We are battered and bruised and bleeding and in pursuit of our healing and restoration we are battering and bruising one another even more.  And none of it heals the division or effects the reconciliation we so desire – and yet are so afraid of.

It’s time to change that.  It’s time to turn elsewhere for healing and reconciliation.  And yet where do we turn?  We turn to face one another but in new ways.  That has to be the way to go now.

How we do it is phase two.  Let’s for now recognise where we are in phase one.  And declare a desire to go further down this track.  There we may find it’s already a well trodden path, with signposts and wayside cafes.  But let’s resolve on it first.  We may then find familiar faces already there, but with few companions!

What all this is telling us is that the wrong processes have been used from the outset to try to resolve this matter and accommodate all views in how we relate to Europe in one course of action, one strategy, behind which we can all unite.

So let us even now take up this challenge whilst it is not too late; whilst we still have the chance and let us see this debacle for what it is – a call to do things differently.

That is the only conclusion to be drawn therefore as we review the situation and see the fragments.  And the question is not how one fragment beats or steals a march on another fragment but on how the fragments unite.

Any sense of triumph that may exist over the Brexit deal must not blind us to the fact that we need to learn much from the many, many flaws there have been in the whole process and how these have continued to be reflected in the final deal. 

Something as momentous is this should not be carried through simply on ‘the numbers’.  There should not be continuing division on the outcome – at least not on this scale.  On something this big – especially for Northern Ireland – there should be consensus or something far closer to it.

This outcome has shown nothing so well as that we still act like children in trying to resolve these matters and it is time – more than time – to claim our adulthood in relation to such things.  If we can’t see that, we really are blind.

This whole process makes the case for reform as to how we go about arriving at decisions through the political process and how this is outdated and no longer fit for purpose.  There should not be a carve up, or a metaphorical punch up, but something far more adult and constructive.

We only tolerate this because we have become so accustomed to it that we think there can be no alternative.  And yet somewhere we know this is not good enough and we now need to do better.  It’s just inertia – or vested interests – that perpetuation the old system which would try to convince us otherwise.  It really is like The Emperor’s New Clothes.

The tragedy is that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are now vying together with others for leadership of the Tory party under a ticket that would take us out of Europe on the 31^st of October come what may when in fact, rather than Theresa May or anyone else, they should have been leading the negotiations to take us out of Europe in the first place. What a twist of history that that did not happen immediately after the referendum, aided not least by what was seen at the time as Michael Gove’s treachery in relation to Boris, scuppering a partnership that might have delivered what was very much needed.

Now it is about no deal rather than a better deal which Europe says anyway it will not countenance and so it seems their moment in history has passed whilst it is still about to become, for one of them at least.

What irony and what a perverse turn of events.  Is it too late for either of them to do something about the situation more constructively?  The rhetoric is not helpful, certainly not from the Johnson camp. So can anything be done to recover what has been lost? 

Boris Johnson would need to show more of an aptitude and an appetite for negotiation than presently seems to be the case.  What is on offer instead seems to be rather reckless.

Fulfilling promises by being reckless is a very questionable virtue.

1. What does it matter, really, that several of the Tory leadership candidates dabbled with drugs on occasions when they were younger and still finding out about life?  I could be more reassured than outraged that they had allowed themselves to be open to new experiences, especially in a social setting where peer hope or expectation was a factor.

The fact is that this was a one off in terms of the number of times, or the period of time, within which it happened and they have behaved differently since.

We are so over the top in how we respond to these things, or at least the media are.  Do normal, ordinary folk really care as much as the media about these things?  Boris‘s naked electioneering (cutting taxes for Tory members likely to vote for him) concerns me more: a sheer opportunist who will stop at nothing to see ambition fulfilled.  Does he really have the vision or temperament or seriousness to fill the PM role?  It’s not just about being a performer.

2. We need to look at how we deal with rape cases.  The evidential proof bar for a conviction is necessarily as high as it is.  But why does so much have to be placed on proof?  Bringing the parties (alleged victim and offender) together, where they are willing to talk about what happened, how they feel about it now, what they have learnt as result and how they may wish to give or receive an apology or make reparation in some other way, could achieve so much more if this option too were not so obstructed by strict legal protocols.  It really is time to look at this again.

Unable to do much blogging at the moment owing to the need to prioritise writing up a dissertation (on a different subject) but have just heard ‘Rethinking Representation – Democracy in Action’ with David Runciman on Radio Four and I highly recommend it.  The essential message, for me, although next week’s episode promises to look more at possible ways forward, is that if we want a political system fit for purpose in today’s world and able to encompass the complexity and multifaceted nature of the issues facing us, we have to get more involved, but also know how to behave ourselves within that involvement.  What might that then look like in practice with more citizens involved at local and regional as well as national levels and how would representation then function?  How would we choose our representatives: still through a simple voting procedure or something which identifies the person deemed most suitable at the end of a process in which all are involved and which sees the contenders then slowly emerging? This may sound radical and be beyond what we want to get involved with. But you get what you pay for and here we need to pay with our involvement. But that involvement has to be within the right frame and process.  I wrote a paper on this 2 years ago and will attempt introduce aspects of it in future posts.

I have just been listening to Jeremy Hunt being interviewed on the Today programme and he is proposing a new negotiating team made up of representatives from the Government, the DUP, the  European Research Group, Scotland and Wales (to represent the Union side) so as to come up with a deal that can find its way through Parliament. Those represented would ‘command the numbers’ in the House to be able to deliver it in these terms and this would reassure and persuade Brussels that any new deal could be delivered.  This would then sufficiently change the attitude in Brussels towards any new deal and open up options which are at present closed.

It is an interesting proposal, although it does not (for the reasons he gave) include representatives of the Labour party, Brexit party (no MP’s) or it seems any other party, but what is most striking about it is what it includes rather than what it excludes.  It represents a coalition of sorts who are going to sit down and work through their differences, through the various issues which at present set them at odds and come up with something they can present to Brussels.

This is not a million miles from what I have been advocating and it is a welcome step in that direction.  Whether it is enough on its own is another matter.  It may be enough to get a deal through Parliament but not enough to create a consensus within the House. It may or may not change the mood across the nation whilst at long last delivering on the vote to get us out of Europe.  So it is to be commended and may be effective but it is also limited.

Much more directly aligned with what I have been proposing however, and much more exciting on its own terms, is the proposal now being put forward by Rory Stewart, MP. I have long admired his thoughtfulness and, in a quiet way, his vision.  He was on ‘The World Tonight’ last night arguing in favour of Citizens’ Assemblies similar to those initiated recently by President Macron in France to get the public’s view on things beyond the simple binary outcomes with which we are presently saddled. 

As Rory Stewart says, in a divided country we need to start by discovering what we have in common and how the nature of our future relationship with Europe can also be forged through non partisan discussions.  The outcome of these discussions would be funnelled through social media back to Parliament who would decide how best to work further with what has been conveyed.

Mr. Stewart then foresees representatives of all the Parties, including Nigel Farage, meeting in the proverbial locked room to listen, compromise and, setting aside their party differences,  work together until they can find a way forward. He anticipates them using a professional mediator if necessary in order to do so.  Hallelujah, I say as this really is music to my ears!

Mr. Stewart does not think there can be any other starting point than the present withdrawal agreement but this should be approached in terms of what can now fashion our future relationship with Europe as we look beyond the Withdrawal Agreement to the Political Declaration.

It is so refreshing to hear a voice of reason and imagination in our midst who is not only in Parliament but also a contender for leader of the Conservative Party.  I hope either he, or his ideas, are able to advance so that we can all advance towards a proper resolution to this matter.

What is further interesting about the outcome of the European elections is that in both England and Wales and Scotland respectively it is the Party that most unambiguously, simply and straightforwardly, stands for coming out of an existing Union that has won hands down.  So what is this desire to come out of an existing Union all about?

A strong desire for independence and escaping a Union which seems to compromise us or leave us at a disadvantage is evident. The appeal here however seems to be less towards the prospects for prosperity and all the rest of it (although in the case of England and Wales, migration and jobs in particular may be a part of it) and more about the fundamental desire to be free and unencumbered by other alliances, membership of trading or political blocks or whatever in which we feel captive.

This desire to be free and independent for many outweighs all other considerations.  Better to be ‘poor and free’ than ‘rich and subject’.

So how do we factor that into any approach that may look more soberly at the different aspects?

It has to be more that we see our involvement in terms of a contract, where we are an equal partner with others, rather than an arrangement whereby we are in any way made ‘subject’.  And this applies in our national life as well as in our international relationships.  Sometimes it feels as if this lack of a sense of a social contract in how we are governed, with more and more bureaucratic and other little tyrannies eating ever more into our sense of personal liberty, is prompting our desire to be free of international coalitions.  Is this really the case?  Is this really a part of it?

If it is a part of it, this is a serious consideration because there is a question of how these things find their proper domestic expression and how this is also then expressed on the international scene, where there may also be a degree of displacement.  Are we now facing and having to deal with that displacement? Is what is expressing itself as a desire to be free of international unions a desire to be free as individual citizens?

This is all such a cauldron, a turmoil, of so many things that are not properly separated out and seen as they are in themselves or in relationship to each other.  In this way too the Brexit turmoil needs to throw a light on our national politics and all the human impulses, as well as the more considered arguments, which relate to that.

When, one wonders, will this conversation begin?

The Brexit party success in the European elections effectively kills off any hope for the approach I have been advocating.  But that is because we now have to deal with something which is reactive rather than creative (as Eric Morecambe might have said:  all the letters are there, they are just not in the same order!) but that has only amplified what has been all along the case.

We don’t see it because our own reactivity makes us blind to all this (just like the adults in the crowd saluting the Emperor’s new clothes) and we do not see either therefore that this is precisely what has to be overcome.

We have voted, collectively, for the solution which is just a reinforcement, a repetition and deepening, of the problem.

And this will go on as long as we continue to fail to recognise what is really going on, even if we do now get our Brexit solution (by sheer weight of numbers and force of sentiment). 

This will go down as another lost opportunity, where reacting prevailed over creating because we could not see what the situation was really calling for.

In or out of the EU, the situation was really calling for a new approach: a new way of weighing, sifting, evaluating and agreeing and what can arise out of that process; something that anticipates the future, rather than repeats the past, by seeking both in the present moment.

The last major opportunity for this was in 2003 prior to the war in Iraq.  In some ways that was very different; in other ways the same.  How?  Future blog posts will need to explain this.

But the challenge remains in terms of finding a new way to do politics and until that challenge is met we will go on confusing the new with the old.  The new in fact will not be able to find itself from out of the old even if the calls for that discovery are everywhere within the present situation itself.

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I have just heard Laura Kuensberg  on the BBC saying that the electorate has punished Westminster politicians for searching for a more nuanced position – within shades of grey – where they voted for black and white solutions.  And the latest vote has shown that.  But in the spectrum between black and white is not just grey: it is also where the colour is.  By settling for grey we are missing the opportunity for a colourful Brexit, if Brexit it be.  And neither soberness nor flamboyance on its own will make up for this!

I have just been listening to Kenneth Clarke interviewed on the Today programme.  He talks so much sense, both in terms of his observations and his analysis.  Crucially he says that the leaders alone or even the two main parties cannot sort this out between them.  At present there is no prospect of an agreement all can unite behind, and yet they need to.  The candidates for leader of the Tory party ought to be able to say how they will get us out of Europe, other than simply pulling out without a deal.  He doubts that any one of them will be able to do so.

Neither is a General Election the answer; it would just create more problems than it solves and would lead to a divided house and perhaps an even more divided country than we have already.  Divided and quarrelsome!  The most likely outcome in any event would be a hung parliament with the need then to ‘develop the art of coalition building’.  Is that such a different animal, or even perhaps the poor relation, to the consensus building I have been talking about?  So why can we not take this option even now.  There is precious little time to lose with doubts over whether the EU leaders will grant a further extension after the 31^st of October should we need it, unless we can make a really good case for needing it.  The adoption of what I have been advocating would represent such a case.

Finally Ken Clarke says we need a grown up solution and a proper, sensible agreement with the EU which is and will remain our biggest market in the world.

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If we were to do something of the sort I have envisaged, this would not only be good for us, or even done just for us, but also for the whole of Europe: rehearsing and hearing as sensible grown up adults the pros and cons of being in the EU and reaching a decision on a basis that would be persuasive for all.  It would also return us to what David Cameron might have got from the negotiations with the EU before 2016, the failure of which started all this off.  To get to the end therefore we need may need to go back to the beginning!