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We grieve because we love.

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I have just returned from my sixth trip volunteering in Calais to alleviate the suffering of the refugees there. The following contains my initial reflections on the experience. We all build narratives in order to make sense of the world and to interact with others in it. But it is important to remember that the narratives are superimposed, that they come from one particular vantage point and that they have arbitrary starting and finishing points. Take the refugee situation in Calais. Is it just about Calais? Not really, no. Every time there is an eviction in Paris or Brussels, a few days later there is a wave of new arrivals in Calais. Paris and Brussels have their own inbound streams of influence. And every time refugees are forcibly evicted Calais by night from Calais, as many were this week, the problem is simply exported to another French location. It's also about the UK because it is our border. Historical decisions about where to put the border places the
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A People's Vote: the least worst option?

Sometimes, less is more. This can certainly be true in situations of disagreement or confrontation and let's face it, t he Brexit referendum has introduced confrontation and disagreement into our society on a scale unprecedented in many of our lifetimes. Confrontation is unsettling - many people avoid it if possible, others swing in with gusto and aggression, mistaking antagonism and hostility for strength. A better approach is neither avoidance nor hostility but the courage of calm assertiveness, along with a refusal to be distracted from the issue at stake. This is where so many of us in this country have gone wrong in the last 28 months. Too many, on both sides of the argument, are either attacking each other or spinning off in ever more detailed and tangential debates. From the Leave supporters, the slew of bizarre claims continues. The EU accounts are never audited. EU politicians are unelected. Why can't we trade with non-EU countries? Membership of the EU has turne
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Democracy - under threat or alive and healthy?

If you want to know what democracy looks like, yesterday was it. 700,000 ordinary people giving up their weekend, travelling from all over the country and abroad, marching in solidarity against liars and those who would steal power by deception at the election booth. In the maelstrom of emotion of the last two years, one constant thread has been the argument that we must respect the will of “The People” along with urgent and sometimes aggressive assertions that anyone resisting Brexit is anti-democracy. We must all have searched our own hearts and motivations repeatedly to see if this is possibly true. But yesterday finally settled that question – because who are we, the 700,000, if we are not “The People”? "The People" is such a problematic term because of exactly this. You can never define who exactly is in and who is out. The people who voted two years ago but have since died - are they still "The People"? The people that were too young then but are n
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Who will do the jobs now then?

So now Mrs May has "promised" to overhaul our immigration system and thereby to ensure that low-skilled workers are denied entry to the UK. For the quadrillionth time in two years, I'm baffled. My ongoing resistance isn't some ideological stance, (though of course my starting point in any controversy is to assume that cooperation and friendship with neighbours is advisable). But I just don't understand how this latest news from May is a desirable goal. Who is going to do the low skilled jobs? Who is going to pick our fruit and veg? Who is going to staff our care homes? These jobs are already short-staffed and as the employers will tell you, Brits don't want to do these jobs. In the long term, doesn't this tend to a situation where Brits get all the low skilled, hence low paid, jobs while immigrants get the better positions? Doesn't this in fact condemn the British work force to remain on the lower rungs of employability? And if you think
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What does No Deal even mean?

Sorry, but sometimes things just need reiterating. Article 50 is very blunt. It simply says that all treaties cease to apply on 29th March 2019. It has nothing to do with future arrangements. All our current regulatory and trade cooperations and legislations etc will be disrupted when this happens. Trade deals cease. Mutual recognition of qualifications cease. Mutual recognition of safety standards cease. Aviation licences cease. Haulage licences cease. Credit card faciliti es cease. Mobile phone deals cease. Energy supplies are disrupted. etc etc.  And not just with Europe. Many of our non-European global engagements happen under the EU umbrella. So the aviation issue, for example, affects flights to and from non-European destinations as well, such as US and Canada. The talk of No Deal is not about Article 50. Article 50 has been triggered, regardless. All existing treaties cease to apply in six months' time. The question of Deal or No Deal refers to what arr
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No Deal? She cannot be serious

When this all started, I wonder what we all thought “negotiation” meant? I suspect it meant different things to different people. It certainly seems to have meant different things to the EU negotiators and the UK Government. For the EU it was most likely a simple term, meaning something like “discussions to reach an agreement”. A bit like the the negotiation each of us holds with a mobile phone company when we want to change contract: do you want plan A with the free, unlimited phonecalls or plan B with the pricey calls but as much data as you like? What the phone companies conspicuously don't offer is – what would you like and how much would you like to pay? Cherry-picking, to use the colloquial. Yet, for the UK Government, “negotiation” meant each side coming up with creative, logic-busting options for a bespoke deal that would satisfy the UK's penchant for cakeism. Even though everyone knew the Leave campaign was built on lies and fantasies, Mrs May and her te
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The Incomprehenders: We just want to understand

I keep wondering: is it me? Is Brexit actually a great idea? Or if not actually great, maybe it's not as awful as all that and the politicians will eventually come up with something that works. I can't tell you how much I want that to be true. It's my point of overlap with the still-convinced Leavers. If it's true, I can step down from obsessive news-reading and sharing. I can stop worrying. I can take a break from social media. I can stop writing lengthy posts about it and blog about something else. I need no longer go to marches. I can get a decent night's sleep. And then I realise this is probably true for most active Remainers. We have been called a whole bunch of names from Remoaner to Snowflake to Libtard to Traitor. But actually the fairest name which might be more informative is "Incomprehenders". Not so catchy I guess. But that's all we are - people who have not yet understood how any of this is a good idea. We have no agenda beyond under
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