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Gordon Lawrie

Brexit Lessons for Three Groups of People

1/2/2020

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(Image: Banksy on Brexit/Flickr)
For the European Union:
Back in June 2016, Alyn Smith, now SNP Shadow Foreign Affairs Spokesman in the House of Commons but then an MEP, addressed the European Parliament directly following the Brexit vote. His cry was "Remember, Scotland did not let you down – do not let Scotland down!" Yet that's exactly what the EU did.

Over 48% of UK voters wanted to remain, and 62% of Scots, but the UK Government chose to ignore them, dismiss them even, on the grounds that 'those were the rules/we voted as a United Kingdom' – notwithstanding that the public generally didn't actually want a referendum in the first place. (It was only held to appease Tory activists.) Had such minorities been cast aside in Bosnia, Kosovo, Myanmar, in Syria, in the DRC, Rwanda or Burundi, the EU would have responded very differently. Democracy is not majority rule.

Yet when it came to Brexit, the EU did indeed let Scotland down, and spectacularly. To a lesser extent, it let Northern Ireland down, too, although there at least the vote was close. It even let one of the R27 down: the Irish Republic – it should have made it far harder for the Good Friday Agreement to be unpicked.

And why? Two reasons. First, because it wanted to discourage any other country from such making such a rash move. It probably succeeded there, but it was like using the death penalty to discourage double parking. Second, because it cow-towed to Madrid, which was afraid that allowing special arrangements for Scotland and Northern Ireland would open the door to Catalonian separatists. By the time it became clear that the three situations were very, very different, it was too late.

For the UK Government
Although the Conservatives clearly forced the pace of Brexit and take the lion's share, it isn't only the Tories who are to blame for where we're at. Sure, a couple of weak Conservative Prime Ministers failed to stand up to their own backbenchers, but Labour also allowed itself to be infiltrated by anti-EU activists. Sure, the EU is a capitalist free market with a great many faults, but leaving the EU doesn't help to change it.

But both the major parties were guilty of using the UK's relationship with the EU to get elected. And it's a lot easier to point out the weaknesses in any institution than its strengths: defending anything instinctively sounds negative. For decades, too, successive UK governments have been all too happy to allow EU bureaucratic regulation to shoulder the blame for actions the UK strongly supported itself: over safety requirements, in the environment, safeguarding fishing stocks, data protection, human rights and many others. It was cowardly to hide behind Brussels, and now we're paying the price for it.

For the British Public
At some point in the future, history will allow us to look in the mirror and recognise that the principal driver in the Brexit vote was out and out racism. We're all a little bit racist; anyone who tries to say 'I'm not a racist' is virtually shining a light on their own racism. Racism is underpinned by fear of the unknown, of the different. Just imagine if you were sitting on a sofa, and a big friendly green Martian sat down beside you: you'd instinctively want to move away slightly. Or if every Middle East refugee in the world was to settle in your city: you'd not be happy, complaining that your housing, services and economy was overwhelmed, and that communication was impossible. And of course that some of these refugees could be terrorists seeking to return home, with all the collateral implications for your local area.

I'm not saying that there aren't plenty of folk out there with genuinely held anti-EU views, but they were more than happy to allow swathes of racist xenophobes to latch on to them. That was certainly shameful. But ordinary people want the right to vote, and with that comes a responsibility to use it wisely. For all that, too many people in the UK freely admit that they voted in 2016 when they hadn't a clue what they were voting for. Astonishingly, huge numbers of Brexit voters did so in order to protest against the influx of illegal Asian and African migrants.

It's extraordinary that antisemitism and Islamophobia have dominated the news so much recently, yet the UK public couldn't relate that to its own complaints about Poles and other Eastern Europeans. Perhaps it was appropriate, then, that we left the EU in the same week as Holocaust Memorial Day. Despite the fine words, we've clearly learned nothing at all.

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Football and Racism

10/12/2018

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After a spate of racist incidents at football matches, including one I attended. The police got the culprits.

Racism has suddenly reared its ugly head again in our society, particularly publicly so in and around football grounds. I’m not quite sure why that might be, but I’ve long suspected that the anti-immigrant thread that runs through Brexit has given a faux legitimacy to a thoroughly nasty strain of human behaviour. Saying that it’s all right to oppose immigration has given carte blanche to those who have always had a fear and hatred of anyone in any way different. And let’s be honest about this for a moment: Brexiteers were happy to harness that racism to garner support for their cause in the referendum. They still are. Brexit means Brexit means Get-Out-Nasty-Fill-in-the-blanks.
 
I’m not sure about the logic of ‘holding clubs accountable for the actions of their spectators’. Clubs are aware of their responsibilities, but can do little more than assist the police in catching the perpetrators and then (attempt to) ban these low-lifes from ever setting foot inside their ground again. On the other hand there’s little anyone can do to prevent someone donning a Falkirk scarf, say, attending an away game and misbehaving, then wearing Dunfermline colours to one of their away games the next week. Home fans are easier to police than away supporters.
 
In any case, I understand that in most cases other surrounding fans – presumably supporting the same team, too – are quick to assist the police. That doesn’t sound like a collective will to look the other way. In the meantime, the only way to guarantee that players can be sheltered from fans’ racist abuse in the future is to play every game behind closed doors. Raheem Sterling would need to take a large salary cut to accommodate that.
 
When anything goes wrong, judge the organisation not by the fact that a mishap happened, judge it by its response. As far as I can make out, no football club is doing nothing, or pretending that there’s nothing to do. Occasionally there’s a debate about whether or not specific abuse or a specific assault is racially-motivated or whether it’s simply criminal behaviour, but the effects on the victim are essentially the same.
 
Either way, society can’t simply hold its nose and pretend that these problems happen only inside football grounds. In fact, the villains are probably more likely to be caught inside a football ground, surrounded by witnesses and under the watchful eye of the police, security staff, and CCTV. I’d imagine that BAME footballers are a whole lot safer on a professional football field than they would be on a Friday night in any UK city centre.
 
So it’s a society problem, and while football clubs have to chip in to make an effort, too, I’d bet that almost every one of those racist-chanting morons voted for Brexit, always assuming that they know which end of a voting paper is the top. Meantime, a message for Brexiteers: sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Take some responsibility for the evil you’ve quietly condoned.
 
As for those who preach the mantra that ‘the public will never forgive us if we betray what they voted for in the EU Referendum’, shame on you all. Once upon a time government leaders were statesmen who did what was right for the country, they didn’t scrabble around grasping a few dirty votes from uneducated bigots. It’s a wonder that you can look at yourselves in the mirror each morning. No wonder today’s politicians command so little respect.

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We Need a Written Constitution

6/9/2018

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Ask almost anyone in Britain what they think of the current Brexit negotiations and they'll give you the same answer: it's a shambles. Ask anyone what they think of British politics and they'll say the same.
 
Here's a breakdown: the only two parties capable of forming a government in Westminster have been successfully infiltrated, the Conservatives by Brexiteers, Labour by Momentum. The former's leader is proving to be the worst Prime Minister in history, the latter's leader the worst Leader of the Opposition. In Scotland, the SNP has been infiltrated by uber-nats who – as well as trolling everything that moves on Twitter – totally overstate the demand for Scottish independence. Not that they have a clue what they mean by "independence" anyway, because no one ever asks. Northern Ireleand is headed up by a bigot who opposes what her own people say about Europe yet maintains power despite being under a corruption cloud. In Wales, Plaid Cymru seems toothless for some reason. The Middle-Class Cyclists Party (Greens) seems determined to act as though nothing else except the environment matters. Meanwhile England rules Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland like the last vestiges of an English Empire.
 
As for the Reasonable Party (the Lib-Dems), they continue to be reasonable: but they're the ones who got us into this mess in the first place. Fixed-term parliaments are proving a disaster: we needed a General Election a long time ago. Perhaps more than one.
 
I'm not saying that these politicians are all bad people (I don't know, to be honest), but I do suggest they're either out of control or insufficiently in control of their parties. But much of what's been happening points to one clear point: we need, finally, a written constitution in the UK. Issues like Brexit and Scottish independence are not matters for simple majorities in a referendum. It shouldn't be possible for a Prime Minister to drag the country into a war that the vast majority of the elctorate opposes. It should not be possible for the UK Parliament to snatch back powers from the Scottish one against its will. It shouldn't be possible for any small group of politicians to tear up our unwritten constitution in order to maintain its position of power.
 
If we did create a proper written constitution, we might then be able to have a proper conversation about the meaning of the "United Kingdom". For those who live outwith England, exactly what do we want our relationship to be with – let's be honest – the country we're most likely to do business with? If we're going to have free movement throughout the British Isles, we need to cooperate on trade, migration and border controls, too. We can't just all do our own thing.
 
First of all, though, we've got to sort out the shambles we're in. That means an election, or a second referendum, or something that lets the public in at the process. The political establishment should be grateful: in many countries around the world this situation would have us in a state of civil war.
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If You're Gonna Win, You're Gonna Have To Win Big

15/3/2017

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Half of Scotland sees to be campaigning for a second independence referendum; the other half seems to be campaigning to stop it. Once again, Scotland is divided, and the fault lines are as clear as the ones that divide the UK over Brexit. It's really not possible to sit on the fence at all, so any referendum that produces a close result – anything less than 60-40 is definitely close – is absolutely bound to expose deep rifts.

I'm not generally in favour of referendums. My understanding of representative parliamentary democracy is that we elect politicians to represent us and take those decisions on our behalf. I'd actually go further. Any politician who asks the voters to decide something instead is abandoning their responsibilities and guilty of dereliction of duty: they should be debarred from holding public office.

But if you're governing a country and you know that the referendum will produce a clear, overwhelming result in your favour, then a referendum can bring a country together and heal divisions rather than create them. The referendum to create the Scottish Parliament in 1998 achieved that for sure. Nicola Sturgeon must therefore set hers up in such a way that she can persuade the great majority of the Scottish public to back her. So how is she going to do that?
  1. She should promise that, if there's a Yes vote, the voters will get a chance to ratify the eventual deal when it's been thrashed out. Doing so will allow swithering voters to take a chance, and at the same time will answer all the "how are you going to?" questions, such as on currency, the EU, the economy and so on. It will also claim the moral high ground: it's what the Brexit vote should definitely have offered. (Make no mistake about it – pro-Brexit opponents of a second ratifying referendum are simply afraid of losing. End of story.)
  2. She should portray a vote for independence as a chance to renegotiate the Union, not to end it. She can present it as a chance to freshen up the UK constitution generally. That way it can't be portrayed as anti-English. The object should be to create a new Union where no individual nation can ever again be dragged into a situation the great majority of its citizens oppose. At some point in the future that individual nation might even be England.
  3. She should avoid aligning Scotland with the EU. That sounds counter-intuitive, but I'm not sure that the separatists are actually that attracted by taking power back from Westminster – and then handing it straight over to the EU. It might even be that a higher percentage of 2014 IndyRef Yes voters opted for Brexit in 2016 than IndyRef No voters. (It must have been very close to say the least.) I see no evidence that typical SNP voters are more European in outlook than other party voters. Scotland might need immigrants even more than the rest of the UK, but immigration manages to be an issue here, too: we Scots have our fair share of racists and xenophobes in our midst.  

On that last point, there's something else to bear in mind. The views of the great majority of Scots, and 48% of the UK as whole, are clearly being utterly ignored – but it's unarguable that public dissatisfaction with the EU was sufficient that something has to change. We in Scotland have to recognise that, whether or not you wish us to leave the EU, the referendum result was a statement of complaint that could not be ignored.

So Nicola Sturgeon has to play this IndyRef2 card very carefully indeed. It's an opportunity, sure, but the price of failure is potentially enormous. She herself would be gone within hours, but – much worse – she would be seen for ever as the politician who set back the cause of independence for a many years. I suspect 'a generation' would be a little bit of an understatement this time.

Nicola needs to win her referendum with a very clear majority, then, perhaps 70%-80%. She needs to win big, or forget it. She needs to win over a lot of people who voted No in 2014. That includes me. I'm listening to her, and am really open to supporting independence this time. I wonder if she's really listening to the likes of me?

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The Brexit Emperor Has No Clothes!

14/11/2016

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Back in June 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU. There’s no disputing the result: the Leave campaign won fair and square, and the result was beyond contest. However, the result led to four key misconceptions that no one seems to have the courage to point out.

1. The democratic will of the British people is to leave the EU.

Wrong. Democracy is rule by and for all of the people, not just a majority – and a narrow one in this case: 48% of the people clearly voted to remain. The minority has a right to be heard, and it should matter whether the margin of victory was 51%-49% or 90%-10%.

2. The result of the referendum is binding.

Wrong. Quite apart from the fact that this one is specifically ‘advisory’, no referendum set up by Parliament can ever be truly binding. Parliament can give, and therefore it can take away. Had the referendum been binding, then it would have been impossible to undo the 1975 one that ratified our original entry.

3. Brexit means Brexit.

That’s wrong, too, but for a different reason: nobody can agree what Brexit means. So if it means we leave the EU in name but retain all of the features of membership, that could mean Brexit. Brexit means Brexit is meaningless.

4. Those who oppose Brexit are trying to undo the result of the referendum by having a rerun.

Wrong. Attractive as it might be to Remainers, that wouldn’t be democratic either, as 52% were so unhappy with the status quo that they wanted to leave. Something clearly has to change, and the vote is undeniably approval in principle for starting to negotiate Brexit. But the final deal needs to be ratified by the public to have legitimacy. People need to see what is being offered in place of membership of the EU, then vote on the entire package. That’s what any other debating body would do – Parliament included, in the form of a Third Reading. Brexit needs a second referendum eventually. Those who argue otherwise are simply afraid of losing.


Come on everyone – you know it's true. Just admit it.
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Democracy Misunderstood

3/8/2016

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A month after the UK voted to leave the EU in the June 2016 referendum.
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I think I must be getting old: I suspect I’m about to sound like my grandfather, far less my dad. In the last few years there have been a number of elections and referendums held across the western world, none of which seem to follow a consistent line in what I understand by ‘democracy’.
 
The word is Greek, of course, and means ‘rule’(the –cracy bit) ‘by the people’ (the demos bit). That much is clear. Where the problems start is when the people don’t all agree. Western democracies from Aristotle onwards have settled on ‘the will of the many’, or ‘most’. Sometimes we talk about ‘majority rule’, but that isn’t right either – it’s been a long, long time since a government was elected by more than half of those who voted, far less those entitled to vote. What we really mean is ‘plurality rule’ – the most popular party, or perhaps simply the least unpopular. For the most part, election results leave an awful lot of people feeling robbed, cheated by the system. If the margin of victory is exceptionally small, that feeling will be intensified, as happened in the election George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000.
 
Western democracies have tended to try to heal the wounds by seeking common ground between winners and losers. Losers urge their supporters to support winners. Winners speak of a need to heal society, as well they might: the success of democracy depends on losers not crying foul. Where the result is close, winners need to take notice and not immediately embark on radical programmes.
 
Worryingly, that’s not been happening lately. The recent Brexit result in the EU referendum was only clear insofar as it could not be contested, but 52% against 48% is absolutely not a mandate for radical constitutional change. What other organisation allows its constitution to be changed on a simple majority? Yet all we hear is that ‘Brexit means Brexit’, there’s no attempt to soften the line at all. My view is the Brexiteers know only too well that their position is weak, which is why they’re rushing so fast towards the cliff. And then there’s the little problem of Scotland.
 
Over in the US, Trump is creating a political climate where post-electoral unity will be utterly impossible. America is a divided enough country already without the irresponsible demagoguery of the New York businessman. People will vote for him in droves, he might even win, but if so Trump will have done so only on a relatively low turnout where hate is the principal driving agent.
 
In most countries in the world that would lead to civil war. One of the most worrying aspects of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum was the violent scenes during and particularly after the result was announced. The losers felt powerless, so they took to the streets. The western world needs to take a good hard look at itself and stop taking peaceful politics for granted, because once it’s gone, it becomes very hard to get it back again.
 
On the other hand, it could simply be that I’m getting old.
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Six Things We've Learned From The EU Referendum

24/6/2016

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Written in the wake of the EU referendum of 23rd June 2016...

1. The UK is a deeply divided nation. There are sharp differences between the ways that the country voted: people under 40 voted to Remain, over-40s to Leave; Scotland (62%) and Northern Ireland (56%) voted strongly to Remain, England (53%) and Wales (52%) to Leave. My guess is that there will turn out to be similar divisions by social class and educational attainment, too.

2. This is not a result that the losers will readily accept. The Scottish independence referendum wasn’t well accepted by the Yes voters, and that was a clearer outcome. It’s not hard to see some attempt being made to reverse or at least negate the result, which in turn would be resented by the Leave campaign.

3. Nationalism is a powerful sentiment. For those on the margins of politics, the poor, the unemployed, the poorly-educated, the disaffected, it’s easily understood – “Scotland for the Scots”, “Britain for the Brits” etc.. Unscrupulous politicians & media can tap into that.

4. For the same reason, a referendum is a fabulous way that these disaffected voters can punch the noses of establishment politicians. The more the establishment unites, the more attractive a target it becomes. It happens all the time.

5. We may have learned that we haven’t learned anything. 52% isn’t a mandate of any sort, whether to Remain or to Leave. Parliament still has to endorse and ratify all of this, and if the terms of leaving prove too unpalatable for the UK public, the decision might yet be reversed. What happens if an election is held in the next two years and the winning party has a clear mandate for EU membership?

6. When will politicians learn? Never hold a referendum that you can’t be absolutely sure of winning. This was all so unnecessary and it’s now cost both Alex Salmond and David Cameron their jobs in the space of under two years. We live in a democracy, sure, but it’s a representative democracy in which we elect politicians to govern on our behalf to the best of their ability – and we judge their performance every five years. Governments should only use referendums to endorse decisions they’ve already taken – to win ‘public acclaim’ – as in the referendum to set up the Scottish Parliament. Calling a referendum because you lack the courage to take decision yourself – whatever the result – is in itself neglect of duty and probably renders anyone who does so unfit for public office.


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Jo Cox (1974-2016)

22/6/2016

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Today should have been Jo Cox’s 42nd birthday. I’m sure she wasn’t perfect – reading between the lines, she could be a feisty besom – but by all accounts she was a talented individual and certainly punched above her weight both on the political stage and in the wider field. Jo Cox got things done, but at the same time she picked up many friends and admirers.
 
I don’t think it particularly prejudices any future court case to say that she was killed by a complete nutcase. The guy doesn’t deny anything, and the only question will be what to do with him. For Ms Cox’s friends and family, on the other hand, the questions are endless. Why? Why her? Why us? What now? How will we carry on? Will it ever end? Only the last question has a clear answer: it won’t.
 
It’s been observed more than once that Ms Cox’s murder is a stark wake-up call for all of us. Far from being on-the-make, corrupt time-servers, most of our politicians actually do what they claim to do – serve us. Social media users should be paying attention, although I’m not hopeful on that account: vile slander seems the order of the day, especially at referendum and election times. Yet our democracy depends on those who represent us, who stand up and expose themselves to abuse and occasional physical danger. We all have a duty to offer them as much support as possible, even if we disagree with what they say. It’s the process that’s important.
 
Collectively as a society, it’s actually our duty to protect our representatives. We don’t tend to do that personally, we leave it to the emergency services and armed forces to do it for us in peacetime and in war. We can’t guarantee to protect everyone, and the only person to blame for Jo Cox’s death is that solitary man, but our politicians’ safety and well-being is actually our responsibility, yours and mine. Democracy is rule by all of the people (not just a majority, by the way), but that democracy ain’t worth a damn if we’re not prepared to put our own bodies on the line to defend it.
 
We messed up last Friday. Sorry. Wherever you are Jo Cox, Happy Birthday.

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High Stakes

9/5/2016

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I was rather alarmed by an item that appeared in today's newspaper...

I was made aware of my own mortality this morning when I picked up the newspaper and read that I was rather likelier to die than I’d previously assumed. The cause of my misfortune, it seems, is that I’m very tall – 6 feet 51/2 inches, to be precise, or, as the French would say, 1.97 metres. Tall people, we’re told, are more likely to develop cancer than short people.
 
On reading this startling fact, I immediately googled the price of coffins, as you do, where I found the incredibly informative website www.comparethecoffin.com. There, my eyes were opened to a whole range of exit vehicles, including cardboard boxes – the pink cardboard coffin was Reduced! to a mere £375 – rainbow coffins presumably aimed at diversity groups, and things constructed more robustly from wood or steel. (You might think I’m making this up, but I’m not.) Comparethecoffin.com also sells cremation urns in many tasteful shapes and sizes and a selection of rockets so that the bereaved can scatter the ashes by firing them several thousand feet into the air.
 
My personal favourite was the “DIY flat-pack coffin with red liner” which would presumably allow the about-to-die the opportunity to while away his or her final hours wrestling with a screwdriver and some glue. I did check to see if it was IKEA-branded, but it didn’t have one of those meaningless Swedish names like Splorg or Kubrask, so I assume that at least it would come with instructions that made sense. In reality, of course, one has to live with the knowledge that the whole thing would probably fall apart at the most unfortunate point in the funeral. Incidentally, one of the rockets came in DIY form as well.
 
Then I saw something that made my blood run cold: one of the coffins described itself as ‘oversize’. I hadn’t really given this much thought, but I suppose I’ll need a bigger box, too. I should be used to this, actually, as my clothes are more expensive, I need to book extra-legroom seats on flights, I even have to look at a far more limited selection of cars, all simply because I’m a big guy. It’s not fair; being a monster costs a lot of money. We bump our heads a lot as well.
 
Nobody quite knows why tall people are more likely to develop cancer, but it seems the most credible hypothesis is that there are more cells in me than there are in someone shorter – I don’t have ‘bigger’ cells than average. That means that there are more cells in me to go wrong. I don’t feel I’ve been given a large number of cells, and when confronted by two short people trying to beat me up, I truly feel outnumbered two-to-one. Nor do I even have an extra finger or toe to show for my extra cells. Just an increased risk of cancer, thanks.
 
But a little time in amongst life’s coffins, urns and ash-scattering rockets at least gave me time to renew my perspective on life, and more relevantly here, death. I can only die once. What that means is that if I’m more likely to die of cancer, then I must be less likely to die crossing the road or in a plane crash, of being murdered, or of dying of other illnesses such as a heart attack or a stroke. So the good news about being more likely to die of cancer is that I can go back to enjoying all the good things in life, so it’s back to the burgers, pizzas, crisps and deep-fried Mars Bars. (That last one’s a lie – the very thought makes me want to throw up.)
 
And there are compensations in being tall. I can see over crowds. I can reach shelves in my house that no-one else can get close to. I can also paint ceilings, although that’s a horrible job and I try to pretend that ‘even I’ can’t manage to reach. Best of all, though, is that 1.97 metres, which you square and then divide the resulting 3.88 into my weight in kilos to produce my Body Mass Index. So the taller I am, the more weight I’m allowed before I have to admit to being obese – back to those burgers again. Being obese, we’re told, is a contributory factor in developing cancer.
 
So being tall helps combat cancer? Hang on...
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Remembrance Day

11/11/2015

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An essay from November 2015, updated.

A few years ago found myself discussing poppies and Remembrance Day with a friend. She was objecting to being forced to observe the rituals of a minute’s silence and the current rise of “poppy fascism” – the trashing of public figures who don’t wear poppies at this time of year. Her perfectly valid point was that honouring “The Glorious Dead” was hypocritical and dishonest, given that there's nothing glorious about war at all and that so many of the wars Britain (let’s face it, most countries) has fought have been morally wrong. We both agreed that not everyone observing the minute’s silence would actually be thinking about war dead, and people should be allowed to wear whatever they like.
 
I also had to accept her points about war. The Great War may have been historically inevitable but it was also futile and generally in pursuit of imperial gain. The Iraq war was always, always wrong.  Even where the wars might have been morally right, as in Afghanistans, our armed forces have arguably achieved little. As a country, we don’t seem to pick our fights very well.
 
But that’s rather missing the point of Remembrance Day. In remembering those who died, we shouldn’t be grading the worth of each fallen individual according to the moral value of the conflicts they took part in. The armed forces – particularly in the United Kingdom which has no conscription and we rely on professional soldiers – do our dirty work for us. They act on behalf of an elected government, a government which we as a society elect to do take war and peace decisions on our behalf. Walking away from our responsibilities to our armed forces leads us down a dangerous path. The last thing we want are politicised armed forces; experience across the world suggests that doesn't usually lead to good outcomes.

Taking the Iraq eaxample, our armed forces loyally did as they were asked, as we would expect them to do in all situations except when they’re asked to flout the Geneva Convention and commit a war crime. That so many British people didn't approve of the Iraq war itself was a matter between us and our government. It’s not for the military to contradict a democratically arrived-at policy. In that sense, those soldiers who die, and the people they kill, are simply victims of the petty squabbles between our governments and ourselves.
 
And so Remembrance Day, and the poppy, are really symbols of our democracy, and the willingness of men and women to put their lives on the line to defend it. But those democratic rights includes yours and mine to choose whether or not to wear a poppy. If citizens feel compelled to wear one, then the lives of our fallen will truly have been in vain.

© Gordon Lawrie 2018

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    Assorted Essays

    Occasional non-fiction thoughts on anything that pops up in the news – now in a new blog format so that others can have their say.

    All views are my own – why wouldn't they be? I've never understood that statement...

    But feel free to have your say.

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