Lottsathoughts

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

If you are still looking up facts about the EU or our membership of it, you are fighting the wrong battle. We won that argument months, possibly years ago. It did us no good of course – for who is listening? Brexit is more a symptom than a cause. Sure, there are no doubt a few crazed ideologues who genuinely have strong feelings about the minutiae of cooperative government in a global twenty-first century, but the majority of the population whose votes made Brexit even possible, don't really care. They can't possibly be distressed about the EU and its governance because on the whole, like 99% of the population pre June 2016, they don't understand it. Most EU-related issues for which they profess disquiet are actually products of fake news and misunderstandings, some accidental, many deliberate. No. The bigger debate is the changing face of society and social interaction within it. What do we aspire to look like as a nation? How do we want to define ourselves and ea...

For those feeling buffeted by current politics and angst, it is relentlessly tempting to seek a universal theory of everything that could explain the zeitgeist in one fell-swoop. In all honesty it's highly unlikely that such a thing exists, and if it does, it almost certainly won't be discernible before a few decades, at least, have passed.But, if one were to indulge the mind's craving for a simple story, could the decline of authenticity be a contender? I recently attended a concert which featured a remarkable singer, a soprano who wowed the audience into enthusiastic cheering and foot-stamping. I, however, was left cold. The singer had an undeniably impressive technique and performed dazzling acrobatics but this was coupled with what seemed a self-conscious attempt to be a remarkable performer. It's hard to find the words to describe it exactly, but rather than portraying a passionate woman, betrayed by a feckless lover, she appeared to portray what a singer wo...

I can't stop thinking about the so-called Windrush scandal. I say so-called, because I think there's a danger that we have got hold of the wrong end of the stick if this is 'only' about the Windrush generation. Or rather, we have grabbed firmly on to the twig, but if we run with that, it will snap away, leaving the main branch, the bigger point, unmoved. Don't get me wrong - the Windrush scandal is certainly shocking. The way individuals have been treated correlates with my definition of criminal. But these individual cases are but twigs from a thicker branch of systemic hostility to "the other". If we allow ourselves to be focused on individual cases, we allow Theresa May and the Government and, in fact, ourselves, off the hook. If the concern is that person A is deported in error, an apology can be made, decisions reversed and even, potentially, compensation made. And there the story dies, with no hint of "lessons having been lear...

"If you lay down with dogs, you get fleas." That's what David Lammy said to Amber Rudd in Parliament yesterday and it has haunted me overnight. I keep hearing that sentence on a loop in Lammy's own powerful voice. It was an incredible speech and I really urge everyone to watch it - just two minutes long, but astoundingly on point and emotionally compelling. But back to those dogs and those fleas. The dogs he referred to are the figures of the far-right and the fleas are their disgusting policies, in this case, specifically, racism and immigration-centric exclusion and hatred. You have to hear it in his voice to get the emotional power. He's a big man yet you could feel the hurt and the pain along with the fury. It was a speech that couldn't have been given by a white man. This is a seismic moment for us as a nation. Nothing has changed - the Windrush scandal isn't the result of a new policy - and yet, potentially everything has. Since...

I do not accept the false dichotomy that being anti-bombing is to be in some way pro chemical weapons, pro Syrian war or pro Russia. It is possible to oppose war with every bone in your body simply because it is a never-ending cycle of suffering, destruction and terrible waste. In a practical way, it is also possible to oppose action that has no long-term plan attached. We have seen over and over and over again in recent times that bombing is the "easy" bit. It's the rebuil ding and recovery that takes insight, thoughtfulness, courage and patience.  I have been devastated by Syria since day one and have done what I can to help directly with the refugee crisis and to try to raise awareness of the evil unfolding there. It is dismaying to read elsewhere the suggestion that opposing bombs now is the equivalent of not caring about Syrian civilians. That's nonsense. Having said that, I am certainly NOT joining the bizarre excitement that Putin has threate...

Is it safe to “let it go” yet? The Brexit debate still rages, despite The Government doggedly trying to take it forward. Isn't resistance-fatigue setting in? Is it time to acknowledge defeat and get on with life? For those who were, for the most part, politically apathetic pre June 2016, the relief of giving-up would be huge. Go back to checking headlines once a week or thinking about party policy only once every five years. Recover time for hobbies. Repair friendships with those who disagreed on this one decision. Get a decent night's sleep. In life, there is an overwhelming imperative for reconcilliation, forgiveness and moving on. But it is a travesty of this process to reshape it as obedient yielding to injustice. Reconcilliation can only occur when all parties in a conflict agree to talk and listen to each other. Willingness on both sides to acknowledge the root of the disagreement and damage caused is essential as is a mutual search for a way forward that respe...

I have just returned from my fourth visit to Calais to volunteer with the charities that are helping the refugees who are stuck there. The problem seems as intractable as ever and I don't pretend to know the answer. Indeed, I would argue that there is no answer, if by “answer” we want a magic wand that can remove both current and future refugees from Calais without excessive state-sponsored force, give the town over entirely to white, French-born citizens and not take unlimited and unexamined numbers of refugees into the UK for an indefinite period. That said, I am concerned that our society in general and our Government in particular takes an odd approach to problems where simple answers are elusive. There is an old saying that the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same action again and again, expecting a different outcome, yet that seems to sum up the attitude of the French and British Governments on this problem. The French seem convinced that 24/7 harrass...

We have to avoid a witch-hunt. That's what I keep reading. It's been said by many about the sex-scandal in Westminster. It's been said in response to the Toby Young fiasco. Catherine Deneuve and Liam Neeson have both used the term this week about the Hollywood allegations. No doubt the indignants will be saying it already about John Humphrys. And it makes me madder than ever. Ironically, the term itself - “witch-hunt” - has links with misogyny in this country. It may historically be the case that worldwide, men as well as women, have been persecuted as witches, but in the British Isles it was traditionally women. Difficult women. Argumentative women. Intelligent women. Women who refused to submit to normal sterotypes. Women healers. Call them a witch and burn them. How the tables have turned. Now women are gaining the confidence of solidarity , largely through the power of social media, to draw attention to the various forms of sexis...

A New Year. An old problem. Uppermost in my mind at the moment is the ongoing refugee disaster in Calais. This has been out of the mainstream media for some time now, since the closure of The Jungle in October 2016. Maybe everyone believes that the plan worked – closing the camp, we were told, would make the refugees themselves vanish. You have to wonder where these ideas come from – do the politicians themselves believe these things? Or do they just cynically say them anyway, knowing that the press has the attention span of a gnat and will be gone before you can say “safe drinking water”? As everyone who was previously involved foresaw and warned, the refugees are still there – only now there is nowehere safe for them. Nowhere to pitch a tent. Nowhere to have a shower or use a toilet. Nowhere to cook or to get legal assistance. Nowhere to get warm or dry. No way for charities to keep formal track of who is who, and therefore, much greater difficutly in protecting unaccompanied chil...

Yesterday's Budget from Philip Hammond is dismaying - £3bn allocated to pay for Brexit. Even as spending on the NHS, schools and other public services is kept tight, he can nevertheless find £3bn to pay for this absurd project. And it's not just £3bn - that's on top of the rumoured £40bn which may, or may not, be the final cost of the divorce settlement. So that's £43bn then. Or maybe more – who knows? And still, we don't know why. Running through the tired pseudo-arguments, one in particular jars today - the idea of “getting our sovereignty back”. Never mind that we never lost it (as confirmed by The Government's own white paper earlier in the year). Some Brexit-champions still like to reiterate how we'll be able to make our own laws again. (The obvious has been pointed out repeatedly – that we will continue to be bound by EU regulation just so long as we want to sell anything to EU members.) But it's another aspect of this that is so striki...