and absolute certainty is therefore needed for major change, while such a decisive majority will dispense with calls for a replay which inevitably follow a tight decision. 66% to 33% is a very safe figure while the 52% to 48% achieved in the EU referendum gave the very substantial minority of Remain voters a chance to point to deception in the other side's canvassing [ proved ] and sharp practice in party organisation [ almost proved ].
And what for the arguments themselves? If we accept that there is no certainty on the economic future either way we are pitched between dull ' stay as we are ' and the apparently enticing argument of ' Take back control '. We are doubtless all attracted by some aspects of the latter argument, particularly in legal matters but we should remember that we have already carved out for ourselves quite a bit of independence within the EU; retaining our own currency and not joining the Schengen agreement, for example. Much more fundamentally, is taking back control actually desirable? This belief pays scant attention to the miraculously unifying achievement of the EU which has provided uninterrupted peace and prosperity to this heavily populated landmass for seventy years since the Second World War. For the previous thousand years Europe was a collection of independent sovereign states, each as intolerant, jealous and greedy as the next; a continent full of borders, walls and fences, keeping large populations in and out, while conflict strife and unspeakable human tragedy followed year after year. The EU and its forerunners have seen an unprecedented and remarkable era of good neighbourliness and creative harmony. What folly to depart from this now.
Hold on, I hear. Apart from the percentage majority, remember the 17 million people who voted Leave and deserve respect for hoisting their flag in such numbers. Surely 17,410, 742 people cannot be wrong? Well that figure of 17 million might cause a few brain cells to whir uncomfortably in the minds of twentieth century European historians. In 1933 there was in Germany a Federal Election, the last genuinely free election in that country for thirteen years. The rising National Socialist German Workers Party, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, was the largest party, polling 17, 277, 180 votes. I make no comparison between the emerging Nazi party and any contemporary political organisation but at a time of economic struggle, tension and uncertainty, when the moon and greener grass are promised in abundance, it may be the case, now as then, that 17 million people can be wrong and need saving from themselves. It may be worth remembering en passant that constitutionally the 2016 referendum has no binding outcome; its status is as advice to be considered by the sovereign parliament. More importantly this is the real argument for a second referendum or ' People's Vote ' as it has come to be called. One imagines that by 1936 and the future much clearer, many in Germany would have wanted a second opportunity to express an opinion.
We now know more and the young, whose world it will be, are ready to take responsibility themselves and not have their future dominated by us, old fogeys from a not particularly successful generation. Meanwhile we are stuck; Mrs May is perhaps playing a blinder as the delayer in chief, doing her best to avoid the direst consequences of isolationist nonsense, while Mr Corbyn, to whom the bourgeois capitalist club that is the EU is real anathema, sits on his hands and on the fence at the same time. Acute political constipation is the result so perhaps we need a strong dose of Exlax and Senokot simultaneously. This might indeed come with a second referendum but beware the law of unintended consequences which can take us all from one extreme to another. Bodily functions, both personal and political, are neither predictable nor a perfect science.
I am back in the 1950s but now in the Ritz Cinema in Seaford, Sussex. It is very much the old fashioned style of picture hall with worn seats, bustling senior usherettes with reluctant torches and a haven for wandering mice. The film was Rob Roy [ in colour too! ] and I found it so exciting I needed to visit the Gentlemen's room. This involved an embarrassing walk to the front of the cinema to the Exit sign beside the flickering screen. There was an equal degree of gloom on the other side and, having used the none too salubrious facility, I took a wrong turning in the gloaming coming back. Suddenly I was out into the daylight and the bracing salty air seemed immediately refreshing. However, it did not take long for me to remember that I was missing something much better inside, that Rob Roy was on balance a far better place to be. Again with no little embarrassment I had to re-enter the cinema through the front door tentatively feel my way to my seat -- and my rightful place -- again.
From the current European mess perhaps the wisest course of action would be to go through the unpleasant exit as soon as possible. Then, as uncomfortable self-doubt, accompanied by a degree of chaos sets in and common sense prevails, we can take a gulp of illusory fresh air and leave it to the optimistic, open minded and talented generation of the future to turn us round and lead us back to where we should be as members of the European Union.
11th July 2018
