The Kingdom of Bevan and political Darwinism ........

The results are out and it is scary.

It is very scary.

It is very scary indeed.

It is, I think, now beyond the skills of the average pundit to make any sense of what is happening to our politics or indeed to our national life.

As was observed as we joined the queue for the Theatre last week, the British still queue patiently whereas of course no other nation does, especially the nations of Europe.

The fact that we were queueing to see a play about a Greek Island, set in the second world war, simply added irony to the observation.

Having pushed a wheelchair around a number of locations in Europe including ferry terminals, train stations and theatres over the years, I can say that, largely, it is the case that Europeans queue too and having been escorted to the front of a number of queues and indeed, in the Louvre, invited inside the rope barrier in order to get up close and personal with the Mona Lisa my general experience is that European queues are more polite.

Indeed it seems that there are still a number of nations including Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey who are patiently waiting in line to join the EU whilst we are jostling to leave.

I have friends who voted Leave for what were to them very good reasons, we remain friends, I voted remain for both very good and somewhat emotional reasons and still we remain friends.

There are in fact some perfectly rational reasons for leaving ranging from sovereignty, economics, the fact that having joined a 'common market' we are now members of a very different union and above all there is the Tony Benn question:

'Who elected you and how can we get rid of you?'

I voted remain, however, because of my experiences in the Diocese of Europe, because in my lifetime, I was born in 1945, Europe has managed to remain at peace with itself and because of free movement the benefits of which I was reminded every time I travelled through France into Belgium when I was working for the charity Toc H.

Now we have elected a group of politicians to the European Parliament who have stood explicitly on a ticket to leave the very institution they have been elected to in order represent the UK's interests.

Good luck with that!

The Ghost of Thatcher past is now very present in the Conservative Party as they seek a new leader. Seeking to out farage Mr Farage, the more bullish of the candidates are stating clearly that they will take us out without a deal.

Mr Farage is now claiming that if there were to be a General Election he would win it.

Other Conservative Party leadership contenders are confident that they will be the one to stop Mr Corbyn and the rise of the ghost of Tony Benn.

But the fact of the matter, once the dust settles and the votes have been counted and members have flown off to take their seats in Brussels or Strasbourg, is that the Brexit Party numbers are roughly equal to the Liberal Democrat and Green Party numbers and less if you add the Labour party numbers.

So a marginal leave vote remains a marginal leave vote.

Of course different parts of the country weighted their votes differently too but if my maths is remotely correct it seems that two conclusions can be drawn:

There is a hunger for change after the years of austerity, falling living standards and uncertainty for young and old.

That change can be best achieved by remaining and reforming within the EU itself rather than leaving.

After austerity the referendum was the worst of the poor legacy of the Cameron/Osborne years, aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrats.

The Corbynistas are right that the alternative to the re-imagined Kingdom of Bevan is the low tax, low state vision of the Tory rightwing's political Darwinism.


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