In and out of Europe

Time to write about Brexit.  We've just arrived back in France after a busy happy family week in England,  We feel we belong in France after 10 years but we of course have strong ties to England too.  So do many of my friends of overseas origin recent or from the past.  I am ashamed that the consequence of the referendum vote is that they feel less secure or less welcome in the UK.  I wish I was a citizen of a country which was open and welcoming to immigrants.

For me and for Mary, being part of a European community is important simply because it is a statement of intent to co-operate.  Far from being 'dictated to' by the French, the Germans, Brussels or whatever, a European union is a statement of intent to find common ground and avoid conflict.  We have avoided war in Europe for over 70 years through the EU however important it is as an institution.  The extremism of Nazi Germany is a painful memory and its recurrence is a constant anxiety.  The herd instinct and extremism are everywhere, but there is more chance of their being kept in check by international co-operation.

For this reason alone we (Mary and I) voted to stay in, but most people in the UK as a whole disagreed.  I don't subscribe to the view that we now need to put up and shut up, but I accept that practical politics will now try and resolve the problem of how to implement a decision made with clear rules.  52:48 is not an overwhelming majority but it counts.  At the same time, we shall continue to believe in the ideals we have long had, and it is in an honourable tradition of democratic openness that we should be free to express these.  No referendum in a free country can button people's lips

As I say, my main concern with the referendum process is that it stirred prejudice and hatred.  Probably most voters on either side made rational decisions according to their lights.  Even some of those who voted to reduce the population of foreigners had real anxieties.  But those who promised 'money back' or to stem the flow of immigrants did not stick around to see through their campaigns.  The minority who had been waiting for the moment to yell abuse at people in the street or to incite hatred of children in  schools however saw their chance.  Let us hope that will not last, but the sense of insecurity which many EU residents feel about their place and welcome in Britain will last longer.  There should be a better way of showing Britain is a welcoming place even if not a member of the EU club.

I was reminded during our stay of the enormous debt we all owe, and I personally, to Jewish refugees who fled persecution before the war.  Close friends, people I counted as family.  Despite the panic internments on the Isle of Man for instance, they felt an enormous sense of gratitude to the British who welcomed them and gave them citizenship, even organised things like Kindertransport.  This is the honourable tradition of our country.  I think of Polish people too, many of whom came in the 1940s and even fought in the RAF.  Now immigrants enrich our life and economy.  How can we now leave things so that people feel insecure and rejected by the country in which they live, work and pay taxes?

I know these things are unintended consequences of a campaign and a vote supported by many with honest reasons for wanting Britain out of Europe, but that is the hell of modern politics - blinkered policies which have awful results, and politicians who simply wash their hands of the backwash.  I can only hope that honourable people who try to make Brexit work live up to their promises to heal the divisions.