| The (dis)United Kingdom
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We
were
never unconditional friends of the
European Union, but now our country
has decided to engage in collective
self-harm. The majority has decided
to quit the EU with no idea of the
consequences. Having taken the view
that Europe has nothing to offer us
and that all the experts and all the
organisations with the knowledge
necessary to inform us of the
consequences were liars, they have
voted for an isolationist future.
Our Prime Minister has decided to
resign and we will probably have
Boris Johnson as his successor,
someone very popular with his fan
base, just like Donald Trump, and
just as much a deceitful opportunist
as Donald Trump.
In
consequence,
we are now going to have to live
with the mess that this will create.
We have already seen the reaction of
the stock market and the collapse in
the value of the Pound and we shall
be without an effective government
until October. Even then,
probably there will have to be a
general election as the incoming
Prime Minister will want to
establish his authority and not make
the same mistake as Gordon Brown did
when he took over from Tony Blair.
And, for me, even more seriously, having hoped that the days of Enoch Powell and the BNP were a bad memory, we now finally have to accept that we no longer live in a tolerant country, but one which has revealed prejudices against ’foreigners’ worthy of the Le Pen family. The UKIP poster showing Syrians lining up to come into Europe was fundamentally dishonest, of course, as leaving or being part of the EU makes no difference to the UK government’s legal right to control who comes here from outside the EU. What it did do, however, along with the Leave campaign's posters showing the whole population of Turkey, and other states wanting to join Europe, decamping to the UK, was to play on fears of being overrun by ‘outsiders’. I am completely disgusted by the campaign rhetoric and no longer recognise the tolerant country in which I was brought up. Paul Buckingham 24 June 2016 |
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