Not a Good Week

It's easy to love your country when things are going well. Later today there will be an outburst of patriotic pride in either France or Croatia. What if England had won the World Cup? How Mrs May must have longed for some good news to mitigate the effects of her septimana horribilis. Anything to make us proud to be British once again.

I admit I'm struggling with my patriotic duty right now. Not with the concept, for I'm clear that we ought to love our country not because it's better than anyone else's, but because it's ours, it's where we live and belong. (Just as we ought to love our county or city, our village, neighbourhood or town - belonging ro our own "place" should engender a sense of gratitude and pride and concern for its welfare. In classical thought, this attitude was called pietas, the recognition of what we owe to the dust that bore us, shaped us and made us aware, to echo Rupert Brooke's great poem "The Soldier".)

No, it's not the idea of patriotism that worries me, but how hard it is to put it into practice at times. I'm thinking of occasions when you have to say, patriotic love is not because of but in spite of - in spite of the follies being committed in our name, in spite of the disregard for moderation and common sense that is being shown, despite the cavalier attitude being taken by our leaders to the future welfare of the nation.

Yes, it's back to Brexit of course, and how the current government is (not) managing it. This past week has thrown our national dilemma into sharp relief. First came the Chequers agreement that at first looked like a welcome step back from a hard Brexit or from a fatal crashing out of the EU altogether. For a few hours, the cabinet centre held. But not for long. Two big resignations later and it's clear that "things fall apart". The administration is all at sea (just as the UK will be, shorn of its European moorings). Even magical thinking can't save the Tory party from polarising and possibly breaking its back on the shoals of Brexit.

Then, when things could hardly get worse, President Donald Trump landed on our shores. It was an ill-fated invitation if ever there was one, hardly calculated to raise the Prime Minister's standing in the world and enhance her dignity. His insulting Sun interview disparaging her leadership and rubbishing her approach to Brexit was beyond belief. When I read it, I felt for Mrs May on the point of welcoming a visiting head of state and going the second mile in showing the courtesies due to the so-called leader of the free world. But I have to say that she brought it on herself. Her rush to invite him in the first place was already something to wonder at. The sight of her dressed like a woman from The Handmaid's Tale holding Mr Trump's hand was a toe-curling sign of submission to a domineering, capricious and cruel man. These are images we shan't quickly forget. It felt pitiful and demeaning. And no emollient words later on about the "higher than special" relationship could make up for it.

It's clear that Mr Trump despises not only NATO and the European Union, but the whole consensus on which western politics has been constructed since the last war. Never mind our damaged pride - we must live with that (and that may be good for us - being humbled often is). Far more important is what we have learned in the past few days. It's that this is a profoundly dangerous moment for the liberal democracies of our world (and that includes the USA). Mr Trump's fickle behaviour on his European tour - saying one thing to The Sun, then doing a U-turn hours later, shows that he is not a man we can safely trust. Is it a case of agreeing with the last person you spoke to? If so, his lack of stability and reliability is deeply worrying. If you don't know where you are with your closest ally, can he be said to be an ally any longer? Today the EU is lumped together with China and Russia as a "foe" of America. A leader in today's Observer asks: “Hooking our national fortunes to this caricature of a president & any benevolence he may or may not choose to show Britain” - is this what we really want?

This visit that has so humiliated our country has had the effect of throwing Brexit into sharp relief. We can now see it for what it is in the full light of day. The truth is that by "taking back control", we shall be getting far, far more than we bargained for. We shall be on our own in an ocean of indifference to our fate. The EU will not feel it owes us any favours after what the UK has put it through both before and after the referendum. The USA has demonstrated that these islands of ours are of little consequence as it seeks to "put America first". We shall no longer have the global reach and influence we once had when we pooled our sovereignty with our friends and allies in the European Union. We get the worst of all possible worlds. The much scorned Project Fear was right all along.

What our nation is on the point of throwing away beggars belief. I never had the UK down as reckless in its actions. But recklessness is the word that comes to mind now when it comes to Britain's standing in the world and how others see us. And not the least of it comes down to many of those elected members who warned all along that Brexit would expose us to dangers we needed to heed. Among these is the Prime Minister who voted Remain in 2016. If she and her fellow Remainer MPs thought then that it was in the best interests of the nation to stay in the EU, their conviction cannot overnight have been negated by a popular vote. Or if it has been, what do representative government let alone integrity and principle matter any more? To the questions we asked during the referendum campaign - What is prudent? What makes for our flourishing? What holds out the best promise of peace and justice and environmental care in our continent and beyond? - the answers given then by Remainer MPs cannot have changed just because a narrow majority claimed to express "the will of the people". (Don't let's get started on the gross folly of allowing huge constitutional change on the flimsy basis of a simple majority vote. In my view, David Cameron has more to answer for in his leadership of the nation than any PM since Anthony Eden.)

This is why my patriotic love of country is under strain at the moment, why it's in spite of rather than because of. I love Britain for many reasons, among which three stand out. First, its instinct for fairness and toleration, its temperamental stability and its innate common-sense. Second, its traditions of generosity, hospitality and welcome to incomers and refugees (but for which, as I've often said, I wouldn't be here today, my mother being an asylum seeker who found sanctuary in Britain during the Nazi era). And third, its outward-facing openness to peoples beyond its borders, its belief in maintaining strong connections across the world through supra-national bodies like the Commonwealth and the EU. All these virtues are under threat at present. In their place our great nation is turning into an inward-looking, self-interested, isolationist, bad-tempered archipelago feuding with itself while all the while losing its way when it comes to finding its place in the modern world and exercising lasting global influence.

All of which is beyond sad. For the first time in my life, I don't feel at home in this country as it is fast becoming. I am an exile in my own land, out of sympathy with the prevailing mores that turn their back on the alliances that make for our health and strength and greatness as a nation. Make no mistake: Brexit will enfeeble us, rob us of our influence, weaken our ability to make a difference in the world. From what I've seen and heard, there are a fair number of us who feel the same way, maybe over half the electorate now. Which is why the British public must be allowed a vote on the final Brexit deal that is agreed, including the option to remain within the EU. The best we can hope for is that we recover quickly from this fit of craziness that has overtaken us. If not, I fear for my children and grandchildren and the country we shall have bequeathed to them when we are gone.

No, it has not been the best of weeks. But nil desperandum. It looked pretty bleak in 1940. God can help us find our true selves again, and deliver us from the threats that ambush us. Onwards and upwards as they say. Never lose heart. Kyrie eleison.

**I have another blog exploring patriotism in relation to Brexit: follow this link.

At Sea

Some scribblings from the middle of the North Sea. We are on the Hull-Zeebrugge night ferry. The wind is in the east and there is a swell running; not uncomfortable but enough of a lilt to remind you where you are. Laurens Van der Post recalled from his childhood at sea, that when you are aboard a ship, it's as if you feel the fingers of God moving beneath you. 

Being seaborne, "between lands", has added symbolism at the moment. This week, the news is once again dominated by Brexit: what kind of deal our country is likely to secure when it leaves the European Union, what it will cost, how our political relationships with the rest of our continent will be configured, whether or not Parliament will be actively involved in shaping this unknown future. 

The UK is still part of the Union. We haven't said farewell just yet. But somehow it feels different from just a few months ago. At that time, most of us Remainers believed we would win the referendum vote - not necessarily overwhelmingly, but convincingly enough (though if you follow this blog you'll know that I became rather less sanguine in the days just before the vote). But it didn't take long for the Brexit decision to register. Within hours, the pound had plummeted. David Cameron announced that he would resign (what is it with politicians who won't stay on long enough to live with their misjudgments - which this referendum was, I believe, from the outset - and see through the consequences?). 

When it came to the EU leaders' summit in Bratislava, the UK wasn't there with the twenty seven at precisely the time when we should have been cultivating goodwill among our (for the time being) partners. We should have been explaining ourselves to a baffled continent. Increasingly the atmosphere has changed from fraternal collegiality (not without its tensions at times to be sure) to a clear sense of estrangement where the talk is of "us and them". The rhetoric on both sides is becoming more hawkish, less open to negotiation and compromise. The UK can expect a hard time - that's the message from Brussels and Strasbourg. We've made our bed. We must lie on it. 

So here I am, a Europhile at sea in both a literal and a figurative sense. This is my first blog on the EU since just after the referendum, and I have to say that I have yet to come to terms with the outcome. Others have written about the Brexit decision in terms of grieving, and that's my experience too. I keep coming back to what we have lost - or rather, not lost because it was taken away from us but thrown away of our own free will. The stages of grief are not a linear process. You can feel angry and empty and lost, and you can search, and you can want to come to terms and negotiate, and you can be tearful and resigned all at once or in rapid succession, and then find that you're going through the cycle all over again as if experiencing it afresh. 

And what uncannily mimics bereavement caused by a death is that the landscape ahead is truly unknown. No-one knew what they were voting for when they opted to leave the EU in June even if they think they did, or politicians and the media tell them they did. We are still no nearer to knowing, though it looks as though a "hard" Brexit is on the cards and "softer" options are being ruled out. Everything is expressed as negativity: we (I speak collectively of the nation) have decided only on what we do not want without having any idea about what we do. This is an alarming place to be: like the North Sea at night, there are no landmarks and no lights, just the sea churning restlessly beneath our feet and the hope that the voyage will lead is to a good destination. 

This is our first trip to "the Continent" since June. We don't know what will have changed in our relationship with neighbours and friends in the little Burgundian village where we go. Quite possibly nothing at all: the best human relationships are bigger than our political changes and chances, and friendship is not going to founder on these shoals. But I expect a certain degree of bemusement: we Brits have always been an enigma to the French, and Brexit may simply strengthen their belief that we are a pretty crazy nation. Some will recall de Gaulle's "Non!" when the UK first applied to join the Common Market and mutter that the EU is better off without us. Who's to say they are not right? - Britain was never the EU's most passionate champion of the European vision. There may even be a few who follow Marine Le Pen and think it's high time the French did the same and left the Union. 

But something has shifted in me and I find it disconcerting. My German ancestry has given me a profound sense of attachment to Europe. I've been proud to carry the words "European Union" on my passport and think of myself as a citizen an entire continent. I belong. But all that seems more provisional now. I feel myself being pulled back into an island mentality, less sure about my identity, less confident about stepping on to a shore that may appear more "foreign". It's a question of shades and hues, not strongly delineated structures or shapes. It's subtle and elusive, this repositioning process. It's happening over time, and the fugitive pieces may not settle into a clear picture for months or years to come. 

I've been reading a little book called How to be an Exile in England. It's by a Hungarian who has been living in London and writes humorously about how foreigners need to understand and navigate our odd national traits. I picked it up not just for the sake of being amused but because the title resonated. For while I am pulled back into an island mentality as I've said, I've also felt myself to be more alienated within my own country. There's so much that I simply don't recognise as British: the xenophobia, the populist contempt for migrant workers, the self-interest that is now driving politics, the eclipse of a liberal, generous and inclusive vision of society, the insularity of outlook in relation to the global crises that threaten humanity.... I could go on. We've all seen how the referendum has spawned a dark side of the British character that has taken us by surprise. To me the book's theme of being an exile in England feels oddly accurate. 

And deeply disturbing. Here on this North Sea ferry, I'm "between lands". And that's what Brexit is making of us who believe that we are making the biggest collective mistake we have witnessed in our lifetimes. It may take a generation for the nation to find its new identity and role in the world and establish itself in it. I probably won't live to see it. But faith helps me to see that even in adversity we must not give in to despondency. We must commit to the journeys we find ourselves making and invest in them as best we can for the sake of a good future for us all. So we keep our hope alive for our continent, our nation and ourselves. Good can come out of this even if we can't yet glimpse it. Brexit could mean a desperate narrowing of our horizons. But if it were to lead to serious reflection on our destiny as a nation, the reinvention of ourselves as a force for good in a turbulent world, that would be something to welcome. 

Dear Prime Minister: an open letter

Dear Prime Minister

I've sympathised with you during this past week. You've been through the kind of ordeal familiar to most leaders where a cloud no more than the size of a man's hand suddenly becomes a mighty storm. You were right to strike a contrite note in your speech. Yes, it would have been so much better if you had been frank with us from the outset. I believe your instincts are for honesty, and it's such a pity that you seem to have been advised otherwise to begin with. Evasiveness is never a good tactic. But it's never too late to say sorry and you did. Thank you.

However, my overriding concern today is not your own political fortunes but the coming EU Referendum. I'm very much afraid that you may have handed the Leave campaign a gift they could never have expected. "This walks straight into every Eurosceptic’s dream. It may be unfair on David Cameron. But it is very, very dangerous” Matthew Parris has written. Because if the public's view of you has changed (and it's only an if - the coming days will tell) and it's not so inclined to trust you about your personal finances, why should they trust you when it comes to the European Union?

I write as a convinced European who believes like you that this country will be far better off within the EU than outside it. And I don't just mean economically or in terms of defence, security and geopolitics. I mean what the UK has to bring to the EU as one of its leading nations committed to the common good as well as our own. It would be nightmare for me, and many like me, to wake up on 24 June to find that we had walked away from the family of peoples to whom we naturally belong.

Here's where I'm afraid you have unwittingly been the goose that has laid Brexit a golden egg. As today's Observer says, "voters may decide to forget the case for the European Union and engage in the altogether more satisfying activity of kicking out David Cameron." I hope that comment proves wrong. This is absolutely not a vote of confidence in you. But electorates have minds of their own. So now of all times, we need you to be a credible leader who can change hearts and minds not only by the persuasiveness of good argument but by your personal qualities of integrity and trustworthiness. It's not that the case for remaining in the EU has changed in any way. But public perception may have shifted in the past week: perception of your leadership, perception of your political judgment.

In a few days, the official EU Referendum campaign will be launched. How will you play this moment of opportunity?

If I may say this, I think your best bet is to go on presenting yourself to the public as the leader who is humble enough to recognise his mistakes. It was genuinely moving to hear you say to your audience that you could have handled things better and that you would learn for the future. That was courageous. It's a cliché to quote "a sadder and a wiser man" but perhaps it applies. And I believe this may help you win your case (sorry - I mean our case!). You can show that EU membership is not a matter of your own political survival or historic legacy but comes out of a real personal conviction, a deeply rooted human wisdom, a patriotism that is proud of and desires the very best for our country, and a Christian conscience that seeks the common good of all our partner nations.

One final note. I think that the more you can show that you are really listening to our Brexit friends and taking their concerns seriously, the better it will be. I think that like me, you deplore the bad tempered, sometimes abusive, register some parties in this debate have fallen into. I'm sure you value courtesy, intelligence and good faith in the way political choices are presented and discussed. Good listening isn't just for crises. It's an attribute of every wise leader. You will help set the tone.

Maybe recent events have done you a favour though it may be hard to see it that way just yet. They may have forced you to show a side of yourself to the public that we had not seen before - listening, honest, penitent, wanting to learn and do things differently. And maybe all with a bit more feeling, humaneness if you like. Many of us have warmed to that and - whatever our personal political convictions - genuinely wanted to wish you well. These qualities can help you sound an even more convincing note in the coming weeks before the Referendum. I very much hope so for the sake of the nation and for Europe as a whole.

I hope you won't mind my writing in this personal way. This comes with my prayers.

With best wishes
Michael

Believing or Beleaving? On being an In-thusiast for the EU

A week is a long time in a political campaign. It was only last Saturday that David Cameron stepped off the plane (so to speak) waving his hard-won EU summit agreement in front of a waiting nation.

So with the starting fun now fired, how is the debate about the European Union taking shape? It's too early to tell, of course. But already it's becoming clear that battle lines are being drawn up along familiar fronts. Will Britain be better or worse off staying in the EU or leaving? Will the pound and the FTSE strengthen or weaken if we leave? Will Brexit encourage large and transnational organisations to decouple from the UK or not? Will our overseas trading relationships be helped or hindered? Will we be better or worse placed to face international crises? Will our country be more at risk from terror attacks in or out? Do the EU's governance shortcomings in its democratic transparency and accountability pose a fatal risk to the UK's sovereignty or not? And so on. Of the making of many arguments there is no end.

I am learning a lot by following news feeds and commentary about the referendum from all over the world and from many different perspectives. When it comes to the themes I've just listed, I am no expert. It all depends on whom you listen to, I suppose, or whom you listened to last, and of course whom you trust. I've said before that serious listening comes into things right now. It's important, when we don't know (or even when we think we do) that we pay attention and don't come to premature conclusions about arguments that have a long way to run. 

However, the rules of engagement have been set in utilitarian, pragmatic terms that largely focus on the matters I've mentioned. These are all important but on their own they limit the discourse of the debate. The functional tone was set by the PM when he went into the summit. 'I'm going in to demand, and to get, what's best for Britain' - or words to that effect. Was I the only one who felt depressed, even dismayed, by that kind of talk? It sounded self-serving to me, lacking inspiration, falling short of the big idea. David Cameron famously said that he is not in love with Brussels. But what if we began at a different starting-point altogether, one that took us back to why the European Union was created in the first place, and why it might still be worth belonging to?

I've argued in my blogs that a Judaeo-Christian perspective on politics, public life and social ethics begins with the great commandments of the Torah, especially the second: to love your neighbour as yourself. This, to me, is the fundamental reason for believing in the EU as a family of peoples who, without sacrificing their own national identity and integrity, covenant together for the sake of one another's wellbeing and flourishing, what Catholic social theology calls 'the common good'. So we need to celebrate the signal achievements of the EU in safeguarding the peace of Europe since the War, bringing a degree of prosperity to its peoples undreamed of before, and beginning to get collective purchase on global threats that no nation can tackle on its own, such as terrorism and climate change. Whatever its failures to live up to its high ideals (and they are many), the vision, the purpose and the achievements still matter. And not to be talking up a noble ideal seems to me to lack real belief in the European project, the conviction that it could still be a force for immense good in the world and that Britain should be taking a leading role at the very heart of it.

You may say: this is the passion of the Europhile preacher speaking to emotions and soul rather than the hard-headed realist addressing the mind. Well, I am a preacher by trade and believe in the power of good rhetoric to change both minds and hearts. Heart speaks to heart and my heart is unequivocally in this. And believe me, it's precisely this 'heart-work' that we need to do: for if we believe that the EU matters to an entire continent and indeed to the world, then it should certainly matter to us as one of its member states and to each of us as UK citizens. But a lot of what I've read and heard from our leaders seems to be along the lines of: the best that can be said for the EU is that because our membership is the status quo, and because we are persuaded that we'll be no worse off by leaving it, we may as well stay and make the best of it we can. Some of the campaigning seems to be striking that rather grudging note as if to say, we'd really rather not be bothered with all this but since we are where we are, let's try to sound convincing. 

When it comes to passion, Brexit Beleavers may well be more prepared to own up to it than we who are EU-Believers. After all, it's so un-British to talk up the EU - isn't it? (Though it's also true that the spirit in the pro-EU organisations out on the streets is becoming energised and excited by the campaign, and that's how it should be. If we aren't afraid of speaking to the heart, there's a chance that people in the UK could become as engaged in the referendum debate as the Scots were over the independence vote in 2014. Indeed the two issues are not so very different as I'll try to argue in a future blog.)

So I want to urge us as Christians for the EU to speak up as those who are proud to belong to a body with such an enlightened view of how human beings can grow together. Because as Ben Ryan has said in his recent Theos report A Soul For The Union, the challenge is far bigger than securing assent to some abstract organisational idea called the EU. We need to become Europeans, and persuade others across our continent and in the UK to think of themselves as having that sense of both identity and belonging. It's similar to the difference between assenting to Christianity and being Christians, or as we might say, 'believing that' as distinct from 'believing in'. If Latin cuts more ice than English, it's fiducia that we need, not just fides. 

That's my pitch: that it's belief in that we badly need to foster in this campaign. Not naïvely, not uncritically, not without asking the hard questions of governance structures and processes that everyone acknowledges need reforming and renewing. (If only the PM had focused on those things at the summit!) But let's reawaken the vision of the EU's founding fathers and mothers. Let's rekindle their first fine (though not careless) rapture. And yes, let's be passionate about what we believe - in politics as much as religious faith, and urge our leaders to be as excited as we are by our future in the EU with all the possibilities that lie open before us. 

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