(Six-minute read)
Great Britain is just a geographical term, not a country, state, or political entity.
England, which means “land of the Angles”. COULD DO WITH A FEW.
The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages.
I AM NOT TALKING HERE ABOUT ITS FOOTBALL TEAM, ITS CRICKET TEAM, NOR RUBGY.
So answer me this:
Why would you allow a handful of billionaires to poison your national conversation with disinformation—either directly through the tabloids they own, or indirectly, by using those newspapers to intimidate the public broadcaster?
Why would you allow them to use their papers to build up and co-opt politicians peddling those lies? Why would you let them get away with this stuff about “foreign judges” and the need to “take back control” when Britain’s own public opinion is routinely manipulated by five or six unaccountable rich white men, themselves either foreigners or foreign-domiciled?
But what can England learn from Brexit?
Not all is well with the collective psyche—the in-your-face binge drinking, the bookies stoking gambling addiction on every high street, the abject but routine neglect of public housing which went undiscussed until the Grenfell Tower fire.
The class divide and the class fixation, as well as an unhinged press, combine to produce national psychology that makes Britain a country you simply don’t want in your club.
Here are a few suggestions for the future that don’t just apply to England but to the whole of Europe.
One person waiting to see a doctor, one person lying in a hospital corridor, one person sleeping rough, one person relying on food banks, one person receiving hate mail, one person dying without dignity, one person
In the event, the UK leaves the EU in a no deal scenario, here are 7 things England needs to do now.
They all Call for ‘Fundamental action’ not GDP.
One: Get rip of First past the post and let the voice of the people be heard with a written constitution that is not written on parchment back in June 1215. The certainty that everything has already been written annuls us or renders us phantasmal.
Two: Get ride of postcode lottery social care provisions.
Three: Get rid of the tabloids gutter press.
Four: Social housing should be unconditional and social care free at the point of delivery.
Five: Stop spending billions on worthless nuclear arms and power stations.
Six: Stop school lotteries and abolish students debts. It really doesn’t matter for your identity or your prospects exactly which school or university you went to as long as it free. It is quite ironic that a nation that gave the world the term “fair play” sees the fact that rich children receive a better education than poor ones as a perfectly natural thing.
Seven: Grow up the modern world that is entering the 4th Industrial revolution, while climate change that will destroy it requires long-term planning, not eco-driven politics by career politicians.
Nor do I blame working-class people for seething at a system whereby the time you are 11 the die is cast and were—to add insult to injury—you are constantly told that this is a meritocracy where all that counts is hard work and being “aspirational”- bull shit.
There is another, final, side to this class system à l’Anglaise. It seems to breed a perspective on the world that is zero-sum. Your class system is a form of ranking. For one to go up, another must go down. Perhaps this is why sports are such an obsession. This attitude then justifies the enduring ignorance about the EU, its member states and European culture generally. The superiority complex feeds a sense of entitlement.
For example, the EU “needs us more than vice versa.” It’s abject nonsense, as was the presumption that after the Brits voted to leave, other EU countries would follow.
“It might also be worth acknowledging, that, on balance, the EU27 also has more power to protect its interests in these negotiations than Britain does.”
Ever since the referendum, friends from across the world have been enquiring whether it is true that the British have gone mad.
It is extremely difficult to see a scenario in which this whole Brexit saga could end well. Legally, politically and logically the EU cannot give the UK the kind of deal that would draw this chapter to a happy close.
You don’t have to a genius to know that a sweet soft deal, will encourage every EU member state to demand their own special arrangement, and that would be the end of the EU.
While the imagination of many “Leave” voters remain in the grip of the tabloids, any concession to the reality of national interests risks inflaming rage and cries of betrayal.
As for the EU, it is first and foremost a rule-based organisation. If the rules around Article 50 were bent to allow Britain back in on special terms, then the whole edifice is undermined. Scotland should be let in if it wants, and Northern Ireland too. But England is out and must be kept out—at least until it has resolved its deep internal problems. Call it nation building.
While not everything about the British disease harked back to Empire and while most of the above needs a growing economy god forbid the future of England is written or run by a dupe of Donal Trump.
Rember: Before you vote that any deal in or out has to be ratified by all Member States required at least two years. This meant that any deal is not feasible in practice. Vote to stay and fight your quarter. It makes no sense to disengage from our major market where we would still face all the costs of compliance and enjoy none of the influence. We can achieve reform by being an active and leading member from within.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
She has ruled out an early election. But, where is the public outrage.
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