The dangerous theatrics of Brexit

After four years of gruelling talks, seemingly on the verge of agreement, the Government threatens to send gunboats into the Channel to arrest French fishermen who sail into our territorial waters in the event of a no-deal Brexit. 

The Ministry of Defence has war-gamed scenarios to “defend our waters”. Royal Marines will abseil from helicopters (Rule Britannia blasting from quadrophonic speakers mounted on its landing skids?) onto French fishing skiffs in the event of a “threat to life”.

This, of course, is largely theatre. There is no “enemy”. More of a serious disagreement between neighbours over land rights. Always one to turn an obstacle into a crisis Boris Johnson is squeezing every last ounce of drama from these final moments before a probable deal, however thin.

To give Johnson his due, he is playing to a captive audience conditioned after four exhausting years to extremes of emotion, hyperbole and hype. Words like sovereignty, dignity and freedom – terms that need careful definition to be meaningful in a dialogue between people of different backgrounds – have been weaponised. I don’t feel that my country’s sovereignty, its freedom or its dignity have been compromised by being in the EU. But I accept that others see things differently.

When Johnson says to Ursula von der Leyen “All we want is the freedom to live as we choose”, I can well imagine her thinking: “But Boris, in what way are you not free?” 

Gunboat diplomacy is what we do when we have run out of words or choose not to use them. As Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale and prophet of dystopia once said: “War is what happens when language fails us.”

Brexit has poisoned the well. No other issue in my lifetime has come close to having the same, profoundly toxic, effect on political discourse and the national conversation. We are no longer citizens. We have become Gammons and Remoaners. The French are slippery and vindictive. Brussels is an imperium, Brexiteers are Little Englanders. Families have split. Friends have fallen out. We have spent so much time shouting at each other, we have become hoarse.

Mind you, the elation and the anguish we feel are real enough. What one side views as a liberation feels like a death to the other. But we have reached a point where merely identifying someone as a Leaver or a Remainer carries with it a whole set of damning assumptions. Branded with the mark of Cain, they are transformed into a creature beyond reason or redemption.

I can hear both Leavers and Remainers responding by pointing to the other side, saying: “It’s not us. It’s them.” To which my response is, “You prove my point.”

This is not a good place to begin a national reconciliation, without which we are holed below the waterline even before we set sail for our new destination.

Brexit is not the only reason for this. There’s austerity, tensions over immigration, the growing fragility of the Union and the growing possibility of a Scottish breakaway and, of course, the pandemic. But Brexit is the cut that has opened the wound.

A previously stable, if increasingly fragmented country, held together by communities that thrived on close ties, mutual obligations and shared interests has been plunged into permanent crisis. Increasingly we have fewer common points of reference. We are, as Bernard Shaw once said of Britain and the US, a nation separated by a common language. 

I am not neutral in this argument. I see no tangible advantage whatsoever in leaving the EU. The case made by Brexiteers leaves me cold.  But fellow Remainers who relish the thought of Brexit turning into a catastrophe just so we can say “I told you so” are misguided, not least because the blame game is never a one-way street.

I have also, perhaps belatedly, come to understand better how powerful the siren-call of “sovereignty” or taking back control is. Yes: this has been shamelessly, some say, brilliantly manipulated by the Cummings/Johnson cabal. Nevertheless, language that evokes the spirit of Dunkirk and the Heart of Oak (the anthem, incidentally, of the Royal Navy) taps into something real and profound which we cannot wish away. Patriotism (not to be confused with nationalism) runs deep, especially among working-class voters who voted Tory last December.

Of course, freedom is relative. Taking control of our borders, our laws and our money is not as simple or as consequential as it seems. The world is interdependent. Big issues like climate change, terrorism and public health require close co-operation with our friends as well as our adversaries. This is self-evident. But not, it seems, self-evident enough to others.

Winston Churchill, Johnson’s hero, said this: “We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think of being a European as of belonging to their native land, and … wherever they go in this wide domain … will truly feel, ‘Here I am at home’.” That sounds good to me. But for the purists and the right-wing of the Tory party, it’s not enough.

Britain, or more properly England, has embarked on the next stage of a journey of self-discovery which began with the end of empire. It is proving extremely painful. I fear it will also prove a good deal more difficult than people imagine.

Brexit will continue to colour the landscape for years to come. The economic consequences above all will determine how we look back on this pivotal moment in our history. It may lead to the break-up of the Union. It has already contributed to a dramatic shake-up of the political order in England.

But if it remains as divisive an event as it is now, it will have failed. Nation-building is about the stories we tell each other and the language we use. When this ends, however it ends, we need a new story – one that brings us together. Boris Johnson is not the man to craft it. 

At the heart of all this there is a paradox. We are heading for the hardest of hard Brexits. This is the desire of a minority of those who voted for Brexit and a small section of vocal Tories. At the same time, we hope to sell ourselves to the world as country that is enlightened, flexible and enterprising. 

If that is to have any meaning, we need to start building a much broader and more diverse narrative, based on a language that more accurately reflects Britain in the 21st century.

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