Waving flags: the end of the UK?

Could a vote to Leave the European Union on June 23rd spell the end of the UK?

It's a very real potential consequence that doesn't seem to be discussed much.

The UK will vote as one country whether to leave the EU, but the UK isn't one country. What English people decide to do might be different from what the Scots or Welsh decide. 

Hypothetical situation 1

Let's say England votes overwhelmingly to Leave the EU (which is entirely possible), but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all vote to Remain. 

But, because England is the more overwhelmingly populous country, her votes to Leave outnumbers the combined Remain votes from the latter three countries? So the entire UK leaves the EU, directly against the decision of the people of 3 of the 4 countries that make up the UK.

What then?

There is certainly a democratic deficit here, and the question really is whether this deficit might spark a constitutional crisis that could force the breaking up of the United Kingdom.

Should the people of, say, Wales, be forced to Leave the EU when the Welsh people overwhelmingly vote to Remain? Should the Scots or people of Northern Ireland?

And this hypothetical situation is a distinct possibility. Consistent polling shows that by a significant amount the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will vote to Remain, while the UK vote as a whole is polling at roughly even.

If this very possible hypothesis is realised, I see another Scottish independence referendum around the corner, but this time with a massive YES vote. And with it, moves to speed up the devolution of an independent Wales. 

Northern Ireland would be more complicated (isn't it

always?), although Sinn Féin is justifiably demanding a referendum in NI on

Ireland reunification if the UK Leaves and NI votes to Remain. Which I would say is fair enough - do the people of NI want to remain with England outside of the EU, or reunify with Ireland and remain in the EU?

That would be an interesting discussion.

Now, an argument against this situation occurring would be that at

General Elections, Scotland and Wales would rather cut off their collective hands than ever vote Tory, but under a Tory Government they live due to accepting the results of the full UK vote, at the 2015 elections led almost entirely by (largely southern) English votes. 

True. And being ruled by a Tory Government that they didn't vote for is one of the main arguments that justifies Scotland's claim to independence.

But at least people in those non-Tory voting countries and regions can be represented by an MP and council of their own choosing. Leaving the EU is all or nothing; we're either all in, or we're all out.

Hypothetical situation 2

Or, another hypothetical? What if England narrowly votes to Leave, but the Remain votes from the Scotland, Wales and NI are so numerous that they dwarf the English Leave votes. So the UK remains a member of the EU, but the largest country in the UK voted to leave. What then? Stronger and maybe more justified calls for an independent English Parliament, contributing still to a further breakup of UK union? 

If the UK does vote to Leave, it's difficult to see how the union will stay together.

The irony here, of course, is that many of the goons that campaigned so hard for Scotland to reject independence and maintain the United Kingdom are, by campaigning so vociferously for the UK to leave the EU, the very same people that could smash the whole thing up.

Ich bin ein Berliner II

I recently wrote a blog about why I left England and moved to Berlin. It was a pretty scathing denouncement of English politics and society, and also offered an extremely pessimistic forecast for the future of working people there. 

Rereading, maybe it was a little strong in the end. In truth, it's only half of the story of why I left. Half? Probably less.

Since arriving at the beginning of September I've spent almost every weekday morning at German language classes, trying to wrap my head and tongue around this most inconsistent, bludgingly logical, expansive and grammar-heavy of languages.

Along the way I've discovered the joy/nightmare of compound nouns – individual words formed by joining two or three together (or many many more); particularly those individual words that pinpoints a situation, emotion or feeling that in English we need several lines for.

My favourite so far is

Backpfeifengesicht (Back/pfeifen/gisicht) (n) a face that cries out for a fist in it, or ' a person with a face in need of a fist'.

This one compound noun describes an emotion you might feel when looking at a picture of, say, Jeremy Clarkeson, or people who play loud tinny music from their phones on the bus, or, you know, Tories.

We should totally import Backpfeifengesicht into the English language immediately!

But I came across two more compound German nouns that winded me like a grammatical one-two to the stomach. These words cut straight through the bluster and semi-comfortable narrative that I had built for myself about my emigration, and forced me to coldly address my true motives, even if at the time I wasn't even really aware of what they were.

Torschlusspanik: (n.): the fear, usually as one gets older, that time is running out and important opportunities are slipping away

This one word burrows down, laser-like, to the nub. Having spent 15-odd years working for various wonderful organisations and with a 'achievements' CV that I am immensely proud of, I found myself pushing 40 with limited career options, treading water, and with the niggling feeling that life was passing me by elsewhere.

But added to the Torschlusspanik that was lurking with intent around my stupid head was utter campaign exhaustion and disillusionment with British/English politics. I'd spent 15 years working with some of the best people in the world on brilliantly worthwhile campaigns, and with some minor successes along the way.

But all the time I felt that the Tories, conservative ideology and the right were winning, and would win ultimately, because they controlled the story, the media, the state instruments (police, judiciary etc), the House of Commons (with the Lib Dems, then), the story and, really, the pre-Corbyn Labour Party.

The Tories will use May 2015's surprise election win to destroy the lives of millions. And this made me sink into severe

Weltschmerz (n.): mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state.

15 million British (probably, mostly English), almost half of those who voted, voted for either the Tories or UKIP. And with that the tiny flame of hope that I still held for England was extinguished. In its place a resentment towards England grew.

I think a lot of activists and campaigners suffer Weltschmerz at some point, especially acute after the 2015 elections I imagine. But it's what you do to haul yourself out of it that counts. Some people crack on, more determined than ever to fight for a better world.

I used to be one of those people.

But when hit with a lethal cocktail of Weltschmerz and Torschlusspanik over just a few months, I petulantly threw my toys out of the pram and buggered off to a more progressive country for fun, adventure and new opportunities.

Now then, where's that German grammar exercise book?

Ich bin ein Berliner

Dear England

I ought to let you know that I am slipping away from this scene of nightmare.

Though I made the decision to leave in May, I've been gone for six weeks or so now. I don't imagine you noticed; likely, my leaving was a tiny blip on your radar, unseen, slipping by your seething, broiling obsession with those coming the other way. What's one more exile to you? I'm somebody else's immigrant now.

I'm leaving you, England. I think it's best to get that in first, then we can go from there. I'm leaving you for Berlin. But this isn't about Berlin, or Germany, or the EU.

It's about us.

I've been wondering for a while where it all went wrong, trying to remember the exact moment or moments that would see us come to loathe each other so terribly.

Because, in the early days, when we first met, I think I really did love you.

And for so many, many reasons.

Back then, in the first flushes of youth, to me you were a country of exquisite optimism, of rebirth, a kaleidoscope of communities living for each other, a stern matriarch but whose gentle maternalism coaxes the best of us, a duopolostic dream of aspiration, fairness and ambition.

You taught me in those early years to grow through kindness, empathy and compassion. You taught me, at a tender age, that the greatest love and care that you show for others is reflected right back. That it was never about escaping where you were from. It was about taking your community with you.

And I believed in it. I really did.

I believed it, because I thought the love was mutual – that by working hard at our relationship we would grow together.

Onwards and upwards, our kid.

You spent 36 years telling me to be kind, to believe that all people are equal, to look out for those less fortunate.

But all the while, you were growing cynical and bitter.

You see, of late, there's something terribly mean about you.

You can disguise it, dress it fancy-like with on-message slogans and focus-grouped soundbites. You can make us look the other way. For a time, at least.

But like the dread stare of a cruel man, the eyes give it away.

And those courageous enough to look harder recognise the dark, freezing mist swirling across the land; something truly, deeply terrifying.

Our children, the most helpless and vulnerable, living in poverty and condemned so early; our new-born dying in hospital at scandalous rates; our wonderful old folk, who gave their all for us, forgotten.

All work and no play makes us exhausted and beaten.

Rickets and gout, those most common of afflictions of the Victorian poor, are back.

Food banks are not normal.

Food banks are not normal, but one day soon, if we're not very careful, they will be.

None of this normal. None of this has to be this way. We have become social pariahs to our neighbours, weird outriders of Europe, where everything is back to front and upside down and many suffer the unsparing consequences.

But this isn't an accident, is it?

You're using our corpulent riches to fund the poverty-as-policy war on the young, the disabled and the vulnerable. On all of us.

You are determined to rip apart the land beneath our feet and the streets we live and die on because the heartless whispered poison in your ear and it trickled down to your soul.

Really, England?

All this, driving your ungodly vans through our towns that are less white than others, to the cheers and applause of millions, causing the fine golden hairs on your neck stand to receive the ovation.

I see no further future here than a land of insecure, unstable jobs, of growing inequality, of declining wages, of laughing bosses, of richer rich and poorer poor, of odds stacked against us, victims to City spivs and thieves, scapegoats made of the powerless, differences exploited as a violent divide, a dirty future of ripped up land and deep scars...

And I can no more watch this destruction around me than I can stop the hurt. So I've made my choice, as difficult and cowardly and heart-breaking as it is.

I think it's best I just go now.

I wish our Celtic neighbours well in their quest to be rid of you. You don't deserve them.

So, in case you ever cared, for once and for all, I'm leaving you.

I'm leaving you for your lies and deceit, for your unsparing meanness, for cheering the war on those poorer than us, for the hearts that you are blackening, our friends that you are turning against friends, the blood for which you are baying with every selfish ballot tick, the pounds of flesh that you cut from each of us until you carve deep into the bone.

For the country that you keep telling us you are and maybe, perhaps, once dreamt of being...

'I ought to let you know that I am slipping away from this scene of nightmare. I can do no more good here.'

In sorrow

Matt
Berlin, 14 October, 2015