The calls from certain quarters for the nation to unite behind the PM’s Brexit deal is being treated with the disdain it probably deserves. Not because the sentiment is not necessary, but because it trivialises yet again the causes of the division. It represents nothing more than the diminution of the reasons people hold the views that they do, and treats them as little more than superficial differences that can be easily abandoned for the sake of patching up the nation.

It also relies on the assumption that the disagreement is symmetrical in ‘weight’: the irresistible force and the immovable object, perhaps. In a sense, that is why Leavers have been reduced to telling Remainers to ‘get over it’. There is simply no better argument available to them, as indeed there is not in the opposite direction; nothing that can trump the very different values of the opposite camp. It is stalemate.

But the two cases are not symmetrical. The belief of Brexiters that pro-Europeans should just get over their difficulties betrays a fundamental failure to appreciate or care for the nature of identity – of which, given their own claims, one might have expected them to have a better understanding. Nationalism (insidious or otherwise) is based on the call for people to identify profoundly with an identity bigger than themselves, to the extent that the two partially merge. And yet Brexiters simply fail time after time to appreciate that for pro-Europeans, what is being “untimely rip’d” from them is their own version of exactly the same thing.

Here, in one nation, Brexit has exposed two utterly incompatible readings of what our national identity is, or should be. The one cannot but exist at the expense of the other; the only fully practical resolution would be to divide the nation physically in two. And the only less drastic, less satisfactory – but more practicable – alternative is to hold a new vote now that the specific terms of the proposed settlement are known. Mrs May’s greatest error of many, is to fail to appreciate this; if she was really as concerned for the national interest as she claims, she would recognise that a new vote is the only real hope of reconciling the issue – and if that means that two years’ difficult negotiations, let alone the time and expense, are not after all needed, then so be it. A useful purpose will still have been served.

But I fear that is not likely to be resolved or patched up for many a year to come. I have had numerous encounters with people where (not at my instigation) the very first line of conversation sought to establish which camp I was in; that is the depth of division that has been created, and which I suspect will linger for decades.

Neither is the argument as practically symmetrical as some would claim. I challenge any Leaver to show what negative effects Britain’s membership of the EU has had personally on them. They have always had the choice simply to ignore most of the doings, let alone the cultural aspects of pro-Europeanism. While some may rail against the arrival of metrication, for example, the practical effects were small. Undoubtedly there are some whose livelihoods were affected by EU policy. But that argument is easily reversed – and while one might potentially feel sympathy with fishermen subject to quotas, one also needs to reflect on the reason those quotas exist in the first place. British domestic policy on this matter has shown relatively little inclination to deal with issues like the depletion of fish stocks, let alone the environmental aspects of the matter.

On the other hand, Brexit, if it happens, will cause significant real impacts on every single individual in the country. There will be no ignoring it. The increased cost of living, the lower incomes and opportunities, the increased difficulty of physical access to the continent – not to mention the cultural and identity loss for those to whom such things matter – will all be very real and immediate. If Leavers don’t understand this, it is nothing more than a product of their own insularity and limited vision; if they simply don’t care, it betrays the hollowness of their own vision of national unity.

In practical terms, living under the aegis of the EU, even for those who did not like it, had little negative impact on their lives – at least not in ways that were distinct and separable from the damage done by the domestic mismanagement of this country in recent decades. It arguably also balanced any negatives with benefits that were often larger in scope than locally-minded objectors might perceive. Clean air legislation, for example, is not easily appreciated from a determinedly local perspective.

On the other hand, the prevailing of their world view will have significant a personal impact on me and those like me. It will actively deprive me of things that I hold very important, and will make – indeed already has made – the leading of my life more difficult. Why I should suddenly forgive that gratuitous imposition I do not see.

That – apart from any of the bigger arguments – is I suspect why calls for reconciliation will not work, and why this will not be forgotten lightly.

Professor Anthony King’s book Who Governs Britain? is about as even-handed an assessment of the topic as one might hope to find. King is a distinguished and considered expert in the field, as I experienced in a public debate at which he spoke. The book is well-written and entertaining.

And yet one is still forced to come to the conclusion that the system is broken, or at least cracked. And highly inconsistent and illogical. Published in 2015, the book is prescient in its observations, given what has happened since.

There is some discussion going on regarding Theresa May’s deserving of sympathy. King’s book puts this in an interesting perspective. I doubt the criticism that suggests she has put party survival ahead of country – she is not that much of a team player. But she still represents the worst of the Establishment – inflexible, unfeeling and out-of-touch. The government’s response to criticism from Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on poverty, is just another timely reminder of how unresponsive is the British Establishment to real, urgent needs of ‘ordinary’ people. I wonder if it realises how badly its outright denial of the problem appears in the nation at large.

May’s woodenness and emotional illiteracy are thus just par for the course, team player or not. Whatever she really thinks about Brexit, her chosen approach has just reflected the ability of this country’s executive to do what the hell it likes, in between the occasional need to flatter the nation with false promises at election time. She could have chosen to acknowledge the closeness of the vote, and seek to reconcile Remainers with what she thought needed to be done. But as with them all, it was more important to score points than be right, more important to retain power than admit weakness or error, even where the latter might have brought relief. More important to bang drums than admit the country’s weak position and seek collaboration with our supposed partners.

She – and the whole of her misguided type cannot change. Their commitment to the ‘national interest’ is nothing of the sort: it is (perhaps unwitting) loyalty to a certain kind of establishment interest largely unchanged since the days of Empire, and as such not deserving of any sympathy. Even if one sympathises with the personal price she is paying, a lot of it is self-inflicted.

Whatever happens in the coming months with Brexit, it is easy to argue that the whole British governmental and constitutional system is in urgent need of review and overhaul: Brexit has thrown its limitations and contradictions into stark relief.

Unfortunately, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, so the chances of one happening are virtually nil. The only person whom I suggest might be able to instigate one is err…. the Monarch, through a Royal Commission. There is no other mechanism. Not an appealing admission for a republican – and I suspect she’s actually Queen Turkey herself in any case.

Here is a little analytical challenge for a Monday morning. I produced it as a self-challenge to my preconceptions about the quality of life in other (mostly European) countries. The graph below shows the murder rate per million of population of selected countries. The data all derives from the same year, 2016 and is drawn via Wikipedia from apparently reputable sources. My source can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

The challenge I presented myself was simply to test the preconception that there are some countries that are much more socially stable than others. To my mind, that is a key determinant of a ‘successful’ country, one that might be held up as an example to others. Murder rates might be considered a suitable indicator of such. My experience, for example, of Germany and Switzerland is that they are so law-abiding and generally well-run that nothing truly, intentionally bad ever happens there. It is an illusion of course, and I know that.

But stereotypes are powerful. How easy is it to imagine a Swiss or German company being guilty of malpractice? The Volkswagen emissions scandal shows it can and does happen. Temptation is the same everywhere I guess, though the extent to which people act on it may not be. And temperament varies too.

Did I succeed? Well, only in part. There are considerable differences between murder rates (and that is without considering the absolute figures, which seem only partially reflect total population size).

I suggest that homicide rates are a reasonable indicator of social stability. The rise in knife-crime in the U.K. cannot be without its causes. So make of this self-created graph what you will. I know there are distortions introduced into the rankings, for example by the fact that I have not included all countries. In general, I have left out the smaller states except where they perhaps provided insight. In general, smaller nations seem to have lower homicide rates – from which we might learn something.

With my strong reservations about the way British society operates, I expected the U.K. to be towards the upper end of the European rankings – which it is. But so are France and Germany, the latter of which in particular I did not expect. On the other hand, Italy is not as much higher than the U.K. as might have been expected. I suppose we should also accept that the figures are only for reported murders; who knows what else goes on in some places…

Maybe we should simply conclude that there are certain factors at work in larger populations (increased anonymity perhaps) that affect perceptions of our fellows.

And it is also noticeable that some of the countries held up for their good social model seem to have higher than (I) expected murder rates, for example Finland and Sweden. I wonder if environmental factors are at work there – but then, Norway is lower. And even in the seemingly-model society of Switzerland (often held up as one of the world’s most civilised places to live), 45 murders happened in 2016. Personally, I have never met a Swiss who seemed capable of killing a fly… But it is necessary to remember that thanks to military service, the Swiss have loose gun-laws compared with the rest of Europe, and I suppose some people (including some Swiss I know, but not I) would instinctively blame their high immigrant populations. Who knows the truth?

Before jumping to too many conclusions, I suppose one should really conduct a much more detailed study of the circumstances and motives for murders, which might tell us much more than relatively raw totals.

The stark contrast with Russia and the USA are not a surprise – but might still teach us something about contrasting social models. The authorities in the U.S. had to deal with 17250 murders in 2016 alone. And spare a thought for Brazil, with its rate of 295 per million, or 61283 murders in that same year…

The Britain I grew into in my formative years was a stable, safe and benign place. Green and pleasant, even. My parents were teachers, whose income permitted a secure if fairly modest way of life, and over time their hard work permitted progress to a better home and a more comfortable way of life.

From my South-Western perspective, general British life held every hope of my own following a similar pattern. But I was aware that the same was not true everywhere: journeys to family in the Midlands, and later further north revealed a country pock-marked by industrial decline, many of whose towns and cities were dowdy, declining places where life was basic, and getting worse. Despite my own good fortune, my memories of the period include images of national decline and industrial strife, not to mention the desperate situation in Northern Ireland; the trajectory seemed to lead inexorably downward.

Yet much of my recent reading has hailed the Seventies as the tail-end of the most egalitarian period in Britain’s history, when people like my parents had the best ever chances of social and material progress.

The about-turn of the late 1980s came as a welcome shock: it seemed that, after all, Britain was capable of being a positive, colourful and dynamic place where optimism ruled. Thatcher’s revolution did indeed seem to be turning the country around, something I encountered most strongly when I landed in the South-East in 1987, where wealth was clearly being generated and a revival was underway.

But it quickly became evident that a teacher like me had already been priced out: on my salary of £8500, at £35,000 even a terraced house was already out of reach, and I was forced to rent rooms for the first eight years of my career. But I could see people all around who were buying fast cars, furnishing desirable homes and taking glamorous holidays. Somehow I accepted the suggestion that it was not for the likes of me.

In the interim, we have been presented with an image of a Britain as the economic innovator of Europe, a thrusting buccaneer of the deregulated market. And the number of towers visible on the journey into London has indeed mushroomed ever since. Large areas of the East End are unrecognisable from the dereliction that I used to travel through. Even parts of the great northern cities have followed suit.

And yet mid-way through 2018, with Brexit a mere six months away, I feel increasingly bewildered about the nation of which I am a part. I wonder whether I really knew it all along – or whether the last forty years have been one enormous confidence trick. A recent visit to Italy only served to amplify this – and I made the ‘mistake’ of reading Danny Dorling’s blood-pressure-raising book Inequality and the 1% on the way home.

The great national revival of the last few decades seems to have got us – or at least most of us – nowhere. Much of the gloss put on the state of the nation ever since has done nothing more than paper over the long-standing structural weaknesses which have never been properly repaired, and are now all too visible again.

While life has continued to get better and better for the former Yuppies, everyone else has been left behind. It’s glaringly obvious to me that it was the same people who trashed the economy in 2008 who were racing their Porsches around the M25 a few decades earlier. They have been feathering their own nests at everyone else’s expense ever since – only now they control the system too. I find it all the more galling that they are the people who, as a grammar-school first-year I looked up to as the responsible sixth formers.

The Crash and Brexit have done nothing more than reveal the rottenness that has been there all along: the extent to which this country still mostly operates in the interests of a small elite of often-hereditary wealthy, who have been joined by a new breed of narcissistic sociopath who can only see the rest of the population as the suckers from whom as much should be taken as possible, and who lack even the social conscience – such as it was – of the traditional higher orders.

The great (financial) services sector on which Thatcher built our new economy has utterly failed to enrich the nation at large, or to deal with its structural and attitudinal problems. Those whom it did help have pulled up the ladders behind them. Beyond the newly-glossy city centres, not much has really changed either in the depressed places ‘up north’ – or the smaller towns have had even less attention from a polity whose entire focus was city – and mostly London – centric.

The hollowing out has picked up where it left off. It has become acceptable that services for the least fortunate have been pared back, that food banks are a fact of life, and that there is almost no welfare state to act as a safety net. Much of what passes for national life has been built on access to cheap credit that has ultimately only enriched the already-wealthy. And much of the rest of the country is being bricked over with amenity-less, community-free rabbit hutches whose main purpose is also to enrich the companies that build them and the landlords who let them.

This has been further driven home by my own circumstances: while we are hardly a priority case, the lack of realistic hope of accessing any support since I lost too my job (partly as a result of public-sector cost-cutting) has had a severe impact on our circumstances. Such is the over-demand, my G.P, recommended I go private for mental health services when I needed them quickly, at a cost well into four figures, when we could least afford it. It had to be done.

As someone who paid all his taxes and National Insurance, who did a demanding, socially-conscious job – and who made no call on that same ‘insurance policy’ beyond the odd bit of health care (having no children, we have never drawn even child allowances or used the school system), I can’t help but feel we were sold a pup. So much for the social ideals and ‘guarantees’ of the post-war period. So much for the customer being king: thanks to the free-marketeers, the British welfare state has become a rubbish product.

But this is not a personal sob story: my own situation is only (mildly) reflective of the real, deep difficulties encountered by too many in this country. But if it is affecting even a middle-class professional like me, there must be something deeply wrong.

One observation in Dorling’s book startled me. Rather naively, I believed that the riches hoarded by the well-off were somehow additional to the rest of the nation’s wealth. But it is not so: the more the 1% takes, the less there is for everyone else. There is a direct correlation between inequality and general means – and it explains why, in less unequal countries that I know, even my peers have noticeably more resources than their British equivalents.

To put it starkly: one person whose income is 20 times higher than the national average is actively depriving another nineteen of a significant share of the national wealth, that might be distributed amongst them, or spent on the general good. The enrichment of the 1% actively contributes to the impoverishment of the rest – and not only those at the bottom, for all that they fare the worst.

Trickle-down theories of wealth have been shown not to work: the more the 1% acquires the greater lengths it goes to, to make sure it keeps hold of as much as possible. The argument for high taxation is often rebutted on the grounds that it raises relatively little revenue; while this may be true, it does suppress the incentives for the avaricious, low-conscience few from hoarding so much in the first place. An altogether more convincing case.

It becomes increasingly clear that the self-image that this nation still holds dear is – as it always has been – almost entirely the fabrication of a small, extremely privileged group for whom life is very good indeed. Their brilliance was in selling it so successfully to the rest, to the extent that it is, even today, more ingrained than we imagine.

The approach of Brexit has led to more such drum-banging by those most likely to be insulated from its effects. They feel entitled to do so because they feel entitled about life in general, in a way I don’t encounter in more democratic countries – and they care little about the free-fall that the rest of the nation is experiencing.

But Brexit, as with the Crash and M.P.s’ expenses scandal has presented the privileged classes with crises that even they have not been able to cover up entirely. Above all, Brexit has faced our ‘exemplary’ democratic system with a dilemma that it simply cannot handle. It has not been maintained well enough by those self-same ruling classes to do so in any meaning of the General Good.

 

I sense this country is approaching a critical moment in its history: something dramatic which in itself, we never expect to experience in Britain. Brexit may well prove to be the trigger for even bigger changes to come. I don’t know what, but something is going to happen. And I don’t trust or believe that it will be brought about by the existing order, who show time and again that they only ever look after their own. May’s instincts are as authoritarian as Thatcher’s – itself ironic since neither came from the traditional ruling classes.

The double-nelson in which the elite holds the nation makes it likely that we will follow the U.S. down its lonely path to ever greater inequality, to depths that even this country has yet to experience. Or could it be that this will be the spark-point for something that puts us back on the path that almost all other advanced nations have been following while we and Uncle Sam were fooling with our free market nonsense? Nations where inequalities have fallen, and even now are being held in check to a degree that the British system (which actually fuels them) has failed to do.

What will be the effect of changing demographics and life-chances on the nation as a whole? I find it hard to believe that we can maintain business as usual for much longer.

It’s an illusion to believe that other countries don’t have problems. Italy has more than its share – but they have something right, because at least in the north, their towns are vibrant, thriving places, and their communities still seem to be socially connected. It is visible to anyone who visits. This in contrast to the atomised, hollowed out lives and places that are too much a feature of this country, even in parts that have sufficient wealth that one might expect them to be different.

And there are plenty of other countries nearby who seem to be weathering the challenges of our era far better than Britain. Post-War, they built stronger foundations.

My overwhelming sense at present is of confusion: of not knowing my own nation any more. Everything I thought I knew about it turns out to be built of the sand of blithe assurances and myth-building by a class who were working to an entirely different agenda all along. Even now they continue to present a public facade of implacable self-assurance. It’s all they know how to do, even in the face of a nation that can now see right through it.

At last they and their blathering have been revealed for what they are – but is it too late for a nation in a tail-spin? As/if we leave the EU (whose main ‘threat’ to this country is its tendency to undermine elites in the name of perhaps-idealistic democracy) how will we pull out of the nose-dive?