A binary vote on EU membership was flawed in the first place, so why are we still so attached to ‘leave’ and ‘remain’ as proxy representations of our views on Europe.
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Normally I am not fond of looking back over history as a way of making sense of the present; it’s too easy and often exercised at the expense of more, lengthy enquiry. But on a recent trip to Bucharest, I was struck by the similarities between the strategies used by the communist regime over seventy years ago to gain and maintain power, and those of Boris Johnson.
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Can you remember now your reaction to the referendum result? Some of you I imagine celebrated, others were perhaps shocked, or pretended it wasn’t happening. I was still in bed when I heard the news on the radio: the UK had voted to leave the European Union. I remember the immediate sense of loss and then my anger. For I had the impression, overnight, a part of my identity had been altered in a way I had little influence over. The referendum result seemed to signify a collective rejection (by the slimmest of majorities) of the principles of collaboration and reciprocity with our closest neighbours and as I processed the news, I questioned whether I still wanted to be associated with our apparently insular, self-regarding nation.
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Since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, peace has been maintained in Northern Ireland. But now, after twenty years of progress, Brexit has got people thinking and talking about the border again. This August I spent two days in Derry watching the Bogside Republican Youth building a bonfire. It was a stark reminder that while the majority of people value peace; there are those who would see a return to conflict.
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In a referendum in 2014, Switzerland voted to introduce immigration quotas by the slimmest of majorities threatening the countries relationship with the EU. After two years of negotiation, in 2016, the Swiss parliament chose to compromise and introduced a series of soft measures in order to maintain trading arrangements. Given the parallels with Brexit, I ask here what we, in the UK, can learn from recent events there.
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The dismal circumstances of asylum seekers and refugees in Greece, is hard to blame on the Greeks. Europe is collectively responsible. If the international community is to address the humanitarian crisis there, as well as in Italy, it must first deal with the imbalance of power between northern and southern Europe.