I posted this as a Twitter thread last night:
As those I know best could confirm, I have long feared a No Deal Brexit. I could not see how Gove and Johnson could or would agree to anything else. But now it's apparent that it is going to happen I am still shocked.
I am shocked even though in one way this does not impact me. I have had an Irish passport for decades. I am one of the lucky ones. So are my close family. We can all still enjoy freedom of movement. But I am still bereft. England has been my home.
I am ashamed of England tonight. I am pleased that Scotland and Northern Ireland held out against Brexit. I could never blame the Welsh. Brexit is an English initiative. The exceptionalism that underpins it is England's alone. And that is why it is of a England that I am ashamed.
The shame is multifold. Of the arrogance that we are a nation, better than others. That we can still remember WW2 as if we won it. That we can still blame Europeans for faults that are not theirs. That we are too often racist. That we are pig-headed. That we've forgotten empathy.
And I am so sorry that so many have been conned. Firstly into believing things that are not true. Johnson, Gove and their gang have always lied shamelessly, from £350m to calling No Deal an Australian agreement. Lying is pathological to them.
I am ashamed that such charlatans came to lead this country. And I chose my word with care. In their own interests they have gutted our future. The destruction of the economy, our governance and society that they have and will deliver will make Thatcher look tame.
And I ashamed that in this country so many people will pay the price for the arrogance of those who have created the mess to come. Unforgivably, many will be amongst our most vulnerable. But I am also angry for those who thought themselves secure who will lose their businesses.
I am angry, sad, ashamed, appalled, and yet I have to believe that despite all the pain, grief and loss that will be suffered by so many, people will respond to this challenge. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales may make that future their own, and who can blame them?
In all four countries the hope has to be the same. It is that when the anger passes there will be people who want to build back better. Of course, sustainably, but more. We need a new politics. New businesses. New confidence. More care. Deeper understanding. Better societies.
On the bleakest night I have known in the history of this country is it reasonable, despite my feeling distressed at what is to come, to have hope? I could say not, but I know that ultimately people see through fraud. And that they are resilient. The evidence of history is clear.
I refuse to be down. I refuse to give in or to succumb to their exploitation. I will not accept their wish to destroy. And I am certain that I am not alone. Tonight the UK looks like it is broken, and as an entity it probably is. But the countries that make it up? They will bounce.
Now is the time for visionaries across all of society. It will be hard. But the alternative is to give up. I do not think people will, whatever in the end their chosen role. The aim is not to Remain. The aim is to Rebuild. That's what we have to do now. And I think we will.
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I’m ashamed so many believed them.
I share your pain. I’m from a multi-racial Scottish family and with an Irish grandfather I may (or at least as things stand – who knows what will happen tomorrow) be able to apply for Irish citizenship. Unfortunately my son doesn’t have that option and I will not leave him alone in the cesspit that uk has become to face the bonfires of the Eton carpetbaggers that masquerade as competent govt. I have never hated the English and count several good English people as close friends but for me England has become too dangerous as a country for me to go anywhere near in the foreseeable future. I am seriously worried about my and my family’s future, especially as a Scot. The westminster regime are growling for their next war and when you hear tory mouthpieces referring to ‘loyalist Scots’ you can see where this is going and that they are turning their sights on us. I share your pain. I wish I shared your hope.
Good luck. We’ll all need it
You have my deepest sympathy. I’m not ashamed to be English, but I am disgusted and ashamed by English exceptionalism.
“The shame is multifold. Of the arrogance that we are a nation, better than others. That we can still remember WW2 as if we won it. That we can still blame Europeans for faults that are not theirs. That we are too often racist. That we are pig-headed. That we’ve forgotten empathy.
And I am so sorry that so many have been conned. Firstly into believing things that are not true. Johnson, Gove and their gang have always lied shamelessly, from £350m to calling No Deal an Australian agreement. Lying is pathological to them.
I am ashamed that such charlatans came to lead this country. And I chose my word with care. In their own interests they have gutted our future. The destruction of the economy, our governance and society that they have and will deliver will make Thatcher look tame.”
Too true
I have to confess that I do not yet see what these incompetents are going to get out of this themselves.
You have to consider that they are not acting independently, the party donors/owners decide what happens. As always, both money and power will be at the root of this.
I understand you are ashamed but keep in mind a year ago 32% of the English voted for Johnson, 35% for other parties and 33% did not vote. Being non Tory voting English myself without an EU grandparent I cannot see the value in you emphasising the differences between us. I assume we are both non Tory voters and making generalisations about the English only makes a potentially divisive situation even more so for all of an immigrant background. Please reserve your contempt for the public school elite in power and the people who put them there.
I share your wish that people of vision come forward and help us rebuild what will be hopefully be a greener, happier future less focused on globalism and international travel. We took a misstep from 1979 by turning our backs on “The Limits to Growth” and EF Scumacher’s Small is Beautiful. There are other paths but we’ll only find them through co-operation not division.
I read both of those in the 70s
Both are behind me as I write
I’m angry that the British public has been taken for fools (as an agnostic remainer I also include the FBPE brigade in this too, who have ended up deifying the EU when it is really not worthy of that status).
But without no deal, there would always have been room for the likes of Farage to cry “it’s not a proper Brexit!”. They simply can’t do that now. Of course they, and the right wing press will try and spin it as the EU’s fault, but will people buy that? No deal brings with it the high probability of tangible situations where Joe public will be worse off. Job losses will obviously be a factor but I am thinking more along the lines of no more fast track passport queue to hop on the plane to the Costa del wherever. This is the kind of thing where you would hope fantasy becomes reality.
Labour have played it clever on Brexit. Don’t mention it at all then when no deal looks certain, demand the prime minister brings back the deal he promised to deliver.
But they now need to set out a positive vision to the UK’s future, rather than simply trying to appear managerial, wage war on the left of the party and pander to the red/blue wall.
Most of the foundations of that vision are laid out in the 2019 manifesto. If they had any sense, they would build on it, rather than seeking to erase it from memory.
Lastly my wife has an Irish grandfather. I’m hoping the EU offer a policy whereby you can get fast track through customs if a member of your party has an EU passport, but I won’t hold my breath!
In 2016 just after the vote Jonathan Friedland wrote in the Guardian ” Never forgive the vandals for what they have done” . And despite their posh schools and Oxford education Johnson and his bunch are no better than a group of hooligans who rampage destroying everything round them and they should be treated with the contempt they deserve for their lies and destruction of this country.
“…the arrogance that we are a nation, better than others.”
Name me a country where it’s citizens don’t think they are a great nation. Sure you’ll find whiny left-wing pseudo-intellectuals in every country who hate the place they live (largely because they have failed in life and want someone else to blame for their own inadequacies) but the average person will be proud of their country.
Why not just move to Ireland if you hate England and the English so much?
I don’t hate England at all
IO hate those who have corrupted it, which to me seems entirely reasonable and even desirable given how deep that corruption now runs
And you do know, I presume that your reaction is straight out of the fascist’s handbook?
Just saying….
A classic example of Godwin’s law in prctice.
I suppose you now think anyone who disagrees with you is a fascist?
But go on, even with England in the terrible state you claim it is in, provide a list from the 200 or so nations and states on earth that you’d rather be living in right now. If England is so awful, the list should be very long.
While you’re at it you might explain why so many hundreds of thousands of people each year want to go to England from other parts of the world to make England their home.
You won’t, of course. Because challenging your theatrical grandstanding shroud-waving antics is no doubt ‘fascist’.
No, not Godwin’s law
It is an example of fascism in practice
It is an example of the thuggery that says ‘You don’t agree with sum so leave or else….’
And you don’t even see that through your blinkered glasses
Well said Richard,
We are living through something few people seem to understand or grasp as being serious. No-deal has only ever had one purpose and we are reaching its endgame. Sovereignty, in the hands of malign ideologues, can only mean one thing: the dismantling of all barriers to the most extreme form of capitalism. It has been incubating in the minds of right-wing thinkers since James Buchanan and involves the stripping back of the state to the point where there is only the market. It is a faith unlike any other. A godless belief in the power of wealth. It will trample over anything its path that attempts to stop the market from working its magic. Expect workers’ rights and environmental protections to disappear. Expect justice to be undermined. Expect the already feeble BBC to be further hamstrung. All this will happen fast. This government has learned its Blitzkrieg tactics well. It will take many people by surprise.
We absolutely must stick together. Rebuilding the damage will take decades. First though we have to resist the decimation that’s coming. Anyone that can must explain what the situation. MPs must be made to see the scale of what we face. The opposition must finally realise we are facing an existential crisis.
I fear you are right
For me, BREXIT is the biggest distraction burglary of out nation’s future ever.
It is a theft perpetrated quite rightly as you point out by a bunch of ‘rich dicks’ who want to monopolise the national economy for themselves.
I feel sorry for those who have been taken in by it because they have been totally misled and worse – used.
So – there is no ‘oven ready’ BREXIT after all. We have been lied to.
And as MMT proves, your sovereignty is not just your borders or laws, it’s your currency.
And this has all come about in my view because of a bloody minded refusal to print the sovereign means to improve people’s lives (austerity) by the same bastards who have been advocating BREXIT.
Make no mistake, all of us as a nation have been diminished by a group of extreme right wingers who make your average leftie Trot’ look like a novice.
But I will not blame or hate my neighbour for falling for BREXIT because I know exactly who is responsible for it.
EXACTLY. And I commend that stance to you all.
If a day reckoning for these wreckers ever arrives, then we must be as one to take them to task and remove them from our political map forever.
A refreshingly frank piece on what is likely to be the greatest act of self-harm to afflict these islands since the Civil War.
I agree we are facing an existential crisis and yes, the imperative is to repair and rebuild. But first the team with the wrecking ball must be opposed, vigorously and vocally by every democratic means possible. They must be removed as quickly as possible .
This will not be easy in a divided nation struggling under the yoke of covid and the attendant economic burdens carried by so many. Yet it is necessary of each person opposed to this vicious regime to play his or her role, in whatever way they can. While responsibility for a crisis can in a democracy be thrown squarely at the feet of its principal authors, a sense of collective responsibility by those who gave the perpetrators the power to do so can and should surely not be avoided.
In this respect, the words of John Stuart Mill seem singulary apt:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
I agree with him
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
And do you know what the market’s response to that is?
To pay those good men and women enough to forget their conscience and overlook the injustice.
The current government and opposition couldn’t rebuild a Lego tower.
The current govt wouldn’t know how lego works.
The “opposition” would fight each other over the blocks.
The shame is not so much with the members of this government, they are only doing what they were brought up to do, what their class has always done, just as when they were Bullingdon Club boys and smashed up a restaurant, terrorised the staff and walked out knowing someone else will pick up the bill and pay off the aggrieved.
The shame lies with those who still call themselves journalists but fail so dismally in their duty to hold the government to account, with the economists (present company excepted) who promulgated the vile doctrines of Milton Friedman knowing that the only way they could come to fruition was by inflicting vast amounts of suffering and by all those who voted for disaster without making even the slightest effort to check whether what they were being told was true or even sensible, and who now refuse to accept the responsibility for the damage they have caused and are still causing.
The shame lies with those who will always look for someone to blame for their own failings and, when a scapegoat can be found less powerful than themselves, relish the chance to be a bully.
I too am ashamed to be British. I am glad my children have managed to escape and I hope to get an opportunity to move to Scotland or Wales when they finally attain their freedom.