Category: History

On being a European

Stefan Zweig was an Austrian by birth, a European by instinct and vocation, an author and poet who became the most translated writer in Europe in the 1930s, a Jew, an exile, a refugee, who in spite of two world wars and exile continued to write and travel and argue – until in 1942 he and his wife took their own lives in Brazil.

He championed international cooperation, championed culture and the intellectual life – his aspiration that they might bring Europe together, and triumph over petty nationalisms.

In the World of Yesterday, ‘one of the canonical European testaments’, he tells the story of his life and times from school days to 1939. Curiously in the UK he never achieved the fame he found in Europe.

Maybe that should change.

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On Europe…. 

‘It will be decades before that other (trusting) Europe can return to what it was before the First World War…….bitterness and distrust have lurked in the mutilated body of Europe.’

As more became known about Hitler and his ready resort to violence ‘the conscience of Europe’ chose not to take sides, because all violent acts were within Germany…. (my italics)

After the First World War, ‘The orderly German nation did not know what to do with its liberty, and was already looking for someone to take away it away again.’ (Today the guardians of that liberty hold sway, but the threat is always there, from neo-Nazis, and from political parties such as Alternative fur Deutchland.) 

In Austria in 1937, before the Anschluss, few at least publicly made the connections with 1914 – no-one wanted to. Zweig describes vividly a traditional Christmas in Vienna in 1937.

All the while a new power out there, aiming to seize government, ‘regarded all idea we valued as outmoded – peace, humanity, reconciliation…’

He compares the English with Austria, Germany, or France – they lived more quietly, more content, thought more about their gardens.

(We lose so much if we deny ourselves that European focus – if we imagine the values we hold sacred are specially English, or British. Reading Zweig reminds us what it was like living through that remarkable period from 1900 to 1940. We are part of Europe, our outlook and culture – and origins. The rest of the world sees us as European – we are foolish to think otherwise. )

On government – and the people …

In the run up to 1939 (and too often true today): ‘ … 10 or 20 people (in Downing Street, the Quai d’Orsay…), few of whom had ever shown any evidence of any particular intelligence or skill were talking and telephoning and coming to agreements which the rest of us knew nothing about.’

Zweig ‘knew that the vast majority always go to whichever side holds the balance of power at any given moment.’

On armchair revolutionaries… 

Zurich in 1916 – the Zurich of Dada – Zweig had never met such an impassioned and varied mixture of people and opinions. Since his death Zweig’s been accused of being a coward for not coming out more strongly against the war. His comment about ‘coffee house conspirators’ gives the answer – his disdain for ‘professional revolutionaries raised from personal insignificance merely by adopting a stance of opposition’.

(There were many such – and there were as I well recall in the 1970s when I was a trade unionist –Father of Chapel of the Penguin Books NUJ chapel, and they are still very much out there today – and will be in every generation. )

On the arts… 

The poet Rilke, a friend of Zweig’s – ‘Can there ever be such pure poets again…all they wanted was to link verse to verse perfectly in quiet yet passionate endeavour, every line singing with music…. can that kind of poetry exist in our new way of life… which chases out peace of mind like a forest fire?’

On being a refugee, in England…. 

‘I, the former cosmopolitan, keep feeling as if I had to offer special thanks for every breath of air that I take in a foreign country, thus depriving its own people of its benefit…’ Zweig had ‘trained his heart to beat as a citizen of the world for 50 years… On the day I lost my Austrian passport I discovered, at the age of 58, that when you lose your native land you are losing more than a patch of territory set within borders.’

On being Jewish….  

Jews used to have ‘an inviolable faith in their God’. But they were many peoples, multiple languages, now thrown together – what did they have in common? And they asked – ‘what is the reason for this pointless persecution.’

The questions asked by Job.  [‘Why did I not perish at birth, an die as I came from the womb?’  (3:11). ‘What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?’ (6:11)]

After the Anschluss – his elderly mother enjoyed walking – but now ‘no Jew must sit on any public bench’. She no longer had a place to rest. And that was almost the least of the strictures which took down and took apart Jewish life in the city.

And at the last….

A confession- ‘I do not mourn for what I have lost – the art of saying goodbye to everything that was once our pride and joy..’

And yet – ‘But in the end every shadow is also the child of light, and only those who have known the light and the dark, have seen war and peace, rise and fall, have truly lived their lives.’

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Zweig has many lessons for us, as a European, a Jew, a citizen of the world, a man of culture and intellect, with many flaws as have all of us – but just maybe someone to champion in our own times, when uncertainties are greater, and crises seem – and are – closer to hand, when there’s a sense that the post-war consensus might just break apart, and we need reminders, we need a champion or two.

Wimbledon, Cameron, China, Chilcot – a few thoughts for our times

Wimbledon: Andy wins in style, and for once an afternoon watching a Wimbledon final doesn’t extend into the evening. I’m remembering Federer against Nadal, was it five years ago – rain breaks and five sets…

Andy mentioned that the prime minister was in the crowd and asked almost as a throwaway – who would want the PM’s job? Should we just occasionally give politicians a break? Even the PM? He’s made a life-changing (for all of us) mistake, but he’s kept his cool, and laughed when Murray made his comment. I almost felt I could forgive him.

And tomorrow (13th July) he’s out for ever.

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Other thoughts for our time…

‘Few middle-class Chinese people say they want democracy.’ (The Economist) Three possible reasons. For one, memories of Tienamen Square: economic freedom it seems doesn’t require political freedom. For another, the Arab spring – the dangers of insurrection.

And Brexit, yes, Brexit.  ‘A sign that ordinary voters cannot be trusted to resolve complex political questions.’ Another good subject for discussion. One riposte – only ordinary people can be trusted.  And who are ordinary people these days. The proletariat is no more, and they weren’t it turned out very good at dictating. And the Economist’s big feature is on China’s new 225 million middle class. And then we have readers of the Daily Mail.

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One conclusion from the Chilcot Report: politicians should beware commitments which catch up with them later. Applies to Cameron of course. But Brexit supporters have put out all sorts of promises and expectations – with little chance of delivering on them. But you can get away with promises.

Also, beware plans based on best-case scenarios, which is what Blair and Bush worked to…They may get support in parliament (2003) – win elections – and indeed referenda (2016) – but they can come back to hurt and haunt you.

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Mendacious campaigns – which side in the referendum debate was more mendacious?Unwise forecasts (which nonetheless could be right) based on Treasury models from the Remain side, which weren’t believed. But not mendacious. Promises with almost nil substance on the other side. Given they were presented as probabilities if not truths by the Leave side – I’ve no problem with the word mendacious in their case.

If we delay invoking Article 50 – how favourably will other countries respond? We’re still – the Leave side are – in a dream world, laced with false expectations. The EU countries’ point of view? Keep Britain trading and halfway prosperous, yes. But at the same time demonstrate that you don’t get way with being a turncoat. And remember too, the cards are all in your (the EU’s) hands.

To take just one example. Paying in – we stop paying – and yet we expect the same benefits.  Absurdity. The something for nothing culture – which the Brexit side in other circumstances rail against.

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And finally – ‘groupthink’. ‘When Mr Blix’s inspectors failed to find any WMD the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee) gripped by groupthink put it down to the Iraq’s talent for subterfuge’. We reinforce each others’ opinions, if one of us believes, we make it easier for the others. We’ve been gripped by groupthink these past few months. The ‘somehow it will all turn out right, because it always does’ school of thought. Nearly always. Sometimes. Or, more realistically, never….

Chilcot – hard truths and hypocrisy

There’s a strange and mysterious beauty to hindsight. It doesn’t ask questions, it reassures, it puts old thoughts out of mind and puts in new thoughts that we know we’ve thought all along. We know the mind is playing tricks, but if we don’t ask too many questions of ourselves, then who cares.

Hindsight has been at work this week in reactions to Chilcot. Last Thursday’s Times leader is a prime example. The Times supported the invasion – but no mea culpa. That’s my focus in the first part of this post.

But anger is justified. We should never have invaded back in 2003. Millions of us were strongly opposed at the time, and events bore out out arguments. And the consequences of that invasion have been terrible beyond belief.

But first, hindsight.

All those legions who supported the second Iraq war are now so sure it was wrong, and they’re happy to claim that they were misled. Had they had the evidence on WMD in front of them that Tony Blair had, they wouldn’t have reached the conclusions he did. Or would they? The evidence was widely debated and argued over at the time, as we well remember.

They also forget the context on the time, just two years after 9/11, and the uncertainties, and the fear of al-Qaida, and the scant knowledge of how it worked and how it might operate in future.

Action after the event to remove the Taliban in Afghanistan seemed to have worked so action before the event, pre-emptive action, in Iraq made good sense. Britain and the USA working together – many people were strongly in favour, and it was great to know that Bush and Blair got on, and that Blair did have influence. And if we’d held back from supporting Bush and the Americans – wouldn’t they go ahead anyway?

So I’m pretty scornful how much of the sanctimonious response we’re getting now.

That said –  I was bitterly opposed to the second Iraq War. The existence of WMD to my mind wasn’t well-established, there was still work for Hans Blix to do, we knew well that Saddam Hussein liked playing games (a strategy which ultimately proved his undoing). There was also the absurd attempt to establish links between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, when Saddam’s regime had been rigidly secularist, and that was indeed the nature of the Baath socialism which he and the Assad regime in Syria espoused. Saddam’s regime was an unpalatable and unrecognised ally in keeping al Qaida at bay.

The neo-con agenda that Blair bought into had little interest in local knowledge, the provision of which had always long been a key part of the role of our diplomats and embassies around the world. The way the deep divisions between Shia and Sunni could tear the country apart came as a profound surprise to the American and British after 2003. It should not have done.

(I don’t believe by the way the Blair was a liar, in any sense. That kind of accusation that doesn’t help.)

For me, there was one further powerful factor which influenced my opposition to the war. We’d seen what happened in the Balkans. The controlling hand of Marshall Tito had been removed and Yugoslavia split into different nations, different language groups, different religions, and different histories – at a deep level, different identities. And demagogues kindled and fed the fire and we know what happened then. And many of us could see it happening again after the 2003 invasion. And, of course, it did.

Finally – there’s the argument that sometimes we simply have to act. The dangers of not acting are simply too great. The legal arguments may not be clear, and the outcome uncertain, but the imperatives behind action are too strong. Was 2003 such a time? Not to my mind. Rather the 2003 invasion belongs in the same category as the 1956 Suez crisis, precipitate rather than fully considered action. We’ve seen the same in military engagements throughout history. Rarely do they work out as you expect, and very often they work out the opposite.

And the bloodshed and violence can be extraordinary.

 

 

 

 

China shock

A digression – an important digression – into trade policy. Maybe a little heavy-going, but important!

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Apropos my comments in my last post on de-industrialisation, there’s an interesting article in the current (July) edition of Prospect, by the FT’s economics leader writer, Martin Sandhu.

Has the cause of growing inequality in the rich world since circa 1980 been caused by globalisation or technological change? In Sandhu’s words, by the late 1990s ‘… the economics profession settled on the consensus that technology more than trade was to blame. Then China joined the World Trade Organisation.’

He quotes Autor, Dorn and Hanson’s paper, ‘China Shock’, and highlights their conclusion that ‘Chinese competition had localised but substantial negative and long-lasting effects on the places particularly exposed to it’. ‘On one estimate more than half of [US] factory job losses can be attributed to the China effect.’

’… the imbalanced effect of trade liberalisation can only be corrected if the losers are compensated out of the overall gain – but more redistribution and greater public goods are not on the cards in Trump’s deck.’

Of course technology is also a key factor, so too the shift of power away from labour to capital – not least, the decline of trade unions.  Benefits have also been hit hard – even more in the USA than the UK.

‘It is no surprise that that people feeling powerless and alone in the face of their demotion yearn to regain control – to ‘take their country back’. That is what Trump promises them.’

So too the UK. ‘The same dream of regaining control …fuels the growth of socially-conservative nativist right-wing parties in Britain, France, Germany, Scandinavia and central Europe.’ Some of the same grievances have been picked up by Bernie Sanders as well as Trump. (We have nothing directly comparable in the UK.)

But whereas Trump talks of putting up trade barriers the Brexit message has been all about lowering barriers with the rest of the world , ‘to escape the walls of Fortress Europe’ – a rigorous free trade message. (Both the USA and UK insurgencies are of course agreed on immigration.)

Also bear in mind that economic theory ‘predicts that the effect of low-skilled immigration is the same as freer trade with countries that have a lot of low-skilled labour’. Put another way, freer trade (especially negotiated from a position of lesser rather than greater advantage post-Brexit) will hit hardest those areas already suffering.

(Some will course want to rubbish economic theory. That’s the mood of the moment.)

The impact of Chinese imports on British industry, and the resultant job losses, has been far far greater than the impact of immigration. And yet it’s immigration on which the Leave campaign has focused.

And the impact of free trade? Now that we’re escaping from an EU that’s perceived to be the over-regulated and slow-moving ?

‘…Brexit will not lead to a bonfire of the regulations, but a redoubled effort to harmonise rules – that’s what trade openness increasingly means.’

There’s an obvious and striking irony here – we put behind us the EU and harmonisation, and negotiations over TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), and we find that we’re faced with just the same issues when we seek to negotiate free trade deals around the world. But without the clout the EU gives us.

More than ever it’s apparent that immigration for the Leave campaign has been a target of convenience. The issues we face as a country with regard to our future prosperity are of a very different order. Which is not to say that we shouldn’t pay heed to the specific impacts of immigration, but our future lies in facing up to the global context in which we operate, and in which we will be, post-Brexit, less equipped to operate.

And our response as a country to those who feel excluded and resentful will involve strategies which simply aren’t part of the Leave agenda. That’s the absurdity of the situation in which we find ourselves.

 

From the Camino to Cornwall

Last week I was back on the Camino – and walking through Castrojeriz, a mile-long village, on an early June day. The wheat and barley still a vivid green in the fields, and poppies popping up everywhere, along the field edges and sometimes mixed in with the crops themselves. There is magic here – there’s nowhere that walks and winds quite as Castrojeriz does, with its castillo above, and cafes, albergues, churches and the Hospital de Alma where the music plays ethereal, and the messages are peace and love. The destination may be Santiago, but it is also, simply, the journey.

And then, a week later, walking, just one day, the Cornish coast path from Portloe to Gorran Haven, which runs east of Falmouth and west of Mevagissey. It drizzles and mists and then rains hard and I slip and slither. Where is that promised sun? Round about 2pm it shows itself, and the Cornish flowers – campion and fox glove and ox-eye daisies and it could have been a hundred others – line the paths. Grasses and clover, buttercups and hawkbit, fill the fields. Take a step or two back further from the path and we’re back to big fields and fertilisers, but not here.

Walkers are few and they are wet, and the temptation to take short cuts and get to shelter is powerful, but short cuts aren’t easy. Certainly not to my right as I walk – the sea is up to 300 ft and cliffs sometimes sheer below me! A few seagulls, only the occasional blackbird and chaffinch. Maybe the wind blows too strong here.

At Dodman Point a cross looms in the rain and mist, built we’re told as a navigation aid by the local vicar (not much use today). He inscribed on its base his belief in the sure and certain hope of the second coming of Jesus Christ. Built back in 1896, and built strongly as it is, it might even survive that long.

On the Camino you’re open to a different kind of eternity, sometimes the landscape could be the ocean, spreading great slow waves across the landscape. The pull of the earth is powerful, yet the sky is close. Whereas on the coast path you’re on the edge, the divide between ocean and earth. Both have aspirations to eternity, but the one seeks victory over the other. You can walk with only your boots and your thoughts on the Camino. On the coast path you have to walk with your wits. Beyond every stile or bush or dip in land there could be a surprise. A moment of danger, or a moment of joy. The Camino plays a longer game.

This shows in the villages as well. Towns and villages on the Camino grew up because of the Camino – Villafranca a place name that recurs and reminds us the many Frenchmen who walked the Camino and built settlements along the way. On the coast path they grew up because sailors sought a livelihood from the sea and wherever there was a likely cove they’d stake a claim. At East Portholland the cottages are right up against the sea, with their outer storm doors. Layers of concrete secure the beach against erosion – though would they, could they, break the might of winter storms such as we had three years ago?

Along the Camino countless walkers have journeyed before me. Fewer on the coast path. But out to sea, out into the Cornish sea – how many have journeyed, how many have been drowned or shipwrecked? On other days, clear and sunny, I’ve looked out to sea, and emptied my mind. Today I must concentrate. I slip, come a cropper, three times…

Could I rent, even buy, one of those cottages in the tiny hamlets such as East Portholland along the way, and write stories? At Hemmick here’s only one cottage in the cove.Sadly, I don’t think I have a plot, or a cottage, just yet! For stories, better the Camino? Take almost any one of those countless pilgrims, and walk with him or her, and their memories and aspirations. There are stories in abundance. But who knows what I might yet find among the Cormish cliffs? Who might have fallen there – and never been discovered?

Revisiting the Camino – take two

This post is for Camino geeks. I’m revisiting in late May and early June, almost one year on. By car, but with short walks wherever possible.

There are good memories which stand the test of time, even improve on reacquaintance – and others which fall short, or simply disappoint.

Bilbao, YES. Off route I know, but the end of my stage one, June last year. The Guggenheim, and especially Richard Serra’s sinuous and space-defying structures.

Likewise the drive up into the mountains from Bilbao, in brilliant sunshine, unbroken forest as far as the eye could see. Beyond Vitoria, green hills with crags lining their summits, and I remembered the way they led me, guided me, when I walked that stretch from Punta la Reina to Logrono.

NO to Roncesvalles, though we did take a short circular walk up through the woods, then back down through meadows to join the Burguete path – meadows with rich odours of cow dung and deep shades of green beneath an equally deep shade of blue – that’s how I remember Navarre from almost a year go.

YES to all the following.

Larrasoena, the village, where I stayed my third night, and the bridge that takes you over the river and back to the Camino from the village – 6.30 on a misty morning last June. All alone, and I couldn’t quite believe where I was! Memories of Zabaldika nearby, and climbing the belfry to ring the bell out over the valley.

Pamplona, sitting and watching the peregrinos wander through, most of them without the heavy boots, the day’s walk over. They have still 4 1/2 weeks to go…

Zariquiegui, and the walk up to the Alto de Perdon. The path of the winds gentler than last time round, and more peregrinos. I had it to myself last June. We talked to several on the way up – we listened. New Zealanders. Then as now, there are stories to tell. This time as last time – where are the Brits?  Are we content, too content, with our own patch?

Puente la Reina, sitting out in Calle Mayor and having lunch, the bridge and the river moving slow and green beneath. Chatting to someone who walked to Santiago four years ago – and is now walking the other way.

NO (sadly) to Estella. Estella was my favourite place, almost, last time, but now the shops were closed, it being Sunday, and the streets were dirty, rubbish uncleared, and the churches closed last June were closed now, and the wonders therein will have to wait for a third visit (I fear unlikely). But the way the Camino drops down past old houses into the town – that still has magic. And I made good friends in Estella.

Yes, big YES, to Logrono, and its wonderful evocative churches, the Ebro as a boundary, my furthest west point last June, and starting point last October, and coffee in plaza in the shadow of the cathedral, cold bright sunshine, multi-coloured cyclists about to take off en masse. The pinchons, and a wonderful hotel, the Calle Mayor, which wasn’t a memory as such because I stayed in an albergue last time….

I restarted 1st October last year, in Logrono.

Navarrete, YES, the square and cafe by the church emptier than last October, all the noise outside an albergue one street below, and the wind was chilly but the sky was blue and the dark shadowy church was full of atmosphere, the gilded retablo overpowering at the east end, likewise the emotions brought out by the background music – combining Taize, Pachelbel, the Handel Sarabande made famous by the Barry Linden film score, and Dylan’s Blowing in the Wind in orchestral form. I sat with head bowed and tears in my eyes, re-experiencing some of the more powerful personal moments from last year.

Santa Domingo de la Calzado – YES, almost. Santo Domingo doesn’t allow you to sit and drink coffee and experience it at its heart – the street cafes are on the modern street just south of the old main street, the Camino route, and the Parador is while wonderful inside a dead space if you’re looking to get a sense of the Camino. The cathedral evokes mixed emotions – beautifully restored and lit, evocative paintings and sculpture, especially the outside choir stall walls, and a c1500 retablo tucked away in a side chapel, where it’s hard to see it properly.

The museum is full of medieval, early as the 14th century, icon-like Madonnas on the one hand, and crucifixions and saints full of that that exaggerated piety which rings false to the modern eye, on the other. Likewise a cartoon image of Santo Domingo, dire – the old saint will be rotating in his grave.  You have to squeeze back against a glass case with a reconstructions of earlier versions of the cathedral to see a marvellous 13th century painting of the Garden of Eden – creation, temptation and expulsion.

From there by way of an industry park – what would Santo Domingo have thought to see what’s been created on the site of his original village – to San Millan de Cogolla.The monks there turned him down back in the 13th century. Their reputation  and the grandeur of their Romanesque monastery must have been marvellous in the eyes of the young Domingo. Had they accepted him – he would never have been a saint, and there would be no Santo Domingo town.

Back on – or just off – the Camino

I’m back revisiting favourite corners of the Camino, and also taking in places and landscapes which tantalised me last year by being just off route. Above all the monastery of San Millan de la Cogalla, where I’m writing this post.

We’re not staying in albergues, but in hotels – and some are almost smart. Do I miss the dormitories? And the snoring? Maybe not! Though I do have ambitions to walk the Camino Portugues later this year.

The monastery has claims to be the birthplace of the Spanish language, where what became Castilian was first written down by an early 12th century monk as marginal notes to a Latin codex. I knew when I first read about San Millan, in Navarrete last year, that I had to visit.

I loved and love the history of the Camino – the vast church interiors, ancient houses with coats of arms, streets winding through towns and villages as they’ve done for a thousand years, the Templar and Cluny connections, tales of battles against the Moors, my hero Sant Iago, the porch of the ruined church outside Navarrete now gracing the entrance to the cemetery on the other side of town, churches where pilgrims who might not make it to Santiago could nonetheless receive absolution  – all the powerful spiritual connections.

I’d attend pilgrim masses when I could, and light candles.

Down the road from San Millan is Berceo, the birthplace of the first recognised Spanish language poet, Gonzalo de Berceo. Another reason for visiting.

From my hotel window in San Millan woodlands stretch up both sides of the valley into the heart of the Sierra de la Demande. And a cuckoo is calling, as it has been on and off through the day.

San Millan himself was a 6th century hermit, and around him gathered other hermits, and in the 10th century a Benedictine monastery was founded on the site. There are monks here to this day, though I’ve yet to catch sight of any! There are depictions of San Millan is sculpture and paintings in Benedictine attire (hardly a military uniform!) and brandishing a strange red zigzag sword, taking on the Moors as did Santiago Matamoros. Like Santiago he was a patron saint, of Castile and Aragon, but Santiago’s status has fared better down the years.

We walked up the valley this afternoon and climbed the hillside to one of the many hillside caves. The views up to the still snow-touched peaks were wonderful, likewise the woodlands which extend everywhere. We took out all our woodlands back home in the UK for firewood and building ships and to create pasture – not so here!

If you want to be a hermit, I can’t imagine anywhere better.

Final thoughts …

Final thoughts on the EU. Unless provoked!

A friend sent me the link to the Brexit movie, which I mentioned two posts ago.  I viewed and responded to her as follows:

“I’m proud to be a liberally-minded outward-looking Englishman, European, citizen of the world. Any film or message that begins with ‘we the people’ is automatically suspect. Pretending to refer back to the American constitution, but sounding more like Oswald Mosley in the 1930s.

There’s much wrong with the EU. There’s bound to be with any institution which brings together 26 nations. But the important thing is that it’s brought them together. We live in peace, amazingly. After fighting each other pretty much forever. We trade successfully, and we can only lose by leaving. The Leave story here is a disgraceful misrepresentation. Fully-argued surveys on one side against rose-tinted speculation on the other. Which do we go for? And trade means regulations and standards – we will need them anyway if we want to trade with Europe. And on the environmental side, and that includes animal welfare, I’m delighted to see that our standards have been taken up by the EU, and that means countries with much poorer standards than ours.

Listen on iPlayer to Paddy Ashdown  on Any Questions last Friday [13th May] taking apart Liam Fox when Fox tried to dismiss all the world institutions – the IMF, OECD etc – that argue for the UK staying in the EU as somehow biased or self-serving or in the EU’s pay. Only by traducing the integrity of these institutions (and none have come out favouring Brexit) can the Leave campaign make a case for themselves – and it’s profoundly to their discredit that they try. Likewise Mark Carney and the Bank of England – should he not issue warnings when warnings are what his role as Governor requires of him?

I walked the Camino across northern Spain with fellow Europeans last autumn. Not with the Brexit-minded. But with people mainly younger, mainly much younger than myself. They are the future. There’s a spirit of optimism, of sharing.

Sovereignty – that’s how the film begins. Sovereignty is worthless unless you work with others, and that means sharing some of that sovereignty. The EU is what we make of it – and we have one of the dominant voices there.

Immigration – on the plus side, an incontrovertible net benefit to the economy, on the debit side, pressure on resources and in some cases, jobs. How we control immigration (and still get the benefits) should be the issue, not how we oppose it.

Do we really want to turn the world against us?

Boris’s comments about the EU wanting a European superstate as Hitler did are disgraceful. We are the EU. The EU doesn’t have a separate existence. Linking it to Hitler is atrocious history, and populism of the worst kind.

Someone somewhere said he hoped the film would enlighten and entertain. It does the opposite.”

 

 

No more on Brexit?

Well, almost.

Time I think to bow out of talking about Brexit in this blog. It’s taking me down paths I don’t want to go. It’s so easy to be intemperate, and that’s no surprise, and indeed inevitable, given the importance of the issues involved. Recent specifics:

We’ve had the Tory MP Steve Baker laying into the Remain campaign for its petty smears, which is a bit rich giving the diet of outrageously misleading reports we get from the Eurosceptic press.

There’s Ian Duncan Smith on Michael Heseltine: ‘a voice from the past’ in response to Heseltine’s comment that Boris’s ‘judgement is going’ – not ‘going’ but transparently ‘gone’.

And Chris Grayling refusing was it nine times to give a straight answer on whether or not he supported Boris Johnson’s comments equating the EU’s ambitions with Hitler’s.

And at an institutional rather than personal level we have the right-wing Eurosceptic press.

Ownership concentrated primarily in the hands of ‘press barons’ is a serious issue for any democracy which aspires to be a mature and stable entity. Freedom of the press and oligarchical control are not compatible.

There’s an excellent outfit called InFacts that takes the Eurosceptic press to task for its persistent and egregiously wrong or radically misleading reporting. It’s well worth reading.

They, and we, have to hang in there.  

And if we leave?

If you prefer me writing country notes, or you’re American, and you’re not too interested in British or European politics, do give this post a miss! Though there are a good few parallels with Trumpery.

Also, if you’re expecting me to be mild-mannered, and avoid personalities, well, not this time. There is some pretty egregiously bad behaviour out there.

If you read the press and indeed listen to the BBC news you can get depressed, even feel beleaguered if you support staying in the EU. Michael Heseltine’s demolition of Boris Johnson yesterday, primarily over his linking the EU and Hitler’s ambitions, was featured in the Times, but not in the popular press. Heseltine would be ‘very surprised’ if Boris ever became the leader of the party, and that of course is an implicit part of the Brexit agenda. (How left-of-centre Brexit supporters can justify to themselves facilitating a Boris premiership I don’t know.) So however absurd Boris gets, he remains untouchable – and he is of course aware of that.

I don’t believe for a moment that Michael Gove shares Boris’s view of European history. I wonder (to myself only so far!) whether he might just change sides at the last. He is already tainted by association.

I also wonder what will happen if Boris does, after a Cameron resignation, become PM. Would all his party fall into line? I somehow doubt it – the party is badly split.(Just how far will all this mutual abuse extend?)  So he wouldn’t of course command a majority in the Commons, and in the event of an election there’s a very good chance that a pro-EU parliament would be returned. Would the Tories be able to campaign as a single party? If they did and they’re returned as the largest party, but well short of a majority, would they then still try and force through Leave legislation?

Another scenario: Nigel Farage asserts that, if the result is small Stay majority, there will be a clamour for a second referendum. I haven’t heard it from the Stay campaign yet, and I guess they’re too wise to make the comment – but if the result is a small majority for Leave, I expect there will also be a big clamour for … a second referendum.

Oh the joys of uncertainty and chaos!

If we weren’t all so deeply involved, if a potential Brexit hadn’t got calamity written all over it, these would be fascinating times. They will make good history ….