I feel ashamed to be British. We have succumbed to narrow-minded jingoism and covert (sometimes overt) racism, encouraged opportunistically be those who should know better. The cosy political and financial cabal's in London must take their fair share of blame, and Corbyn's Labour party has been wholly impotent.
It's clear that two factors won the day for brexit. The first and most prominent is immigration. Campaigners reporting from the "doorstep" indicated that this was almost the only issue that really counted. The second is decades of neglect of the regions, particularly in the North of England, which allowed those who have been "left out" to blame the EU - in spite of EU regional aid. This does not apply to Scotland, which thinks behaves as a country.
We are now cut adrift in the North Sea, battered by financial and social storms and bereft of credible leadership.
What to do? We should strive to be internationalist on a world-wide basis, fostering genuine British values independently of the corrupt power structures that pertain in so many walks of life, above all financial. This means that we should do everything to stop John Major's "bastards" from taking over.
anything and everything, from the standpoint of a historian of visual things.
Saturday 25 June 2016
Sunday 19 June 2016
Gove and Johnson
Michael Gove paints a picture of Britain as a "progressive beacon" outside the EU. There is nothing "progressive" about Gove. He belongs to the intellectually dogmatic radical right. Let loose, he will privatise everything in sight. Johnson is of the emotionally opportunistic radical right. Beside them, David Cameron's pragmatic right looks positively desirable. The idea they can legitimately speak for a broad spectrum of society is absurd. They exploit inflammatory issues to draw in sectors of society with which they have nothing in common.
Friday 17 June 2016
Jo Cox, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage
Let us characterise political and social views in the EU debate as a continuous spectrum. At one end is a tolerant internationalism, coupled with a proper recognition and respect for one's geographical and ethnic origins. At the other is committed racism and bigotry, underpinned by potential violence. All the mainstream politicians stand not too far from the middle of that spectrum - or claim to. The issue is which way they are facing when they look for support. There is no doubt that Johnson is consciously facing down the spectrum, implicitly looking for support from those closer to the racist end. Farage is more or less openly soliciting such support, while disclaiming racist views on his own behalf.
At the extreme end of the spectrum stand Brevic, the Norwegian killer, and now Mair, the murderer of Jo Cox. Those using fear of invading foreigners in the EU debate should ask themselves hard questions about which end of the spectrum they are facing.
At the extreme end of the spectrum stand Brevic, the Norwegian killer, and now Mair, the murderer of Jo Cox. Those using fear of invading foreigners in the EU debate should ask themselves hard questions about which end of the spectrum they are facing.
Wednesday 15 June 2016
Brexit and EU referendum
The debate, which has degenerated into a slanging match, has essentially become economics vs immigration. In the long term and in the big picture immigration is a secondary issue, inflated by politicians and press who are exploiting residual jingoism. What has been lost is any sense of the greater ideal of the European "family" , based on our shared heritage and future place in the world.
When I first visited America, I realised that I was European - as well as British, English (with a Scottish family), a resident of Stirlingshire. Do you remember at school proudly writing down one's address as (in my case)
122, Clarence Road,
Windsor,
Berkshire,
England,
Great Britain,
Europe,
the Northern Hemisphere,
the World,
the Universe?
To which level we assign power over us is a matter of informed cultural and political choice. We are governed and regulated by entities ranging from local councils to the UN. Europe is just part of the spectrum, and not as monolithically dominant as the bilious Brexiters spuriously claim. On balance, the legislation passed by Europe compares very favourably with that passed by our national government.
Leaving Europe would be a disaster.
When I first visited America, I realised that I was European - as well as British, English (with a Scottish family), a resident of Stirlingshire. Do you remember at school proudly writing down one's address as (in my case)
122, Clarence Road,
Windsor,
Berkshire,
England,
Great Britain,
Europe,
the Northern Hemisphere,
the World,
the Universe?
To which level we assign power over us is a matter of informed cultural and political choice. We are governed and regulated by entities ranging from local councils to the UN. Europe is just part of the spectrum, and not as monolithically dominant as the bilious Brexiters spuriously claim. On balance, the legislation passed by Europe compares very favourably with that passed by our national government.
Leaving Europe would be a disaster.
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