I haven't written a
blog posting for ages, having been very busy, and a holiday etc. But
I thought I should write something about our recent disastrous
political collapse – there is nothing else to call it. Many of the
readers of this blog, most in fact, are outside the UK, and given the
strong admiration so many feel for the English garden, and the strong
anglophilia I know many garden and plant lovers feel, I know there
will be many of you who will be asking “what the hell is going
on?”. Not only have British voters rejected membership of what has
been described (by the Observer newspaper) as “the greatest
democratic achievement of the post-war era” and which has also been
an immensely successful trading bloc, but also seen the most
mendacious and irresponsible political manouevering at the highest
level, and the collapse of the political left – to be replaced by a
noisy and nationalistic populist movement. Friends of Britain must be
puzzled and worried. For those of us who live here, it is a truly
traumatic and frightening time.
Every country, as we
all know, has a nasty, thuggish intolerant nationalistic element. In
Britain it has been pretty small and apart from occasional eruptions,
insignificant. There is though the so-called 'little Englander' way
of thinking, in many ways no different to similar attitudes in every
country. But the fact of being an island adds something, the illusion
that we are apart, are different, that we can ignore our neighbours.
One of the things which particularly incenses me is the way that so
many people talk about 'Europe' as if it is over there, another
continent which we are not part of. For heaven's sake, we are part of
Europe, even if we were not politically so, even if we were as
isolated as North Korea, we would still be part of the continent of
Europe! Its a use of language which fundamentally betrays an island
mentality, and a failure to understand our intimate connections with
the rest of Europe.
One aspect of the
'little Englander' mentality, and this may be a rural rather than an
urban aspect, is a paranoia that the EU is a kind of conspiracy, led
by the French and the Germans to destroy Britain. I heard this from
people during the foot and mouth disease crisis in farming 15 or so
years ago – the EU response was regarded as part of a plot to wreck
British agriculture. Far worse now is the racism, the growing
hostility to the Polish and other people who have come here to work,
and for the most part, have actually contributed to our national
prosperity. That prosperity however has not been shared, and here
perhaps is an important part of the problem.
Visitors to Britain,
especially if they do not get beyond the garden-rich and rather
genteel south-east and the Cotswolds, may not appreciate just how
divided a nation we are. There is a lot of poverty, not real
destitution poverty (starving children etc.) but a long-term grinding
poverty in many of the old industrial areas, a cultural poverty as
much as a material one. Whole towns without hope, their industries
closed down, poor housing, second-rate education. A failure to
modernise British industry in the 1950s and 1960s was followed by
wholesale de-industrialisation under
Margaret Thatcher's
government, which strongly favoured the finance industry. There was
never an attempt to rebuild manufacturing industry. Whereas Germany
has been able to re-invent its old industrial areas like the
Ruhrgebiet, Britain never did. One of the ironies is that what
regeneration there has been in these areas has often been thanks to
EU money. Not that the voters paid any attention to that when they
cast their votes last week. Voting for Brexit was just a way of
protesting, against a succession of governments that have let them
down.
The real culprit is
perhaps the press. The popular British press is very right-wing, with
lurid stories having being run on immigration for years; if you
believe them you would think that we were about to overrun. This
hostility, verging on outright racism, has been a drip drip of poison
for years, despite the fact that the National Health Service (out
most precious national institution) runs on foreign doctors and other
staff, and everyone loves their local Polish builders and plumbers
for getting things done. Immigration and all other problems are
blamed on the EU. The anti-EU message has hammered home ruthlessly.
Listening to the 'vox pop' on the television, poor badly-educated
people, who probably have no idea of what the EU is about, mouth
slogans about 'regaining our sovereignity' which come straight from
the pages of the hate-mongering nationalistic press. They are a sorry
spectacle, you feel sorry for them, but at the same time feel angry
at their naivity and gullibility and the confidence with which they
parade their ignorance.
There are silver
linings to the cloud. The election of the first Muslim mayor in a
European city, the Labour Party's Sadiq Khan, in London last month
was a sign of a broad coalition, led by an increasingly restive young
middle class, globalised and Europe-friendly but who are frustrated
by rising inequality. Bristol ditto, with a Jamaican-heritage new
mayor. Seen from this perspective, the anti-EU voters look like Trump
supporters, the older, less educated, the 'left-behind' people. And
then there are the Scots, who firmly voted to stay in the EU and who
have seemed completely immune to the paranoias of the English. But
then, the Scots were always better Europeans than the English. Many
of us look forward to what must be their eventual independence.
We hope you'll still
come and visit. The gardens of England, many of their plants of
mainland European origin, their design frameworks often derived from
Italian or French models, will still be looking lovely and
rose-bedecked. You will still be able to have high tea in
half-timbered houses or walk the green fields outside your country
house hotel. But remember that you are in the front room, and that
you may be hearing crashing and banging and shouting from elsewhere
in the building as we become an increasingly fractious, divided,
intolerant and badly-governed society. Just like all those
politically unstable countries we used to sneer at from our stable
and predictable island.
One of the best things
I have read on the whole sorry tale is this from The Irish Times:
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-brexit-fantasy-is-about-to-come-crashing-down-1.2698974
