Brexit's climate of change

Photo: Clive Simpson

SO FAR this year our natural world has delivered any number of examples of what future anthropogenic climate change might bring - and even now, in late September, we have recently witnessed two record-breaking hurricanes wreaking havoc on different sides of the globe.
                                   
Extremes are the story of our weather reporting and forecasting these days, yet mainstream media hardly dares make the connection that we are living through the first, potentially deadly consequences of climate change.

Global warming knocks urgently at everyone’s door but in the UK we look inward, consumed by a delusion born of self-interest. This is Brexit - and the UK’s impending annexation from Europe is the political equivalent of climate change.

To mention both climate change and Brexit in the same sentence is an interesting dichotomy in itself because it is rare to draw comparisons between such disparate things as political ideologies and what might loosely be described as a ‘force of nature’. One could argue, of course, that each is a self-inflicted catastrophe that is wholly, or at least partly, avoidable.

Another singular conclusion relating to each also encapsulates the point. Namely, it seems likely that the end results of both are going to be far worse than anyone is properly admitting, and the effects unless we change course - globally in the case of climate change - will be felt not for just a few years but for generations.

For the UK, Brexit is a fundamentally flawed exercise. It was never really about what was good for the country but what served the self-interests of vocal and fanatical political factions. At every turn, it seeks, without reason or rational argument, to undermine the values on which this country was built.

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” cried King Solomon at the beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. History teaches us that it is vanity and individualism, as opposed to pursuing the greater or common good, that has mostly brought great countries to their knees and destroyed mighty civilisations.

We now know there was never to be a tangible Brexit dividend, and every day it seems clearer the country is being held ransom, not by scapegoat immigrants or even sound political thinking but by lies and untruths disguised as vacuous phrases and innocuous sound bites.

"One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree," wrote Lewis Carrol in Alice in Wonderland. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don't know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn't matter.”

But it does matter because without any kind of realistic, future-looking vision ‘the people perish’, to paraphrase a quotation from the book of Proverbs (29:18). 

The northern hemisphere heat extremes of summer 2018 maybe have already been largely forgotten as we go about our everyday business. We continue to ignore the big picture of climate change at our future peril. Likewise with Brexit.

Ultimately there is no third way and, despite the protestations of a prime minister and leader of the opposition both in dogmatic denial, the choice is simple - a hard, chaotic Brexit or remain a member of the EU.

Two years on from that awkward, ill-defined referendum we still wander indecisively, a country lost and disorientated in some crazy political paralysis. We do still have choices but time is running short.

As a people, a country, we can hold up the torch of enlightenment and hope - just as we once did. Or we can cower in the shadows, weakened by ignorance and fear, and retreat alone into the dark of night.

Over two long years, Theresa May and her government’s repeated attempts at 'negotiations' have utterly failed the nation. Her bid to offload responsibility to the EU is truly embarrassing, a vain effort to shift the blame for laying waste a country she purports to love.

Often in times of impasse, difficulty or strife we turn to literature for solace, advice or even prophetic wisdom. Maybe also to discover words of honesty and hope that politicians, so bound by their short-term profanity, are afraid to utter.

The great American poet Robert Frost might therefore be relied upon in this instance to sum things up nicely. My appropriately amended (with apologies) version of his poem ‘Fire and Ice’ somehow strikes a new resonance, covering as it does both natural and political boundaries in a few short lines:

“Some say our world will end in fire, some say ice. But from what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favour fire.

“But if I had to perish twice I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ‘Brexit’ is also great and will surely suffice."

Land of make believe

“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” said Alice in Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland.

And at times in recent months it has seemed that we too might be living in some kind of political fantasy land. But as we jump from one preposterous situation to another one thing is becoming clear - the world is being rapidly transformed in a period of dizzying transition.

For centuries the dominant form of information was always the printed page, meaning knowledge was primarily delivered in a fixed format that encouraged readers to believe in stable and settled truths.

Now, we are seemingly caught in a series of confusing battles between opposing forces: between truth and falsehood, fact and rumour, kindness and cruelty; between the few and the many, the connected and the alienated.

Between too the open platform of the world wide web - as its architects envisioned it - and the gated enclosures of Facebook and other social networks; between an informed public and a misguided mob.

What is common to these struggles - and what makes their resolution an urgent matter - is that they all involve the diminishing status of truth.

Which is not the same as saying there are no truths because, as 2016 has made clear on both sides of the Atlantic, it simply means we can no longer sensibly agree on what those truths are.

In our 24/7 inter-connected culture what now counts as fact is increasingly a view that someone feels to be true. And technology (social media like Facebook have become purveyors of ‘news’) has made it very easy for these ‘facts’ to circulate in a cascade of information with a speed and reach that was unimaginable even a decade ago.

It means the political bombshells of the year, such as the UK’s referendum vote result and the emergence of Donald Trump as President-elect, are not simply the by-products of a resurgent populism or the revolt of those left behind by global capitalism.

Like Brexit, the rise of Trump is also partly a symptom of the rise and rise of social media and at the same time the mass media’s growing weakness, especially in controlling the limits of what it is acceptable to say.

During a vitriolic campaign Trump articulated many ‘truths’ which quickly circulated on social media and became enough on their own to help him secure a winning share of the popular vote.

Such a situation reflects too the ‘promises’ made by those campaigning to leave the EU during the UK referendum. Even basic scrutiny at the time revealed many to be empty, vacuous and unworkable promises. But they all too easily became accepted as ‘truth’.

For the UK, an unsavoury picture of a post Brexit world is now beginning to emerge: one where the rule of law, due process and even fact itself might easily crumble before the might of the mob, who themselves are directed by the Machiavellian schemes of press barons and wannabe dictators.

It seems that prime minster Theresa May appeals to a stereotype that has a deep grip on the English psyche. Sober and commonsensical, she portrays a moral seriousness one might expect from a vicar's daughter, whilst at the same time displaying an Alice in Wonderland quality.

Her public image - based on a track record of capitulation since taking office - might be described as something akin to "pretence” and, so far, her dominant side seems even more superficial than David Cameron.

It is a tribute to the power of cliches and soundbites that we fail to see what is in front of our noses and so few have noticed - the main reason Teresa May is prime minister is because she put ambition before principle.

During the referendum campaign, and probably ever since, May has proved herself somewhat ordinary as an orator of any note. There is certainly no evangelical fervour that her upbringing as a vicar's daughter might have instilled.

But as a politician on the make she seems close to perfect. When Craig Oliver, David Cameron's former chief of communications, wondered if she was secretly an ‘enemy agent’ for the leave side, he was perhaps being too devious.

In fact, May was just making a smart political and career move. Apart from speaking in secret to the likes of Goldman Sachs, she kept her views about the economic consequences of Brexit quiet - so that the Conservative right might accept her as leader if Cameron lost.

Failing to state your honest opinion on the most important decision Britain has taken in decades may seem cowardly enough. But the consequences of May's pretence do not stop with the referendum.

Her manoeuvres since the summer (including on Hinckley B, Heathrow airport and Nissan) have forced her into a position where she must make arguments she cannot hardly believe, on behalf of causes she cannot possibly believe in.

Far from ‘taking back control’, her leadership to date also shows that Brexit is depriving ordinary people of the ability to take decisions, giving privileges to the special interests the leave campaign claimed it was fighting against, and imposing burdens on the taxpayer far greater than the mythical £350 million a week that Vote Leave claimed was sent to Brussels.

May and her defenders say she is responding to the absolute will of the British people but even without the muddy waters of truth versus untruth and a still confusing Brexit strategy, a 52-48 vote was hardly the people speaking as one.

Perhaps, in this post-referendum, pre-Brexit Britain we can more easily understand our prime minister by seeing that she is no different to many others when it comes to abandoning beliefs in favour of ‘truths’.

Disappointingly since taking office, she has failed to level with the public and confront them with the hard choices ahead. Rather than speak plainly, she has proffered the notion that Brexit will be painless.

Now, as prime minister of 'pretences', May is running a government where feelings seem to matter more than fact. She pretends the country should leave the EU, even though she knows its best interests are as a member of the single market.

She offers the illusion that the people are taking back control, even as the freedom to act is lost. She cuts deals in secret, in the hope that the public will never realise that her land of make-believe is going to be an expensive and very different place to live.

For many reasons, the political earthquakes of 2016 have been tectonic in nature and herald a significant lurch to the right in global politics where false truth and self-interest trumps rational and reasoned argument.

How far this continues - and even spreads to other countries in the year ahead - remains to be seen. Strong, statesmanship-like leadership is called for as the clouds of chaos amass menacingly on the political and economic horizons.

A good day at the office

It used to be that people who were honoured by the Queen had either gone above and beyond the call of duty, done things out of pure altruism, or dedicated a life to public service. But things are changing.

So when Prime Minister David Cameron declared that Andy Murray deserved a Knighthood after becoming the first Briton to win the Wimbledon men's singles since 1936 wasn’t he riding the anti-authoritarian bandwagon, just as Tony Blair did before him?

I watched Murray on Sunday and was as thrilled as everyone else that he won an extraordinary game of tennis. I’m not convinced, however, that it merits a Knighthood.

The next day when Murray appeared at 10 Downing Street, Cameron certainly maximised the opportunity to bask in another’s reflected glory and deliver his ill-thought popularist riposte to a nation still riding a tide of emotional delight.

"I can't think of anyone who deserves one more," said Mr Cameron, in prose that somehow seemed rather weak and bereft of occasion for the political leader of our country.

Murray responded later, saying: "It's a nice thing to have or be offered but I don't know if it merits that."

Our modern-day obsession with celebrity probably has something to do with it - but Cameron ought to know better than jockeying for cheap, short-term popularity with words that hardly sounded sincere.

Should we be rewarding our sporting heros for ‘just doing their job’? Well the precedents have already been set, so it may be hard to pull back.

Remember, for example, our yatching heroine Ellen MacArthur who was made a dame before she had even set foot back on dry land?

In a similar, distorted vein we’ve been ‘rewarding’ bankers and heads of giant corporations with mega bonus’s, even when they’ve been serving a string of corporate or fiancial faults.

So fast-forward to the summer of 2014 and let’s indulge in a little ‘what if’ speculation around an unlikely outcome of the World Cup in Brazil.

Suspend reality for a moment and imagine that our lads in the England team finally get it together and play for the mother-land like never before, emulating Murray and winning the elusive soccer trophy for the first time since 1966.

A big ask I grant you - but while we are at it let’s take this topsy turvy idea a giant leap further and imagine that Wayne Rooney is the superstar hero of the tournament, scoring a series of stunning goals and rounding it all off with a hat-trick in the final.

Yes Siree - you’ve got it! Arise Sir Wayne!