Brexit

I have now been back in England for a month, after travelling around the New Forest, South Devon, Bristol, Cheltenham, Northumberland, the Peak District, and Cambridge, I have now arrived in London for the next fortnight.

How to make sense of it?

If you are reading this at another time, the big dilemma that is preoccupying the country is Brexit, the proposal for the UK to leave the European Union (EU). Ambivalence about the UK's membership has split the Conservative Party for years, and David Cameron decided to try to 'resolve the problem once and for all' by holding a referendum three years ago in June 2016. Against predictions, a narrow majority of 51.9% voted for 'Leave'.  More information here.

  Leave     Remain

London results

Demographic trends

As can be seen, London, Scotland and Northern Ireland favoured Remain, while most of England and Wales favoured Brexit. Younger people and more educated people were more prone to support Remain.

Conversations in my travels around the country have generally reflected this. Brexit has dominated politics for three years, and shows little sign of resolution. People are heartily sick of it.

Theresa May (who voted Remain) became Prime Minister after David Cameron resigned after the referendum. She held a snap election in June 2017 in the hope of increasing her majority at the expense of the dysfunctional Labour Party led by the widely despised Jeremy Corbyn. The election tactic backfired spectacularly, with her losing her majority, and becoming dependent on the votes of the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland. More on Theresa May here.

It's complicated!

Theresa May announced a number of 'red-lines' that she would not cross. These have complicated attempts to achieve a settlement with the EU negotiators. After several failures to pass a resolution in the House of Commons, she resigned as leader of the Conservatives on 7th June. At the time of writing, the selection of the next leader of the Conservatives, and thus Prime Minister, is going on.

It is a weird and tedious process! First the Conservative caucus had to reduce the list of candidates down from six to two, from who the winner will be chosen by a ballot of members of the Conservative Party. The two candidates at this point are Boris Johnson (the favourite) and Jeremy Hunt. 

Here are two articles describing some of Boris's past:  The 10 ages of Boris Johnson: a guide to his road to power. Who is Boris Johnson? Everything you need to know about the new British Prime Minister.

The campaigning has exposed the public to more than they ever really wanted to know, including the police being called to the flat where Boris was staying with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds (31) after a fracas.

Boris Johnson

Carrie Symonds

Both the Conservative Party, and the Labour Party, appear completely split over Brexit, and no-one has come up with a plan for leaving the EU without the reintroduction of a 'hard' customs border between Eire and Northern Ireland, the removal of which was a key issue in the peace process in 1998, summed up by the Good Friday Agreement. The Protestant DUP holds the balance of power in Westminster. They oppose any agreement that appears to dilute the membership of Northern Ireland in the UK. So a solution such as a border in the middle of the Irish Sea, which would be unacceptable to the DUP, risks bringing down the Conservative Government.

What a shemozzle! Boris is perceived as a sort of buffoonish Bertie Wooster character, charming, funny, but unreliable and with a chaotic private life. He is very well known, and was previously Mayor of London. He is committed to taking the UK out of the EU, even without a deal with them. 'No deal' is frightening for many sensible centre-right Conservatives, who might not support Boris in the face of a no-confidence motion. Assorted financial experts predict doom in the case of a 'no deal' Brexit, and intone the equivalent of the poem 'Jim' by Hillaire Belloc.

“Always keep a-hold of Nurse, for fear of finding something worse”

Meanwhile British phlegm and humour seems to keep the country remarkably stable. Politicians of all shades of opinion are held in very low esteem. 

The country seems to have curiously swung to a political spectrum with a neo-Marxist leader of the Labour Party (Jeremy Corbyn), and a series of Eton educated people (Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg) who could easily represent Monty Python's 'Upper Class Twit of the Year'.

I attended a large march through London protesting against Brexit, and Boris (who had not yet won the ballot to become prime minister). It was a sort of street party.

It was a bit surreal; it felt like a celebration. Yet actually it was a protest with very little focus beyond the slogan: 'Bollocks to Boris'. The important decision was made by referendum three years before. It was about as potent as a protest to complain that Roger Federer hadn't won Wimbledon.

Here are some of the placards.

Boris Johnson's full name is 'Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson'.