Europeans

Early in this journey I was asked, by a German guy actually – not that its relevant, if I could explain Brexit. I have thought of that question often as I have toured, especially when I have been walking round a southern European city in the evening. Watching people sit in the square at 10pm, chatting and eating ice cream, or mid evening walking up and down the main streets, or eating outside at pavement restaurants, I have thought ‘I want to be part of this family’. Now I know, the north is different from the south, Croatia is different from Portugal, even Corsica is different from Sardinia and they are just an hour’s ferry ride away from each other. Yet that is a good thing in my book, difference is a good thing, tolerance and actual appreciation of things and people that are different in whatever way is a positive. Something some senior politicians seem to be unable to grasp – despite the ready availability of mirrors.

I could have said that a weak Tory leader tried to resolve the endless conflict over Europe within his own party by gambling the country’s future. I could have said that he, and others, didn’t ensure that a super majority was required for such a huge decision. I could have pointed out that politicians lied or misled, weren’t honest or were deluded. From Boris Johnson choosing a position based on what would get him to the top job, Jeremy Corbyn hiding his pro-Brexit stance from his young followers, through to those who suggested freedoms, opportunities or investment that would flow from ‘Taking Back Control’ based on an idea that once we left the EU it would be 1870 again with Britain the heart of a commercial empire.

I could have talked about the influence of the right wing press, from the Mail, which has taken a decidedly anti-European stance since their support for Hitler in the 30s, or the failure of those who were Pro Europe to sell their idea with any passion. It would have been easy to blame immigration, whether concerns over Poles and Romanians, or those being less controversial proxies for concerns over South East Asian immigration. Maybe I should have brought up the opportunity the vote gave for all those ordinary people who had paid for 2008 and its aftermath with their pensions, jobs, living standards and lost public services while watching those who had caused it grow richer still, to say UpYours to what the Establishment wanted in the same way they did in the USA when they elected Trump.

I could have said that this should have been an election for the young whose future would be most affected by the outcome and who have already paid too high a price to support generations that have had the benefits of post war booms, house inflation, guaranteed pensions and a political system that has bought their votes – our votes – quite cynically.

But I didn’t, because that wasn’t the question he asked me. The question he asked was ‘Brexit, what were you thinking?!’ And my answer was, ‘ We weren’t’