A few weeks back, we had dinner with some very long-standing friends. Jean and I had known each other for years: both British ex-pats, she, a card-carrying Labour member, and me, a member of the blue-tinted glasses brigade, may make an odd pair, but we have always been considerate towards each other’s views, and in fact teased each other on a regular basis about the political order of the day. It was always respectful though. She is entitled to her view, as I am entitled to mine. We have operated in such friendly harmony for upwards of two decades.
Then along came Brexit… and all hell broke loose on a long-standing friendship… not to mention the dinner party.
I am not sure that there has ever been a more polarising issue than Brexit. Even people who know little about it seem to have joined one demarcation line or the other. For some, it is a question of British sovereignty. For others, it is the question of globalism. I was definitely in the sovereignty camp. Having been brought up to believe that Britons really never, never, never shall be slaves, somehow, they ended up as slaves to the EU; that juggernaut embroiled in regulation and corruption that now controls the lives of everyone who is a part of it, when those Brits that voted in favour of joining the EU in the 1970s voted only to join a ‘common market’.
Now Boris Johnson seems to have pulled a rabbit out of the proverbial hat and has reached an agreement with the EU that will solve the Irish backstop problem and will allow Britain to exit the EU on 31st October as promised, although there is a hefty financial penalty which voters may be reluctant to swallow.
He claims that the new deal allows Britain to take back control. Britain will leave the EU’s Customs Union as one United Kingdom and will then be able to strike trade deals all around the world. Amen to that.
It is not over yet, however. Even if the Conservatives vote for the new deal, they no longer have a parliamentary majority, and as every opposition party, including the DUP, opposes it, it probably will not be passed by parliament. If it is not, then Johnson will try again to hold a general election, but that is likely to be scuppered as well, as opposition parties do not want to go into a general election where they know they could be hammered by the voters.
By now, the British must feel as if they are caught in a witches’ curse; that in the year 2125, they will still be trying, and failing, to leave the EU.
Voters in Britain are now deeply divided over the issue. This means that there is no longer a large pool of voters who are prepared to accept a compromise, which Johnson’s new deal effectively is. Some are saying that this agreement is, in fact, worse than the one brokered by Teresa May. It seems that consensus on the terms of the exit from the EU is nowhere to be found, and this deal may not provide the answer either.
There comes with all of this an inevitable weariness: that after more than three years, the issue looks as far from resolution as ever and now people want to see an end to it. People do want to get on with their lives, but the divisions over the matter are deeper than ever.
I suspect that, for many people, the question of democracy will never be the same again though, as they have witnessed in their lifetimes the destruction of the founding principles of democracy so bad that the current batch of politicians will never survive it. When even staunch Remainers are admitting that the outcome of the referendum must be observed for the sake of democracy, you know you are in trouble. Labour and the Liberal Democrats (not to mention the SNP) have spat in the faces of the British voters, first by treating them as if they were too stupid to know what they were voting for and then… by assuming the position that they know best regardless. In other words, they are still saying that the British people do not know what they voted for. All the Brits that I have spoken to knew exactly what they were voting for, and they are not best pleased that they are being treated like imbeciles by those who are supposed to represent them in government. Whatever respect they ever had for politicians has long gone, and the result could be disastrous for a country on the threshold of a new chapter that will require skillful navigation and cool heads for some time to come.
In the meantime, I really must pick up the phone and say Hi to Jean. Even though we have squabbled amiably for years, local politics has been unable to do what Brexit has done… to make enemies out of previously good friends. Neither of us will be directly affected by the outcome of Brexit, of course, because we both live here, and it seems silly to me to fall out over something happening on the other side of the world. But Brexit can do that. It has done that.
Boris Johnson’s best hope may be that “Brexit fatigue” will persuade enough members of the public who may not see this agreement as ideal, but will accept it in order to move on. The scars from the whole issue, however, will remain for a long time to come yet.