Tuesday 17th October

Just returned from my monthly trip to England.  This time I visited my son and his family in Alfreton, Derbyshire, for a birthday party for my grand-daughter.  No shortage of nice cars in the car park I noticed – and yet nobody looked particularly happy.  Oh, the kids had a great time; it was a farm venue – petting the animals and eating sandwiches and cake, balloons and all the razzamatazz of a birthday.  But the adults sat around looking pretty bored, everyone absorbed in their phones and occasionally chatting.  Well, I knew a few people from previous parties and spoke to them.  Everyone I spoke to had voted Leave, and all unashamedly to get rid of Immigrants, or ‘bloody foreigners’ as they described them.  They seem to think that once we actually leave then all the Polish and Rumanians will be kicked out.  They will, of course, be sadly disappointed.  But this ‘racism’ goes far deeper.  It is really pointed at ‘Muslims’ and the irony is that practically none of the Immigration from Europe is Muslim either.

What is it about the English?  In many ways they have never been so well off – at least those with Mortgages at record low interest rates are – but they don’t seem happy.  And anyway I don’t believe it is really money that brings happiness, even if the lack of it can certainly be an element of unhappiness.  It is something deeper than that, a feeling that the English are unhappy with themselves.  Maybe it is all a hangover from Brexit, which split the country down the middle.  Or even the last indecisive General Election, where those who voted Tory feel they have lost and that the fact that they are the Government is almost a punishment.  And conversely those who voted so enthusiastically for Labour felt immediately after that they had won but have to stand idly by while Mrs. May is still P.M.

But maybe it is that very opening of the Immigration Pandora’s Box which has been so corrosive.  It has brought maybe deep feelings of discontent to the surface, it has allowed Racism to be out in the open – and yet the immigrants are still here, especially the Muslims and the Blacks.  Trouble is the vast majority of brown and black people were actually born here – where would they suggest they go back to.  Most of the Polish and Rumanians are still here too, and pretty unlikely to go back home.  And most scenarios will still see inward migration continue.  But the Remainers are desperately unhappy too as they can see a future they don’t like at all.  And unlike a General Election, where you can vote out a Party you don’t like, we all realise that once out we will find it incredibly difficult to get back in at any point in the future.  So, in a way nobody is happy.  A country uncomfortable with itself indeed.