I met an ex-miner in Nottinghamshire who confided to me he never travelled out of Britain in his entire life (60 years old he was). He voted Brexit against the political elite, he said. I met a Punk singer in London who uttered “Fuck to Brexit!”, however, admitted, she never spoke to a leaver discussing points of opinion.
Will the people of this country please start speaking to each other? Pretending it is enough if one deal or the other gets voted through, even by a cliff hanger – that it would be sufficient – was never going to do the trick of calming this country (of Great Britain). For Brexit, you have heard this before, is not just about the EU. Behind the smokescreen lie crass, no, shocking levels of inequality and education, and the sell out of small communities in a changing world.
Brexit will sadly not heal these fissures of the divide, between those who have vast amounts of privileges and resources and those kept behind for generations, if not centuries, indirectly or more precisely, through indirect but deliberate oversight.
Some of the Brexit Gods are the same people who sold such people out, speak major investors , property and fund zars, like Rees Mogg or Richard Tice, or a Wetherspoon chain Tycon, or the vacuum-cleaner emperor Dyson, not that some of the top Remainers have any much more pity on the impoverished, say major multinational groups, more interested in profits than people having meaningful lives where at least some of their infrastructures and traditions are protected from the destructive interference of the likes of Amazon, Starbucks, Lidl, BMW, Tesco, Walmart and Co (note the Americans in the list, for those who worshipped Brexit, for less trade with the EU and more with the U.S. have it coming for them all the same).
Whatever form of Brexit parliament decides upon, if it can decide at all, the real issue is not Brexit. The real problem in Great Britain is the lack of social mobility and the lack of a more evened out society. My biggest fear is that the aim to tackle this will get forgotten in the process of any decision under the banner of Brexit, while the true status quo remains to be tackled.
And, second to that, is the crisis of identity of both Britain and Europe that is still resting on an unchallenged historical footing. Not just Britain’s self-understanding is ruled by empirical aftershocks. You can find echoes of that in Belgium, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Holland amongst others – and the overall assumption of the supremacy of the Christian civilisation -supposedly. Count (if you dare to) the human toll it caused and you know the price thereof.
For inequality and privilege is not just an internal national problem. Once you look globally, Europe becomes Small England. Europe too refuses to acknowledge that taking a stance for and foremost against all forms of exploitation is an absolute priority, with people around the globe as equal agents. It would reduce migration, reduce our global environmental challenges and would ensure the paying of fair wages by trading with poorer nations on an equal footing, and making health care standards and access to education for all an absolute.
In the end, You may say, Britain is selfish for trying to unlink itself from the EU, Trump-America for building a wall, but what is the EU or the US to the world, if not a self-centred border guarding place? And, it does not end there. Other supernations, China, India, America likewise want it all for themselves. This can not be the way forward.
In the spirit that was supposed to unite divided Europe, a violinist, member of an volunteers orchestra that performs in a “Concert for Europe” Beethoven’s 9th Symphony on the 28th of March (they thought this would have been the last day of the British membership of the EU), reminded me of the words of Schiller and perhaps we should take his invitation global.
“Joy, beautiful spark of divinity, Daughter from Elysium We enter, burning with fervour, heavenly being, your sanctuary! Your magic brings together what custom has sternly divided. All (wo*)men shall become brothers (and sisters), wherever your gentle wings hover.”
That is our only rescue, and we must act accordingly, beyond Britain, beyond Europe, all sisters, all brothers and all in between. One world to share for all on equal and fair terms.
