Britain's place in the world

So, in case you weren’t watching, it’s out of the bag.  UKIP’s primary concern is immigration.  The very first point that Farage, in his valedictory speech, urges the next Prime Minister to adhere to is: “We need a new Prime Minister that puts down some pretty clear red lines, that we’re not going to give in on issues like free movement”.  On the Conservative side of the fence we hear Philip Hammond saying that it is absurd to promise, before negotiations, that EU nationals can stay (BBC News) - articulated with the cool calculation of the leadership of the Third Reich.  He is forgetting that a bloody war was fought in defence of the very principles of humanity that he now dismisses in order to bargain with the lives of millions of human beings.

It says a lot about the mood in the United Kingdom.  It’s a very cold fact that the vote on leaving or remaining in the EU was split pretty much right down the middle.  There is no overwhelming majority in favour of leaving.  It is also very apparent that those who campaigned so hard to leave on the basis of immigration assessed the mood of around half the population very well – as have the proprietors and editors of the best-selling newspapers for years.  I don’t believe that those proprietors or their editors are racist.  Almost certainly not.  But I believe they have based their business success on correctly identifying a very strong characteristic among the population of the United Kingdom and, who knows? perhaps the world.  They are the moral opposite of Lord Reith.

As with the newspaper proprietors, I’m fairly sure that Farage himself isn’t a racist, but his campaign amorally targeted those he knew were.  It is a disappointing and inconvenient truth that around 50% of the UK population (mostly in England, judging by the split of the vote) dislike immigrants to the extent that they disregard aspects of leaving the EU that will negatively impact their lives and those of their children.  Look elsewhere for the list of pros and cons, but recall those EU subsidies to industrially barren regions and the workplace regulations that currently protect waged-labour. 

The saddest thing about this whole campaign is the signal that seems to have gone out to racists that it’s ok to abuse foreigners, which some interpret as a signal to attack them.  How long before the violence escalates? The leadership of the Brexit campaign have all but scuttled-off, leaving someone else to deal with the mess.  But their legacy is a bleak one.  They have exposed the country for what it is (52% of it, but that is the group claiming to speak for Britain).  They have ridiculed it around the world, where it had been known for fairness, modernity and tolerance – all of that has been trashed.  They have ended the careers of the more moderate Conservative politicians and opened the way for the likes of Hammond and the person most likely to become leader.  The inhumanity of these successors will do nothing to improve the reputation of Britain in the world, they can only drag it through the dirt.  These are dark days, indeed, for the country.