"What do you mean you voted for Brexit?"
I recognize that no one wants a long-haul analysis of all the whys and wherefores of one of the most crass acts of self-harm we've inflicted on ourselves as a nation, but maybe I can quickly summarise in a few bullets:- Britain had been in decline and fall as a country since the early 1950s. The swinging sixties only glossed over our underinvestment in manufacturing and technological innovation.
- Joining the EU (or EEC as it was then) in 1973 actually saved Britain from total stagnation. It gave us a bit of a lifeline and an economic boost for a while, but a deep-seated insularity prevented us from making the best of the opportunities on offer.
- Governments (Conservative for the majority of the time) were not as 'state oriented' as on the continent, so our systemic slowness to modernise, and our deepening infrastructure malaise became stumbling blocks that we have still not overcome. Thatcherism has a lot to answer for.
- Our growing dependence on services and the financial sector to bolster GDP exacerbated a deepening divide between the poorest 30% and the wealthiest 20%, with the rest of us stranded somewhere in the middle.
- Faced with that malaise and its inherent inability to do what was necessary, the Conservative party started to infight, and the Brexit Referendum was Cameron's attempt to try and save the Tories from disintegrating all together. (Just look how that's worked out)
- Those who promised us that "getting our country back" would be in any way better than a dive back into the shrinking insularity and stagnation of the 1950s and 1960s were peddling illusion at best, cynical deception and lies at worst - as I think we've all come to realize after the event. Leaving the EU has been an economic and a social disaster for the UK and Reform/Restore would only lead us deeper into the hole we've dug for ourselves.
Seriously, folks, it's time to start planning to reverse the mistake and rejoin the EU.
"We've all been done."
For my poem, I've written a variant on Martin NiemĂśller's famous 1946 apology for not speaking out in opposition to the advances of fascism/nazism in 1930s Germany. Several other straightforward pastiches have appeared in recent years, and you can google alternative versions of the 'First they came for...' theme at your leisure.However, I wanted to flip the narrative and give my rendition a different slant and structure, a more positive and progressive one in the face of the cynical attempt by right-wing billionaires to bankroll the overthrow of our cherished multicultural democratic values, a move that has been gathering pace, as I've intimated above, since the machinations of Brexit.
Specifically it was triggered by remarks by Reform's Zia Yusuf about a Somalian refugee, Sagal Abdi-Wali being put forward as the Labour candidate in the Holborn parliamentary by-election occasioned by the resignation of Sir Kier Starmer. Yusuf warned "The front runner being foisted on the people of Holborn by Labour to replace the former Prime Minister Keir Starmer in our Parliament was born in Somalia. Do you understand what’s happening?"In point of fact, Ms Abdi-Wali came to the UK in the 1990s as a child refugee. Now in her forties, she is a British citizen, has been a local councillor for a decade and is currently the elected leader of Camden Council. Zia Yusuf is a major Reform donor who has never held political office.
They Came First
They came first to escape war
and I did not freak out,
because I was not a racist.
Then they came for social security
and I did not freak out,
because we are the sixth richest country in the world.
They they came for trades and training
and I did not freak out,
because they didn’t “take our jobs”,
often did work we didn’t want to do,
and they paid their taxes.
Then they came up for election
and I did not freak out,
because they had assimilated
into our democratic institutions
and frequently championedmulticulturalism at its best.
Then they came to be demonisedby the lies of wealthy xenophobes
and finally I did freak out,because we all knowMartin NiemĂśller's poemoff by heart... ...and this monstrous tide of modern monied fascism threatens to tear all that's good in our febrile "sceptred isle" apart.
Thanks for reading my stuff, S ;-) Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to Facebook
