From Barry and Margaret Williamson
Somewhere in the UK, Moving Houses

1st February 2020

Reflections on the Morning After

Dear Friends

In a reflective mood on this, the first day of our enforced status as non-EU citizens (indeed we are now foreigners in our own continent and reduced to being subjects of Her Majesty), we read a splendid article by Ian McEwan in this morning's Guardian.

It so matches our own experience and understanding that we are sharing it with friends, the majority of whom we are sure think alike. We have also added our own reflections on the mantra of 'taking back control of our laws', since this absurd notion (we already have control, the problem lies with our own controllers) is at the heart of the tragedy.

Ian McEwan wrote (in part):

“Take a road trip from Greece to Sweden, from Portugal to Hungary. Leave your passport behind. What a rich, teeming bundle of civilisations – in food, manners, architecture, language, and each nation state profoundly and proudly different from its neighbours. No evidence of being under the boot-heel of Brussels. Nothing here of continental USA's dreary commercial sameness. Summon everything you've learned of the ruinous, desperate state of Europe in 1945, then contemplate a stupendous economic, political and cultural achievement: peace, open borders, relative prosperity, and the encouragement of individual rights, tolerance and freedom of expression. Until Friday this was where our grown-up children went at will to live and work.

That's over, and for now the force is with English nationalism. Its champion is Johnson's Vote Leave cabinet whose monument will forever be a special kind of smirk, perfected back in the days of the old Soviet Union. I'm lying, you know I'm lying and I know that you know and I don't give a damn. As in, “The five-week prorogation of parliament has nothing to do with Brexit.” Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg were masters of the mocking grin. The supreme court's inconvenient judgment that this prorogation was illegal clearly still rankles. Recently, the ex-home secretary Michael Howard was set on to murmur against the judges. Extending political control over an independent judiciary would be consonant with the Johnson-Cummings project. Victor Orbán of Hungary lights the way.”

The full article can be found here.

For ourselves, we are very much aware that each and every country in the EU is free to set its own laws governing its constitution, politics, religion, culture, education, national holidays, qualifications, armed forces and national service, the legal system itself, monarch or president, health service, taxation of every kind, building regulations, architecture, language(s), health and safety, flag, national anthem, sports, food, TV transmission, dress codes, internet, LGBT rights, abortion, marriage laws, the full contents of the Highway Code, cycle paths, speed limits, policing, prisons, etc, etc. Britain already has 'control' of all these within its borders, as do the 27 remaining states in the European Union. Vive la Différence!

What the countries of the EU do decide collectively are the regulations that govern cross-border goods and services. This is essential. There is also the need for mutual recognition of things such as qualifications, driving licences, insurance, exchange rates, mobile phone networks, pet passports, immigration from outside the EU, etc, etc. The EHIC, for example, meant that when needed UK people could use the health services of 27 other countries. We wish that there had been even more communality: for example, every regulation about vehicles has been mutually agreed except for a reciprocal MOT or its equivalent.

What have we gained by leaving the EU?  The Tories can vary UK regulations in their search to make free trade agreements around the world (although the UK hasn't made any for nearly 40 years), but this variation would obviously make cross-border movement and trade deals more difficult with the EU! Free trade itself isn't necessarily advantageous since it means cheaper and less regulated imports, which in turn threaten production and employment within the UK. This is a gain for the capitalists and the speculators in the City, but the opposite of the promises made to Leave voters.

Ian McEwan succinctly questions why we should have to spend the next fifteen years getting back to where we were yesterday!  At least, this gives us something to live for.

The German National Anthem has a theme of working together for the greater good:

“Unity and justice and freedom
For the German fatherland!
Towards these let us all strive
Brotherly with heart and hand!
Unity and justice and freedom
Are the foundation of happiness;
Flourish in the radiance of this happiness,
Flourish, German fatherland!”

The British Anthem invokes just two characters: one a 93-year-old woman, the other a matter of belief:

“God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen!”

Compare and Contrast!