Does This Englishman Live In A Disunited Kingdom? Saying Goodbye To Brexit

by Neil Bamforth

I generally refer to ‘Blighty’ when mentioning my home country which is, of course, the nickname of Great Britain. I sometimes refer to England as I am, specifically, English. The correct title for our island nation is, of course, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Having listened to the news this morning regarding the deal we have apparently reached with The European Union, I suspect we should be known as The Disunited Kingdom.

As a Brexiteer who, somewhat reluctantly, voted ‘remain’ I can, at least, claim to have not added to the current discord over here.

This whole shambles began in the early 1970’s when the British people voted to join ‘The Common Market’. The ‘Common Market’ was, quite simply, a method of simplifying trade with countries throughout Europe so was, clearly, a very good thing. However, over time it metamorphosized into a heavily politicized European Union. An organisation that the British people clearly hadn’t voted to join.

As a result, an increasing number of voices demanded a referendum on our membership. The reasons for these voices being raised against our continuing membership were raised for a variety of reasons.

Certainly right-wing racists and xenophobes were in the mix but, equally certainly, many demanding a referendum were not of this ilk. They distrusted The EU albeit they accepted there were many benefits from membership.

The distrust was based primarily on the fact that the EU wanted to, ultimately, govern Europe. ‘We have enough trouble with our own politicians without having to worry about Italians or Spanish or German ones as well’ was the general understandable line.

Also, the free movement of European citizens was problematic. Certainly, Britain needs immigrants to function but, immigration without restriction was clearly causing difficulties for our infrastructure and membership of The EU denied us the right to restrict numbers.

A failure to adequately control the numbers from outside the EU seemed to exacerbate the issue, somewhat bizarrely given that the EU could hardly be blamed for that.

Anyway, then Prime Minister David Cameron finally gave the British people a referendum but made, I think, a fatal error when doing so.

Referendums (or referendi if you want to pretend you can speak Latin) are, by nature, used as a guide to the thoughts of the general populace. As far as I know, they are not legally binding on governments but are used to establish what ‘the people’ think.

Unfortunately, Cameron clearly stated the result of the referendum was binding. Oh dear.

I think he stated that as he firmly believed The UK would vote to remain in the EU thereby putting the argument ‘to bed’ so to speak. I presume he expected the remain vote to be significantly greater than the leave vote as a ‘close call’ obviously wouldn’t ‘put the argument to bed’ but, at least, the government could say ‘the people have spoken and the majority wish to remain’. Job done.

Unexpectedly the UK voted to leave and, frankly, all hell has broken loose ever since.

Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain whilst England and Wales voted to leave thereby dividing the nation straight away.

A quite extraordinary 72.2% of the voting population actually voted, making ‘Brexit’ the most successful vote in the UK’s history in terms of people actually bothering to vote.

Friends have fallen out, families are not speaking – rather like the Trump business in America. The nation is completely and utterly divided and, sadly, it appears the divisions will continue to grow.

The deal Prime Minister Theresa May has finally come back from the EU with is, apparently, not good enough for the Brexiteers. The ‘Remainers‘ want a ‘peoples vote’ or, if you will, a second referendum.

Personally, although I was initially against a people’s vote / second referendum – who voted last time? Penguins? – I am starting to think this may be the only way to, at least begin, to reunite the country.

The only real issue in having a peoples vote though is this. The remain camp seems determined that it is not a binary vote as the first referendum was. We leave or we remain, make your choice.

The remain camp wants another choice. We accept the deal, we leave with no deal or we remain.

No. It mustn’t happen. This would be a clear attempt to split the leave vote so would not be valid. It has to be binary again or chaos would ensue if the leave vote was so obviously ‘stitched up’.

In terms of unity in The United Kingdom, we are teetering on the edge of chaos.

I have an awful feeling this is not going to end well whatever happens. Could there be civil unrest? Quite conceivably. Could we end up with the most left-wing government in our history under Corbyn? Quite possibly. Will there be a beer shortage? Good grief I hope not!

The lesson I have personally learned from all of this is don’t ever ask ‘the people’ as ‘the people’ clearly haven’t got a bloody clue. And I say that as one of ‘the people’.

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