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 Emporer's New Clothes 