Ten Commandments for Brexit

I saw a tweet today from a finance company. "Ready for Brexit? Our ten-point checklist will help you get prepared. Act now to get the financial guidance you need. #LetsTalkBusiness." I retweeted it with a comment of my own. "Ready for Brexit? Nope. Are emotional and spiritual guidance on offer too?" No answer as yet. I wait in hope.

But while I wait, I'm thinking how important it is to cross this threshold with self-awareness and insight. Readers of my blog will know that I'm a Remain ultra. I believe that voting for Brexit was a terrible mistake for the nation to make. I think it is bound to have all kinds of consequences, mostly unforeseen, for the United Kingdom, not least the union of our four peoples. I can't see that any Brexit deal will benefit Britain as much as our present EU membership does. (And I write in North East England, destined to suffer the worst impact of any part of the UK in terms of its economy, manufacturing industry and employment.)

Nevertheless, I am realistic enough to recognise that Brexit is bound to happen with or without a deal whether it's in a week's time, a month's time or some time in the future. And while a big part of me will only be dragged kicking and screaming out of the European Union, a voice within tells me to get ready to leave as gracefully as I can. Not necessarily going gently into that not-so-good night, but at least trying to recognise that generosity is needed. It’s going to be hard. I'm addressing this blog to myself to begin with, and then to fellow Remainers who like me feel the pain of Brexit and yet want to go on living as good citizens, making the best of what seems like a thoroughly bad job.

So here's my answer to the question in my tweet. A ten-point checklist to help us get prepared emotionally, morally, spiritually. Ten Commandments for Brexit, if you like. #LetsTalkWisdom.

1 Understand the pain of loss.
Emotional intelligence is important here. For many of us, Brexit is a loss of identity and belonging the like of which we probably haven't experienced in our nation's life before. If you're like me you'll feel this loss in a surprisingly personal way. This is about me as well as us. So we should expect to experience the normal symptoms of bereavement such as denial, bewilderment, emptiness, anger, bargaining, depression - and maybe only much later, acceptance and resolution. The effects of Brexit on mental health have already been noted by some psychotherapists. We simply need to notice what we are going through, and be honest about it, at least with ourselves.

2 Don't feed anger and bitterness. Try to be positive.
Yes, we were lied to in the referendum campaign. This hasn't stopped since then. Inevitably we feel that the Brexit result, so finely balanced, was based on a false prospectus fed by the right-wing media. But there's nothing to be gained by nursing hurt feelings, still less by badmouthing those who misled the nation or colluded with them. We need to find healing in our nation if we are to have a future worth living for. Being positive can begin by celebrating the years we enjoyed EU membership and all the benefits it brought. Yes, we are sad beyond words to be leaving. We heartily wish we weren't. We are angry about it and are right to be. But we can resolve not to indulge in vengeful self-pity. Even in hard times, we can cultivate thankfulness. Let the power of grateful memory shed light on the way we navigate our path through this dark time of loss and grief.

3 Treat Brexiters with courtesy.
Loving my neighbour as myself is one of the two great precepts of the Torah, reiterated by Jesus in the gospels. We need to work hard at our relationships with Brexiters, and with former Remainers who have gone along with, even supported, the government's attempts to "get Brexit done". However much we may have been abused by Brexit campaigners, however easy it might have been to give back in kind, we should not compromise on respect and courtesy towards those with whom we profoundly disagree. Perhaps there are individuals to whom we need to say that we're sorry, and with whom we should try to be reconciled. It's beneath our self-respect to treat others with contempt and nurse our hatred. In a divided nation, dignity (= "worth") has been at stake during these past three years. Let's cultivate peace and friendship where we can. Let’s try to help one another speak our truth with gracefulness. And if Brexit unravels, let’s not crow "I told you so!"

4 Remain European in heart and mind.
Let's use language accurately. We are leaving the European Union but we are not leaving Europe. It matters that we go on thinking of ourselves as Europeans, and that this should continue to be a core part of our identity as British people. To be fair to Brexiters, this is a point many of them have been at pains to underline. Whatever our nation's political alignments in the future, nothing can rob us of being geographically, intellectually, culturally and spiritually at the heart of our continent. "No man is an island entire of itself." We are "part of the main". We need to affirm this ever more strongly after Brexit. Travel in Europe if you can; if not, travel in your mind and heart. We are Europeans, and always shall be.

5 Befriend EU nationals living and working in Britain.
There's a particular need right now to embrace the so-called "Three Million" from EU countries who are living among us in this country. Many of them continue to suffer great anxiety about their future, whether their application for residence in Britain will be granted, what their prospects for employment are. (And let's remember that British people resident in overseas EU countries are just as worried about the uncertainties they face, including the elderly who can't afford to move back to the UK but face big questions about their pensions and health care.) This of course is only part of our hospitality to and care for all who live among us who come from other parts of the world. We must use our imaginations and offer help and support where we can.

6 Keep the conversation about Europe alive.
Remainers are often told to take Brexit on the chin and move on. But it's wishful thinking to imagine that the debate about the EU will end on Brexit Day. On the contrary. Negotiating our future relationship with the EU, and reaching trade deals will take many years. This will guarantee that the EU will remain on the national agenda and in its consciousness for a long time to come. And I'm certain that our children's generation, frustrated beyond measure by the actions of their Brexiter parents in denying them the future they had taken for granted until 2016, will one day reopen the question of EU membership. This may happen sooner than we think. We should encourage them. We should support pro-European politicians and policies. Democracy is a conversation that never stops. There's nothing once-for-all about Brexit.

7 Challenge fake news about the European Union.
The rhetoric of the far right will continue to trumpet "taking back control" and play down the intangible benefits of EU membership such as promoting human rights and the rights of working people, sharing in the project of peace-building across the continent, collaborating in our response to the climate emergency, working together on programmes to tackle crime, slavery, trafficking, sexual exploitation and maintaining security. As good Europeans we must go on championing the EU's efforts to build a better world not just for its twenty-seven nations but for all human beings. That means challenging the lies and half-truths that will continue to bolster those who try to demonstrate how Brexit has been the salvation of Britain. The case for the EU still needs to be made, even if, for now, we shall have to help make it as fellow-travellers rather than citizen-members.

8 Play your part to make sure that Britain remains an outward-looking country.
The referendum mantra, "what's best for Britain" was an invitation to indulge the worst of self-serving attitudes. To love our neighbour means to look for the welfare of others as well as ourselves, or as the Golden Rule says, to do for them what we would want them to do for us. In the reciprocity of mutual service and self-giving lies our flourishing. What's best for us turns out to be what's best for others too. The nations of the United Kingdom, the European Union and the Commonwealth understand this mutuality and attempt to live by it, even if the reality falls short of the aspiration. Given the environmental and geopolitical threats we face, our race only has a future if we cultivate the love of neighbour among the world's peoples. To become insular, as we risk doing because of Brexit, would be to walk away from the global responsibility our nation has historically understood to belong to its vocation. EU membership was a test of our capacity to look beyond our borders to the welfare of other peoples and, ultimately, to the flourishing of the human family. It would be the death of this humane, fair-minded, civilised country if we abandoned that large and generous vision for the world and looked only to the interests of our own people.

9 Don't be nostalgic. Live in the present.
We can't know what life will be like once we've crossed the Brexit threshold. In these days of the so-called end-game, it may feel like going into a kind of exile. Nostalgia is literally, aching for home. Exiles wouldn't be human if they didn't experience it. But when Jeremiah tried to help his people make a good exile far from their homeland, he told them to invest in their present, not the past. "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce...Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29.1-7). This should be our attitude for the years we shall live on Brexit Island, be they many or few. Investing in the present opens us to its possibilities. We learn to live, not out of regret for the past but attentive to the here and now. We are always the better for doing that.

10 Don't lose heart. And say your prayers.
I think this is the most important principle of them all. Brexit may have driven us to the brink of desperation, but we refuse to give up hope. What God means by this cataclysm that has overtaken our nation only he knows. It's beyond our understanding. But we mustn't succumb to despair. So we say our prayers for the family of humanity, for our European friends and neighbours, for our nation and for ourselves. We are not expecting God to save us from ourselves and the consequences of our decisions. But prayer affirms that God has not abandoned his world. To pray is to stand in hope and solidarity with the world in all its suffering and to ask what its healing and flourishing would mean. And then to commit ourselves to whatever actions arise from our having glimpsed our human condition from a larger and deeper perspective. Contributing towards a better, more wholesome politics in our nation is one way. "What matters for prayer is what we do next." That's how to keep the flame of hope burning and not lose heart.

Am I Being Unpatriotic?

Dear Michael, I begin to feel that your negativity is bordering on the unpatriotic! Don't you think that our leaders deserve our support?

That was an intriguing tweet to receive yesterday, not as a personal message but publicly. She (it was from someone I know) was responding to a tweet I'd posted that contained a link to an article in The Guardian. It was lamenting our political leaders' lack of imagination and sense of history in their handling of the Brexit negotiations, specifically the matter of the Irish border.

In the two years I've been blogging about the EU, I've been accused of many things: being intemperate, ignorant, theologically inept (yes!), and over-confident about being a Remainer. But this is the first time my patriotism has been called into question (though it's a common jibe from people who should know better that Europhiles collectively are not acting patriotically).

So let's go there. First, we need to disentangle patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism means a love of and loyalty to your homeland. In Roman thought, you owe your homeland that much simply because it bore you and nurtured you. It's an act of piety (pietas) to acknowledge your debt to the people and institutions that have formed you. This is not at all the same as saying that your homeland is better than anyone else's. It's simply yours. It's part of your identity as a human being. That's why it's precious to you. At its best, patriotism is a virtue that is liberal, humane, peaceable and beneficent.

Nationalism is different. "Hard" nationalisms survive and flourish because of an innate conviction that somehow, your nation is superior to others. This can be on the grounds of almost anything you care to name, your proud history for example, or your race, religion, intellectual enlightenment, military prowess or wealth. "Soft" nationalisms are more subtle, and not always conscious. But they are expressed by aims and behaviours such as pursuing political or economic purposes that benefit your own nation in preference to, or at the expense of, others. This tends to foster national autonomy and self-determination, where the good of a nation state is no longer understood in the setting of the wider human family. It's hard not to think that agressive flag-waving, hostility to immigrants and rigorous border controls encourage a kind of national egoism that owes more to a romantic notion of "blood and soil" than to a rational idea of what it means to be good citizens.ii

I've often written about my late mother's side of our family. She was a German Jewess who escaped from the Third Reich before the war and was welcomed as a refugee in the UK. She settled here permanently, married my (gentile) father and wanted nothing else than to live out her days in domestic tranquility. She absorbed British ways, learned to speak English free of any German accent, brought her children up to love this country as the civilised, generous nation she had found it to be when she needed rescuing. She became, I think it's fair to say, a patriotic British citizen (she would never have said "English") and encouraged us to be the same. But her keenly attuned antennae abhorred the slightest whiff of self-regarding nationalism. She was a citizen of the world and of her continent, and for this reason was appalled that her adopted country opted to leave the EU just before she died.

For me, this is the nub of Brexit. What was the patriotic thing to do when we voted in last year's Referendum? Part of the answer is surely, to think about what would be in our country's best interests, what would enable it to flourish in the future. I'm sure that most people voted in that way, whether they were Brexiters or Remainers.

But patriotism (precisely because it is not nationalism) doesn't restrict that question only to "what's best for Britain" (to quote the tiresome rhetoric of David Cameron when he tried to renegotiate the UK's relationship with the EU). It asks how the welfare of our nation sits alongside the welfare of all the nations and of the world as a whole. It plays with the conjecture that what's best for Britain in the long run will also turn out to be best not only for Europe but for the worldwide human family. What if we even entertained the thought that we should start at the other end of the question, so to speak, and begin by asking what's best for others, especially those a lot less privileged than we are? I want to say that that option, too, is a patriotic one because it sees flourishing as mutual. We only prosper in any profound sense when everyone else does as well. It's what it means to love your neighbour as yourself. That Golden Rule should have been right at the heart of the Referendum debate. It grieved me that it wasn't.

So I see patriotism as inextricably linked to our belonging, our citizenship, not only in a national sense but in a global one. Patriotism is certainly not less than loving your country (and why not also your region, your locality, the city, town or village where you live?). If wherever we call "home" is important to us, then we should love it and everyone else whose home it also is. But belonging has concentric circles. I love my European homeland and am proud to carry a passport that announces me to be an EU citizen as well as a British one. I love the planet I have been born on, so broken and divided and carrying infinite burdens of pain, yet for all that still full of beauty and goodness, so rich in the diversity of its peoples with whom it's a joyful mystery of life that we share this globe together. Theresa May was quite wrong to say that if you are a citizen of everywhere, "a citizen of the world", you are a citizen of nowhere. Patriotism means we can be glad and grateful to be citizens of many different "somewheres", all of which we can be loyal to and love, whether it's the world we live in, the nation of our origins, or the particular place that we call "home".

This is why I believe that my vote to remain in the EU was profoundly patriotic. A patriotism for today means that we must continue to strive for a peaceable commonwealth of nations and peoples that transcends national boundaries, in which our own flourishing is part of everyone else's. So was it "bordering on the unpatriotic" to question the leadership of those who are trying to negotiate a Brexit settlement with the EU? I don't think so. A grown-up democracy doesn't blindly follow its leaders, least of all when it fears it may be heading for disaster. Yes, there is a loyalty to democratic choices that is required of all citizens, whether it is the outcome of a referendum or the government we have elected.

But it can never be an uncritical loyalty. To go on questioning, exploring, doubting, challenging, being open to change in the light of new evidence or arguments - these are both the privileges and duties of all of us in a democratic society. When it comes to Brexit, the national conversation was not suddenly closed off on 23 June 2016. On the contrary, each new step forward requires that conversation to be shifted and reconfigured in the light of altered circumstances or newly understood realities. It's patriotic to want the best out of each iteration. And it would be patriotic as well as democratic if, in the light of circumstances, we decided as a nation to change our minds about Brexit. (The "will of the people" refrain trotted out by some of our elected members including many who voted Remain doesn't advance intelligent discourse in any way that I can see.)

So you can call me a member of Her Majesty's loyal "Brexit Opposition" if you like. A twenty-first century recusant even, as Tony Dickinson suggested in response to the first version of this blog. For I believe that it's not only allowable but positively necessary to monitor how such a major decision is being worked out in practice, interrogate it closely, scrutinise the performance of those who are steering it so that we can hold them to account. If I say that I just don't believe that the case has been made for Brexit, and that this year has felt like a catalogue of mistakes, unintended consequences and muddled aims, is that unpatriotic? Not if it's said out of a genuine care for the welfare of my nation. On the contrary, maybe it's those who won't engage any further in the Brexit conversation who don't care enough about what happens to our nation.

I don't accuse the good person (whose tweet started this whole thing off) of not caring. Far from it. But I did think I needed to explain myself and defend what I want to describe as a liberal global patriotism. In these times, we have to learn to construe patriotism in the largest, most international way we can. Our world is simply too small for any of us to imagine that supposedly sacrosanct national borders can still define the limits of our concern. We urgently need to cultivate a good patriotism if all life on the planet is going to be respected and conserved. Nations and peoples need to act together to solve the world’s problems. In partnerships, we can achieve vastly more than we ever can on our own.

As I see it, Brexit is propelling the nation in completely the wrong direction, towards isolationism and disintegration. That’s dangerous. It’s not unpatriotic to say so.

Bearing Witness to Europe: a day in Newcastle

Yesterday I got on the train and went to join the North East March for Europe in Newcastle. For a couple of hours I stood with a crowd of several hundred at the Monument in the city-centre. There was a home-spun party atmosphere with banners, flag-waving and singing. I felt a bit underdressed, not sporting the celebratory attire of yellow stars on blue. Even a well-dressed canine looked better suited for the part than I did. But it didn't matter. I was glad to be there.

"Celebratory?" you ask. Hang on, who actually won the EU referendum? No-one was denying the way the vote went. But far from rendering everyone despondent, it seemed to have had the opposite effect. This was a crowd that was energised and enthusiastic, eager to do our best for Britain and Europe, and confident in affirming all that we valued in the EU. Yes, and determined to try to win hearts and minds in the aftermath of the Brexit vote by urging our country to look again at its consequences and prevent lasting damage not only to ourselves but to our European friends and neighbours.

I'd decided to go for two reasons. The first was simply to show solidarity with the millions across the land who voted to remain in the EU. At a time when the momentum of Brexit seems unstoppable, there's a lot to be said for turning out on the streets en masse in order to show our political leaders that they can't assume that Britain has given them an "overwhelming" or even a "clear" mandate to drive us to the cliff-edge. And even if we had, we would still have the right to change our minds as a nation. That's what democracy means.

In the vocabulary of Christian faith, I call this kind of public activity "bearing witness": telling our story, sharing our experience, and inviting others to make it their own and become part of it. Getting out there is to become active rather than passive, not to be a bystander but to do something. And that changes for good the consciousness not only of those who take part but of the many more who watch or listen or read news reports and social media. Becoming participants makes a difference. Maybe a bigger difference than we can know at the time. Standing at the heart of Newcastle, this great cosmopolitan city that voted to remain in the EU, I think we all felt empowered.

The other reason for going was that I wanted to hear the speeches. An impressive line-up of speakers represented the worlds of politics, education, the unions, health, and business and commerce. I don't suppose many of us learned much that was new. But it was the conviction with which they spoke that impressed and even moved me. They were clear that our country had made a disastrous mistake. They were clear that the electorate had been misled and lied to. They were clear that the values of Europeanism were still alive and well across our nation. They were clear that it wasn't too late to row back from our decision. They were clear that the UK still had a future in the EU provided enough people believed in it with conviction.

In their different ways, the speakers underlined a simple message. "We want our country back. We want our continent back too. Being in the EU isn't only about the economy. It's about the values we share. We stand up not only for ourselves but for the next generation. We love Europe. We are Europeans. We shall fight for a second referendum on the negotiated Brexit deal with the option Remain in the EU on the ballot paper."

At the end, Professor A. C. Grayling spoke, one of the most intelligent and ardent champions of Britain's membership of the EU. In a long series of writings and tweets he has mercilessly exposed Brexit for what it is, the non-sense of "this crazy, absurd, damaging project". We must lobby our MPs, he told us. Too many Remainer parliamentarians are going along with Brexit because, as the cry has it, "the people have spoken". This needs challenging by rigorous argument. And maybe our elected representatives who, presumably, haven't stopped believing that EU membership is a good thing need a little encouragement to stand up for that belief. (It's a pity that there were no North East MPs among the speakers - had they been invited and refused, I wonder?) And as for the electorate as a whole, we should raise the morale of despondent Remainers while continuing to challenge those who voted to leave. In other words, the debate is far from concluded. It's more urgent than ever. We need to keep it alive.

It wasn't lost on me that we were gathered at the foot of  a monument that celebrates the great Charles Earl Grey. His fame rests, not on the scented tea named after him but his achievement as a courageous, pioneering, forward-looking politician. He was Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834, and it was under his government that slavery was finally abolished in the British Empire. More than that, he was the principal advocate of the Great Reform Act of 1832 that did so much to ensure the proper representation of the people in Parliament. His memory as a champion of democracy is treasured in his native North East. It's dangerous to claim the great men and women of the past as supporters of present-day causes, but I couldn't help thinking that he would have approved of our act of witness by his monument.

But the name of Grey sounds a warning note too. Someone responded to one of my tweets by pointing out that it was Earl Grey's descendant Sir Edward Grey who famously said in 1914, on the eve of the Great War, that the lights were "going out all over Europe". A few yards away from the monument, a small but noisy group of counter-protesters, some wearing Trump masks, were displaying a large banner that read: "Refugees Not Welcome. We Are Full". A sign that the lights could well go out across Europe if we are not vigilant for democracy, decency and peace-making, for justice, inclusion and equality, all the values that the European vision at its noblest represents. At a time when we do not know what will become of the West in the era of an unpredictable US president, and when Alt-Right movements are springing up across our own continent, we would be wise to be vigilant. And keep our European alliances in good repair.