Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

Barbara, I have had similar professional experiences.

My concern was the paucity of democratic processes that allow those running the EU to respond to the concerns of its citizens. Not a problem post WW2 when cooperation was good, or even with the first wave of expansion. However I am not sure that central Euopean countries will be willing to accept the Franco-German leadership dominance into the longer term and there is a risk of major tensions between Eastern, Western and Southern members. It may be that in 10 years time we look in from the outside and feel we made the right decision. Equally a historical perspective may confirm we made the wrong one.

I dont have a clear view on which way it will go, which is why I did not vote. This did not stop me being branded a racist, bigot und so weiter, or indeed allow me an opportunity to express my views. I speak four European languages and have lived in three European countries. But still, questioning the London left wing middle class orthodoxy, even from a relatively informed position, is not allowed.

This is by far the best thread on post-election analysis I’ve seen on mumsnet. Brilliant stuff
Absolutely agree. Sensibe, non hysterical analysis of different views. I thought those day were long gone ☺

Benn's Maastricht speech is very good indeed (I've read it before).

One of my first jobs out of university was negotiating single market legislation, which took me to meetings in Brussels on a regular basis. I won't go into details because I think it's still covered by the 30 year rule (just).

It has always left me scratching my head at the claims that the EU as it now is (it was the EC back then, the second E having been dropped as it moved from being just a trading body towards something else) was just a trading organisation. It was clear to anyone involved in those negotiations that what was being proposed was not just free trade within Europe, but higher trade barriers to the outside (not the crude issue of tarifs, but the subtler but more Draconian non-tarif barriers around health and safety, many of which were politically rather than scientifically driven - I used to attend these meetings with specialist scientists, as did the other member states).

The other thing was the extent to which it was driven from the top down by the Commission. I've sat in meetings where the scientific and trade experts from all the member states were unanimous that what was being proposed was crazy and couldn't work in practice, only to have the Commission chair overrule everyone.

The EU isn't an antidote to the nation state, it's just a bigger one, and one which is off shoring/outsourcing its own refugee crisis (camps on Lesbos/in Turkey, etc).

One of the things I've found interesting about the last 3 1/2 years is that Brexit has had the slightly paradoxical effect of making the EU much more open about federalism being the end game. (It's implicit in the Treaty of Rome, and is, I think, becoming more pressing with the instability of the Euro; if it's to continue, the Eurozone needs centralised control over fiscal as well as monetary policy). Ironically, I think it's Brexit that's brought this about, because they don't have to keep up the pretence that this is just a trading block to keep the Brits from getting too restive; either we'll leave (the overwhelmingly likely option), or have to return suitably chastened.

But make no mistake, it's going to be a very bumpy ride economically. The EU as a block is massively trade protectionist. The small corner of legislation I worked on sent New Zealand into a 15 year recession; talking to friends in other departments, that pattern was repeated round the world. We're about to be on the receiving end of finding ourselves as a third country.

GCAcademic that article is interesting - viewing people as either somewheres or anywheres.

On the issue of moving, there is a sociologist I think who talked about the concept of 'rootedness' being an underexamined factor.

David Goodhart? He wrote a book called The Road to Somewhere which argues that Britain is broadly divided into two tribes, the somewheres and the anywheres:

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/03/anywheres-vs-somewheres-split-made-brexit-inevitable

On the issue of moving, there is a sociologist I think who talked about the concept of 'rootedness' being an underexamined factor.

Well-off professional class people tend to be less rooted but for those who are poorer or who have spent their whole lives in one place, whose relatives all live close by, or lack skills in demand elsewhere, it is far more unsettling or even threatening if you are involuntarily rooted in an area in such a way to see it change around you.

It is perhaps a little unfair for the more mobile to tell the more rooted how they should feel about change.

I'm not sure what I can say about that without getting deleted, other than that I have no sympathy for that position at all.

Yes Kittens although I know people who actually say out loud they would rather Syrians drowned than got to the UK. Though they are not working class nor affected by immigration.

On a certain level I do actually think that there is a sense where people should be free to move around. None of us made the earth, and it's my view that it is here for everyone to support themselves, and that it is a kind of moral imperitive that we make room for people to work on the land where there is land to be worked. There is something deeply wrong when some have an excess and some have none, or where it is normal to be dependent on a wage working for the good of others rather than for yourself. In that sense I suppose I am far left though it's really a Catholic position on the right to movement.

However, in practice, there are all kinds of things that could simple free movement for all unjust. Because there is also a sort of right to the integrity of the local community, to keep the results of your own labour, to a relationship with place. Not to mention mundane things like how the community governs itself and so on.

So we end up with a political structure that tries to allow a lot of freedom but not so much that there are a lot of problems, which means limits have to be chosen. In western countries in recent times its often been freedom as a citizen to move within the nation, or leave it if you like and have somewhere to go. And even that is possibly a trade off as it doesn't give as much of a guarantee to live in the same community you come from as some might like, freedom to stay is perhaps sacrificed to freedom to move to some degree. And still, freedom to move in practice is a freedom of the well-off.

Not only do people who want to blanket advocate free movement ignore these questions, they take a whole different POV when you are talking about indigenous peoples and colonialism, or even certain types of cultural exchange.

It's also another idea that sounds better in America, which is about a third of a continent, than it does in the UK, which is a collection of not particularly massive islands. There is a limit to how many people the UK can conceivably hold, so no, not everyone who wants to move to the UK can. And no, saying this doesn't mean that you want Syrian refugees to drown in the Med.

Yes Antibles it’s like people who say well you share a toilet with men in your own house, so what’s wrong with the same in a public toilet?

I have absolutely no truck with 'no borders' either. This coming from people who presumably operate controls over who comes and goes through their own front door. They are perfectly able to grasp the rationale of border control at that level.

Yes Jilly, to like being British has been thoroughly unacceptable on the Left for some time now. I think many people are fed up of the message for the last twenty years or so that they shouldn't like themselves or their community as they are and that cultural change, encroaching upon them unasked for via high net immigration will somehow improve them morally.

The "no borders" demand boils my head.

But it is indicative of a naive trend in modern political commentary whereby policy and legislation somehow only applies to nice people.

So no borders means upstanding citizens of other EU countries come to work in Britain, pay their taxes, queue politely, and generally add an air of European congeniality all round, but somehow no borders doesn't mean people trafficking vulnerable girls to work in brothels, drug runners flooding the country with dodgy cocaine, organised crime smuggling weapons across Europe onto a British streets, or serious sex offenders escaping the arm of justice.

Sometimes I wonder if these "no borders" bods have ever thought about what it really means. Shit, they'd soon change their tune if Daesh turned up in their back yard.

Us and them. Tribalism is a powerful force.

JillyHilly
Yes. Add to that Corbyns perceived sym pop athy with terrorists, and you've got a case of Well, Boris is not the best of us, but at least he's one of us.

That's not really a conscious reaction for a lot of people but it colours your thinking.

Thanks all for the link to the Douglas Murray article and the comments. Needmoresleep thanks so much for sharing your experiences - glad you found a good solution to caring for your mother. I was really touched by the thought of her feeding ducks with the carer’s grandchildren. It touches on a huge area of concern for women. It should be equally men and women of course but typically it sounds as if you did most of the day to day co-ordination.

I too was relieved at the GE result, largely because something had finally happened to release the pressure from what was rapidly becoming an unstable situation in my eyes.

I've never heard people in my region talk with such vehemence about politics and Westminster as I have since May's premiership. I thought to myself that if it carried on, we were looking at civil unrest.

I think we were really close to something very nasty. And that's the thing about this that the left and Labour under Corbyn do not seem to understand anymore: this is not a game. It's not a twitter argument. It's not a debate in your junior common room. This is reality.

I kept reading about hung parliaments and the notion that deals would be done between the SNP and Labour to allow Corbyn in as PM, and I just thought that if that happened, shit was gonna blow.

This is by far the best thread on post-election analysis I’ve seen on mumsnet. Brilliant stuff.

Packing your earlier post was amazing. That’s an article that really needs to be published somewhere.

This is really just echoing what you’ve said, but earlier in another thread I was not very successfully attempting to discuss the fact that I always thought that part of Boris’ appeal was that he actually seems to like Britain and the British, and to be proud of the country. The left absolutely hates those values of pride in country, and sees them as innately racist, but Boris seems unashamedly and unapologetically British - happy to be so, in fact. I think this has real appeal for many people who are sick of being told that their more patriotic views represent some kind of unspeakable thought-crime.

I've seen a few people (on Twitter where common sense goes to die, to be fair) arguing that there should be no borders at all and everyone should be allowed to just move wherever they want, which in theory I can see why that would sound good to a kind and idealistic person, but on a practical level that's just not going to work for all kinds of reasons.

And to add to what I said above, it makes it a little hard to believe when they make the claim that they are not in any way being anti-nationalist, that they don't think there is a connection.

Rather like people who will say at the same time that that the EU does not in any way impinge on the democratic decisions of the UK, but they don't want to leave the EU because they think the people of the UK will make bad decisions.

Immigrants vs immigration is interesting. There are a lot of unspoken ideas around what it means to support immigration among progressives, and I think most haven't really thought them through systematically.

One of the arguments that often comes up is that EU membership means the right to move around for work, therefor those who want to restrict this kind of movement are looking to deny the rights of some, and I think that is where the accusation of bigotry ears its head. Clearly people who want to deprive others of their rights are bigots.

There seems to be no sense that there are different kinds of rights, that a citizenship right is not the same as a human right for example. No one thinks Spain is denying South Africans their human rights by not letting them vote there.

The question of movement in the EU, people who say they want to reconsider that, it's basically a political question, isn't it? it's not some claim that other people are less worthy. How is it fundamentally more legitimate to place political power at the level of Europe rather than the UK, they are both political constructs? One may be more practical than the other, but that's not really some sort of moral issue. If the EU can legitimately have immigration controls from outside, why can't a nation?

To me it seems like people who are thinking concerns about immigration indicates sort of inner bigotry are actually very skeptical of any sort of nationalism at all, they don't like things like patriotism, they tend to be suspicious of their national history, and they are also suspicious of nation states. Which is perhaps at least consistent, except they often don't seem to take the same view of other nation states and their political and cultural legitimacy.
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I really wish we'd had a thread like this 3 years ago..

The unbelievable irony. I used to post on the referendum board and by God you refused to hear it then red.

Like you, AutumnRose1, I really tried back in the run up to the referendum and the sarcasm and vitriol was awful. It's been a long three and a half years.

Still, as I have said before on this board, it was good training for being cast in the role of bigot over the trans issue.

Great points packingsoapandwater.