The English Civil War

Joe Strummer sang about what he saw as the increasing risk of unrest because of the rise of the far right National Front in The English Civil War in 1979. In an update of the old American civil war song When Johnny Comes Marching Home he sang that Johnny would come by bus or underground this time "because he hasn't got far to march".

The National Front - and all it's successors to date - haven't amounted to much.  But nevertheless the binary nature of Brexit has proved the most divisive political issue in my lifetime. The House of Commons has become increasingly febrile as the latest deadline approaches, for one side of the argument must eventually lose.

Personally I didn't find the nature of the debate at all surprising when the Commons resumed after the prorogation that legally never happened . Boris Johnson's "humbug" remark was inflammatory and his remark about Jo Cox misjudged at best but, as usual, the real venom came from the left. I think it ill behoves Labour MPs to howl at the PM in outrage with their faces contorted with what looks pretty much like hate to me for his relatively mild language when those individuals haven't, to my knowledge, criticised their own colleague John McDonnell for saying "lynch the bitch" when referring to female MP Esther McVey a while back. And that is just one of so many examples of the left using appalling language, a habit which dates back a long way - at least to Nye Bevin calling Tories "lower than vermin" in 1948.

Of course were those MPs to criticise McDonnell or any of his cronies they know for sure that the stream of hate that would flow their way from people supposedly on the same side would have plenty of, shall we say "momentum". So they don't do it. Which makes them cowards as well as hypocrites.

Johnson should probably apologise if only because, in the modern way of looking at things, if his opponents felt he was offensive, then he was. But his opponents have far more apologising to do in the main.

However, the division in the country does worry me. I listened to some of the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 recently. Now Vine, for me, has declined since he participated in Strictly Come Dancing as he seems to think he now has personality - or is one - and the BBC build up the "wacky" side of his character, which actually isn't that wacky. However this session with callers was very good. It focussed on how friendships and relationships have been damaged, or ended, over Brexit. It was hurtful listening to callers who told of families divided and life long friendships ended.

There were callers who voted Remain and said that they just could not speak any more to relatives or friends who had voted Leave, sometimes without any discussion or argument - they just cut them off, which amazed as well as saddened me. There was a caller whose long standing friend had winkled out of him how he had voted. When he reluctantly admitted to voting Leave the friendship had been damaged - "we still see each other at the match, but it's not the same". There was a musician who also reluctantly admitted he had voted Leave only to receive a relationship ending blast on the lines of "you've ruined my retirement". (The other musician was planning to retire to Sweden. Not only did he ignore the fact that it took 17 million others to vote the same way, he still could, of course, retire to Sweden now or in the future).

Vine noted that the common pattern was that it was almost all one way - it was Remainers who had cut Leavers out of their lives. "Are Remainers actually less tolerant?"  he pondered. He also wondered if it was that way round because Remain had lost. I'm sure that's the case but I don't know if it would have been as marked in the opposite direction if the result had been the other way. I think the fact that Remain lost unexpectedly had a lot to do with it. It's also the case that the Brexit debate has set people who had hitherto had similar political viewpoints against each other, as the binary split is very much not on traditional party lines. But for whatever reason it's still hurtful that some people who preach tolerance don't exercise it on a personal level.

Now I've only found one or two people who have become hostile even at the idea of a debate on the B subject. One person said "stop right there or we can't be friends", having guessed wrongly how I had voted. But I've said before in this blog that, whatever happens now, the political atmosphere in the UK will be toxic for decades due to Brexit. I had posited to Mrs H that it could be a bit like the aftermath of the Spanish Civil war: the topic might appear to go away but the rancour, splitting families and friends, would remain just under the surface through generations. I hadn't written on this because I suspected that my analogy was just to extreme, indeed tasteless. Prorogation, backstop, even no deal are hardly Guernica, are they?

Even so Strummer's song might be coming true after a fashion, though hopefully not in the way he envisaged through the rise of the far right - the far left getting in seems more likely to me, after all they've taken over a traditionally mainstream party. Not that the far right and left behave at all differently.

The problem with Brexit is that it's binary and essentially irreversible. It's not like voting for a party knowing you can chuck them out in 5 years time. And, even if it's only words, the division it is causing is a kind of English Civil War. What was that saying about sticks and stones? It doesn't work like that though, does it? Especially, it appears, if coupled with a vote in a referendum.