On being relatively European

"If …. every citizen realizes that the only guarantee for security and peace in this atomic age is the constant development of a supra-national government, then he will do everything in his power to strengthen the United Nations. It seems to me that every reasonable and responsible citizen in the world must know where his choice lies."

From Albert Einstein's open letter to the General Assembly of the United Nations.

I've recently watched the National Geographic Bio-serial about Einstein. Yes there was quite a bit of poetic license but it was enjoyable and informative all the same. Einstein appears as a background character in one of my novels and I've been researching him quite a bit. 

He was used to being a stranger. He left his native Germany to study in Switzerland. His first wife was Serbian. Sometime after he returned to Berlin when he had become an eminent scientist he was persecuted for being Jewish. He gained asylum in the USA but was constantly monitored and was even spied on by the Russian mistress he took after his second wife died.

As a scientist he had grave concerns about the use of nuclear energy for war and encouraged the idea of a supra–national government. The United Nations goes some way to providing that, but they can't solve every problem. For me the most sickening about Blair and Bush's foray into Iraq was the division it caused within the United Nations.    

A few years earlier I'd felt very uncomfortable when we were at war over the Falklands. We seemed alone in the world. We lived near a lot of naval families at the time. War is not trivial and should be avoided.

Let's not dismiss the years of peace in Europe that the Common Market, EEC, EC, EU has brought us.

If I can be in favour of Brexit at all it is to be like Einstein. Let's get rid of borders altogether. Let's just have one world. But this would mean disbanding the whole of the EU and I'm not sure getting rid of all borders is quite what the Brexiteers mean. In the meantime, the EU remains a strong and stable force, even with all its faults, and it represents baby steps towards peace on the planet. Why would we want to go in the other direction?

So whatever happens, I'll remain relatively European. I've been through a process four times now that has involved gradually understanding why others do things which seem a little strange to us, and then understanding so well that those routines and habits become my own at least some of the time. I'm now ready for that process to happen anywhere. Thus I remain relatively European not because I'm more British than European but because I'm even more a global citizen of nowhere.        

   

What do we mean by Brexit, actually?

I recently argued with a Remain friend. 

“The problem is,” I said, “it’s all too black and white, not like a general election.” 

“I don’t agree,” she said. “It’s all very complex.”

She’s right, of course. It is all very complex. There is no agreement on what Brexit actually means. This is partly because, I suspect, that no one was expecting it. There is probably as much difference between any two versions of Brexit as there is between any one and Remain.

     

However, I was right as well and perhaps I should have said “cut and dried”. Unlike with an election a decision like this made at a referendum can’t be reversed in five years’ time or toned down during the five years. In an election we may vote for one party even though we don’t agree with everything but we’ll go with them if we agree on most things. Even if our chosen party doesn’t get in there is still an MP we can talk to and there will be other MPs in parliament representing the party we really wanted. There is something more final about the decision made on 23 June 2016. 

A ray of hope: the EU has said we can change our minds. Maybe in five years’ time the younger electorate will be negotiating to get back in.       

I’m very clear that a lot of British people (not all of “The British People” by any means, so can we talk of the “will of the British people”?) - voted to leave the club and I don’t think we can dictate the terms of our continued relationship with that club. Yes, we can defend ourselves against unfair leaving penalties but actually we had all of that information before we decided to leave, and hmm, our democratically elected Euro MPs were involved in setting it up. We can also negotiate a good working relationship and certainly we all want that in terms of national and international security. 

Can we still live in harmony if not joined institutionally? I’m heartened by my experiences on a recent trip to North Cyprus. We managed to communicate well without a shared language and in a country scarred by partition. Many Britsh ex-pats enjoy living there. I smile when I remember that many Brexiteers were afraid that Turkey would join the EU. I make two points here:

·         It was never on the cards.

·         The Turkish people I met last week were lovely.

What does Brexit mean to me? It’s something I still don’t get, causes me a lot of sadness and worry and fills me with dread. Is this just an emotional reaction, though? It is emotional but not just emotional. I’ve looked as critically as I can at as many verifiable facts I can access and I remain Remain.

What will / can the EU do for the 48% and the ex-pats who live in other EU states? 

Not only do I remain Remain, I still see myself as more European that British. I suspect I'm not alone. 

    

       

            

“They need us more than we need them.”

Really? How arrogant.  

Yes, I also actually believe that the world is better off with the UK in Europe and that a UK – (i.e. United Kingodm – not one where two of the regions want to split off precisely because of Brexit and where a third wants to be independent as well anyway) in the EU has a lot to offer.  Ironically many of the big towns – Bristol, London, Liverpool and Manchester - might argue for independence precisely because of Brexit as well.  

    

The former British values of empathy and tolerance – where have they gone now? - and our proficiency in modern music, and theatre and literature, both modern and classical, add to an already delightful mix. We’re not superior, however, and in fact they’ll manage very well without us. It’s a lost opportunity. I think we lose more than “they” do.  That “they” is telling anyway. I continue to think more in terms of “we”. 

There you have it. The bottom line? I cannot be just British because France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands have rubbed off on me as I’ve lived or spent a lot of time there and importantly I speak their languages. In addition I’m married to a person who is culturally half German Jew and according to the Nuremberg race laws and Jewish matriarchal progression is actually Jewish. Where does that leave us?

I like the single market. It’s handy. We get our Camembert, green peppers and VW Beetles without paying import tax and we only pay for a few food miles. 

“Oh we’ll be able to trade with other countries,” say the Brexiteers. 

Sweethearts, we always could and do. There’s just a little import and export tax involved.  Even if we get into free trade deals with places further away there’ll still be the food miles. The US is putting the EU ahead of us for trade deals. If Northern Ireland and Scotland go, will Little England and Wales be attractive to anyone? If Scotland goes there goes our North Sea oil.   

I’ve spluttered in disbelief anyway since 24 June 2017 as there has been a debate about “soft” or “hard” Brexits and then indignation that the EU says we must leave first before we can negotiate any sort of deal. If you ran a club and someone wanted to leave and no longer paid their dues would you expect to allow them any privileges? Exceptionally, perhaps, if it were a very old and gracious person who could really no longer use the club fully. Is that what we are?                                 

  

Made in China?

How often have you read that label on something you’ve bought? When I was a child in the 1950s that was found on many toys which were regarded with some suspicion. It meant the toys were made cheaply, possibly dangerously and as I grew older I came to realise that this may also have meant that the person who made them was probably not paid a lot. 

Things have moved on now. China produces some really good quality goods and it’s a rising economy over there.  Mind you, I still feel uncomfortable at the vast difference between the rich and the poor; it makes us look like a very equitable society. However, everything seems to be moving in the right direction. 

I’d like to pause just there: made in China. So, we’ve always imported from China. And from many other places in the world. I export books to Australia, Canada, US, India and Japan.  There is a constant exchange of goods. But where we’re not in a trade agreement, we have to pay import and export duty. There are also the “food” miles to think about.

So, de we really want to have to start paying to import and export duty on goods we get from  our nearest neighbour where food miles are less of a problem? How daft it that?

Look what happened with peppers recently. There had been a massive crop failure in the Mediterranean counties because of bad weather. They became scarce because we had to buy them from a market that supplied other places. They became expensive because of scarcity, import duty and food miles. Is that what we want? 

In my ideal world there would be no barriers at all. We would use the same currency.  Affordable healthcare, housing and education would be available to everybody. Homelessness and starvation would not exist. Indeed, anyone causing the latter two would be marked as a criminal.

I’m old enough and cynical enough, however, to realise that we’re some way as a human race from being able to achieve that. However, breaking up what could be a balancing super power, is a step backwards. In fact it looks as if that break up might cause the break-up of a smaller unit as well. What oh the Union Flag then? 

For the sake of something made in China that we can get relatively easily anyway?               

            

The £350,000,000 a week bus lie

There is the old joke: “How can you tell when a politician’s lying? He’s opening his mouth.” That’s a little harsh, perhaps. There are many sincere MPs, who, although they may show bias and in the end there is something natural about that, they don’t set out to deceive. Nevertheless, just before the referendum on 23 June 2016 a group of academics, some of my dear colleagues among them, urged both Remain and Brexit to stop lying. After the referendum many of us signed a petition asking politicians to be truthful.  And what was their reaction? They claimed that they don’t tell lies. That’s the sort of statement that can unhinge a robot or a computer. 

Historians write history by leaving things out. Many who know of Florence Nightingale have never heard of Mary Seacole. You can use statistics to prove anything: I’ve seen the same set within ten days in my former place of work being used to give us a pat on the back and then to kick our behinds. We have all heard of alternative facts now. The more philosophical will say that the opposite of truth is another truth.

Yet there was something really nasty about that bus that goes beyond this nuancing. And about the sign I had to drive past every day that said “£350,000,000 a week is no joke. Save our NHS.” 

Of course, now we know it can’t. By his own admission a certain MEP who always reminds me of a Jack Russell, says that that was a mistake. A mistake that he lied? Or a mistake in his understanding? Goodness, if an MEP doesn’t understand how the EU works, how will the rest of us manage? Amazing how many people googled “EU”  AFTER the referendum, mind.

  

Yes, we send £350,000,000 across but we get £300,000,000 back for our regions – two of which want to remain in the EU and all of which are making big noises about independence. I’m near a city that voted Remain and I’m enjoying the new tram routes partly funded by EU money. On the Sunday after the referendum I went to an outdoor event and we parked at a nearby enterprise that displayed a huge European flag. It had received European funding and brought thousands of jobs to a deprived area. Then there are the subsidies to farmers and the collaboration in research. I’m no expert on how all of these pots of money fit together but if we start having to pay import and export duty on goods going to and from Europe, the extra 50,000,000 will soon be used up. Did you notice how the price of peppers went up after the crop failure in Spain and we started getting them from further afield, paying import tax and air miles?    

There is something here, I believe, about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

      

I fear a rise in UK taxes. Amongst other things, civil servants are going to be very busy. How will the present government be able to keep its promises? 

And for the record: I love Jack Russells even if they remind me of someone.