Frederick North, Second Earl of Guilford. (1732-1792)
Portrait of Lord North (1753) by Pompeo Baloni
(1708-1787)
So, National Lemmings Day is to be the 29th
of March.
This was decided by the party that brought you the
second Earl of Gilford, Frederick North (1732-1792) whose indolence and idiocy
lost us the American Colonies and British prestige and influence, just like
another of his later party hacks whose fear of a repugnant group of narrow
minded, right wing extremists allowed him to think only of the Conservative
Party and not worry about the larger country that he was supposed to be
defending.
Though even the possible loss of Scotland from the
Union is small change compared to that other Conservative inspired disaster –
Brexit.
So, our unelected Prime Minister, she of the “tin ear”
when it comes to real discussion about the impending catastrophe, has decided
to start the process of disengagement from our continental neighbours on the 29th
of March. And God help us all!
It is at times like this that I turn to the 1948
speech of a fellow countryman, Aneurin Bevan who, when talking of the Tory
party said, “So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.” I wonder at his moderation!
So far as I am concerned personally, I am shocked at
the level of racist comments from sections of the British public and an
acceptance of the most distasteful right wing populism. The fact that UKIP is still a force to be
reckoned with is a continuing insult to what I used to think was the basic
morality and decency of the British voting public.
Let’s not get carried away. Although I despise the Conservative Party and
find their basic assumptions and policies repellent, I do not regard them as
fundamentally anti-democratic. They are
antipathetic to virtually everything that I value and their contempt for the
working class is only matched by the loyalty of those sad working class Tories
who vote for them through thick and thin.
But Brexit changes everything.
Brexit is not merely a different view of generally accepted
policies, it is also a dramatic reworking of decades of generally positive
international co-operation.
So far, and let’s remind ourselves that nothing has
actually happened yet, my pension (which is paid in pounds sterling in Britian
before being transferred to Spain after
British tax has been deducted at source) has lost 20% of its worth with the
fall in the value of the pound. I know
that I am not going to get much sympathy from those in Britain for retirees
beside the Med, sipping Sangria and basking in the sun, but I have had a
substantial drop in my annual income because, because . . . well, because of
what precisely?
I can well understand people who have little job security
in areas where the industrial infrastructure has been decimated feeling
disgruntled with the powers-that-be for not listening to their concerns. I can well understand a feeling of
dislocation (to put it mildly) from the political classes in Westminster
experienced by those same people. I can
well understand the feeling that ‘they’ need to be taught a lesson, be taught
to start listening to what ‘real’ people think and want. What I can’t understand is taking the Brexit
route to do this.
I would be the first to admit that the EU has its
faults – what system of government does not?
But to cut oneself adrift from an economic, social and political
grouping that has kept the woefully dysfunctional continent of Europe from
instigating yet another World War is something to value. Yes there have been disgraceful and bloody
conflicts, and yes, the economic situation was criminally mismanaged, but there
is so much more positive than the obvious negatives that the right wing press
so gleefully parades.
Still. It is
done. And the 29th of March
will be the beginning of the . . .
Well, I am not going to add ‘end’ to that sentence. I still have enough belief in my fellow
countrymen to believe that somehow or other we will make a go of a situation
that looks so very negative.
As a retired teacher I know from past experience and
the idiot pronouncements of successive Ministers of Education that whatever
asinine educational rubbish comes out of politicians’ mouths hard working
teachers can, have and will make stupid policies work for the benefit of the
kids. Sometimes it takes stupendous
effort to square the educational circle, but, if there is a way to do it so
that education survives, teachers will find that way. I am trusting that the way that teachers have
worked throughout the years with unsympathetic political interference will be
the way that the country works so that Brexit is not the inevitable disaster
that it looks to be.
And, to go back to the justly maligned Lord North;
some historians have suggested that although there was a real loss for Britain
from the result of losing The American War of Independence, there were real
advantages as well. In hindsight, the increasing
problems attempting to retain the colonies if we had ‘won’ would have demanded
more and more resources in an geometric progression of difficulty in trying to maintain
our position. It would have been a dangerously
large drain on British resources which could have been even more catestrophic
if the break had been delayed.
And it turned out that the American colonists eventually
did quite well. Though they had powerful
allies, the French, not only supporting them, but fighting with them as
well. Where are our allies? At the time of the American conflict we were
fighting virtually every other nation in Europe. And now, having learned nothing, we are
cutting ourselves off from Europe again.
45 (POTUS) in America seems to be a seriously capricious ally (to put it
mildly) at best. And who else is there
on our side whom we have not offended?
But, we have always found a way, we tell ourselves.
Except, of course, when we haven’t.
That is what worries me.
