Brexit Schmexit - this train is leaning too far to the right

I’m not a massively political animal, because in truth it matters very little whether we have one mainstream party in power or another. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing; we’re really a centrist society, and given our diversity, geography and psyche we always will be. We might lean a few degrees one way or the other over time, but the needle rarely swings too far from the middle.


That’s not to say we don’t get excited about certain things, of course. Sovereignty, borders, immigration. Being an island folk we have an institutional-like undercurrent of paranoia about the world over the horizon, and every now and again we go into a bit of a tizz about it all. Maybe we have some collective regression about previous invasion (those bloody Normans, coming over here and giving us modern English), or maybe we just like to get riled up about something.
 
Either way, here we are, getting all excited about Brexit and making the needle swing rather more to the right than usual.
 
There’s been an awful lot said about facts. That neither side of this debate has been entirely honest with them, that those we have had have been either been meaningless at best or dishonest at worst (Mr Gove, I’m looking at you and your £350m porkies), that in reality no one knows what’s likely to happen.
 
All true, and all lies. All at the same time. Have we had facts? Yes. Do people care one jot about them? No. There’s not a single person who understands the likely consequences of Brexit that suggests it’s economically the right thing to do. Not one. Even the Leave camp agree that we’re likely to suffer economically if we exit, at least in the short term. But this isn’t about economics, it never has been. This is about our undercurrent of paranoia. It’s our curtain twitching NIMBY mentality, the ‘some of my best friends are black’ argument. It’s about whether we want to share what we have with Them, that lot, the ones over the other side of sea. The ones that speak differently from us, and look differently from us, and who have different cultures and who wear different clothes. They make us nervous.
 
Forget the facts. It doesn’t matter whether the Poles are actually stealing our jobs, or whether Turkey is actually likely to join the EU, or whether we do send £350m a week over to Brussels. None of it is true (sorry, can't help myself), but it's irrelevant anyway. This referendum won't be decided on facts. It's entirely about emotion: we are collectively terrified of having to share this scepter’d isle with people that don’t look or sound or behave like we do.
 
Which is funny, don’t you think? I’m the grandson of a Syrian immigrant who moved to Italy. I’m the son of an Italian who grew up in Libya. I’m the great grandson of Russians and Poles. My daughter’s grandmother is a Czech from the Sudentenland. Go back just two or three generations and we all – all – have immigrant relations. Our language is Germanic, moulded by Latin and Norse. Our numbers are Arabic. Our political structure is Greek. Our Royal Family is German. Our footballers are from pretty much everywhere except, for the most part, England. What are we protecting from whom?
 
I offer no views on whether the EU – as a structure, as a club, as a facilitator to trade – works. It probably could do with reform. But it does work as a way of making us all believe that we are the same. Whether you are English, or French, or Polish, or Italian, or Czech, or Latvian, or Swedish or Greek, you belong to the EU and you are European. It’s not quite the United Federation of Planets, but hey, small steps. And let’s be honest with ourselves, this referendum was never about whether the EU needed reform. It was never about whether the economic case made sense, or whether we could or couldn’t find trade elsewhere, or whether our mythical sovereignty would be best served by being out on our own. It has always been about keeping the foreigners out. Look at why we’re even having it, a sop to UKIP, a party with no policies and no views that aren’t about immigration.
 
I don’t care whether you vote to Leave or to Remain. In truth, long term it'll have little impact. But you should care why. Please don’t let the needle sway too far to the right.

I am vexed

It's nearly Christmas. In 10 days' time, if I haven't murdered my immediate family over a disagreement about how best to cook roast potatoes or beaten my inlaws to death with the remote control, I will enter 2014 full of optimism, ready for a brand new and exciting year.

Maybe. 

In anticipation of leaving 2013 behind, here are some things that continue to vex me:

1. Enough with the class shit already. Middle this, toff that, as if it actually means anything. People are people. Move on.

2. Politics. It is a truth universally acknowledged that those who seek power will, once they have it, seek to retain it, and politics seems to me to have become nothing but the attempt to remain in government for the sake of remaining in government. Say nothing that can be misconstrued, offend no one, avoid promising anything. 

3. Decisions are no longer taken. See (2). Views are canvassed, polls questioned, focus groups formed. Government no longer governs, it follows, but those who it follows have neither the information nor abilities necessary to know how to make an effective decision. Result? Bad decisions by timid politicians taking note of an ignorant public. 

4. The X Factor. Fuck off, Cowell, and take 1 Direction with you.

5. Corporate life. Apparently I work in a "service industry" where my clients expect me to be "available". This, I now understand, requires me to respond instantly to emails received while on holiday. "This request was received at 9.30 this morning," I was told the other day by The Annoying One. "It's now 11.30 and the client has called me to complain about your slow response time." I'm on holiday, I replied, and it's only two hours. "Unacceptable!" Oh, fuck off, do.

6. One trick twitter ponies. Hate animal cruelty? So do I. Dislike the Tories? Hey, join the club, there's lots of us about. Talk incessantly about nothing else? Yes you do. #getafuckinglife

7. Tinsel. I don't care how much it costs, I don't care how carefully you drape it over your expensive mantelpiece, and no, the fact that it's Christmas makes absolutely no difference - it looks shit. 

8. It's "Christmas". Not "xmas". "Christmas". I am not remotely religious, I am not in a fervour of any description. This is a grammar ting. Get it right, you lazy feckers.

9. In a similar vein, 140 characters is plenty. Stop mangling the English language.

10. Lists. 

Politician, redeem thyself

The ECHR decided today that the whole life tariff without possibility of parole breached Human Rights legislation. Some people don't agree.

Well, either we believe in the possibility of redemption, or we don't. 

If we don't then whether someone has stolen a sweet from the pick and mix at the 99p shop or they've stabbed their mother to death with a toothpick, we should remove them from society forthwith and for good. After all, they'll never learn their lesson. They will never realise that what they did was wrong. If released, the sweet thief will go to bigger and more audacious crimes (an apple from a fruit stall, 5 litres of unleaded from an unguarded pump, the odd bout of brutal serial killing) while the Toothpick Stabber of Tatenham Corner will carry out a bloody coup of Brussels and instigate World War III. 

If we do, however, believe in redemption, then the opportunity surely must apply to all. The punishment may differ, the length of time before someone will be believed, the hoops through which we'll expect them to jump, may change depending on the perceived severity of the crime, but how can we say that any one crime is so severe, so beyond the pale, so depraved, abhorrent or evil that there is no possibility whatsoever of coming back from it?

The justice system has never been simply about punishment. The justice system has always served multiple purposes, and has always had three important limbs. The first is punishment, certainly. Society needs retribution, a feeling that justice has been exacted, a way for victims to feel that in some way the balance has been redressed. And we also need the second limb, protection. Sometimes punishing the Slasher of Southampton isn't enough, we need to remove him from society until he ceases to pose a danger. And then there's the third limb, redemption, a way to help those who commit crimes to see the error of their ways and to show them how to become useful members of society again. A justice system that only does one or two of these things is a system that will do nothing but fill our prisons with rotting meat.

Chris Grayling, our esteemed Justice Secretary, believes that some people are inherently evil. That they are so evil, that the justice system need only be used for two of the three limbs: punishment and protection. The third, redemption, is unnecessary. Otiose, if you like, pointless. The Toothpick Stabber is so very bad that he can't possibly ever be genuinely sorry for what he's done. And frankly, even of he is, well...tough. What the Toothpick Stabber did was so very bad that he should never be given the opportunity. See this key? Chuck it in the sea, it won't be needed again.

If you happen to believe in absolute good and absolute evil then perhaps this view makes sense to you. But even the most violent and unpleasant religions (I'm looking at you Catholicism) preach the redemptive power of forgiveness. The eye for an eye contempt for which Chris Grayling appears to hold his fellow man is Old Testament rhetoric, swept away - if you believe in this sort of thing - by the rather more hippy like anni domini. 

Now, alright, we all know that Mr Grayling has an eye on the politics here. He is, after all, a politician whose first love is re-election. If that means toadying up to the Daily Mail harbingers of hate, then so be it. The 'really evil' comment, seen in that light, is nothing more than an attempt at hogging the limelight for a few precious seconds, a soundbite to ensure mention on the 10 o'clock news. His desire to see the ECHR relieved of its powers - as likely as Chris Grayling getting any further with his political career - a call to arms to the rightwing press, irrespective of whether he actually believes the nonsense he spouts. 

But. But, but, but. What's wrong with our political system that talking such crap is seen as a necessary part of it? Why do so few of us vote? Well, let's start with Chris Grayling and go from there.