Love that gravestone, and the gargoyle just over the porch.

Ah, in that case, it could be a race where, on each leg, the contestants were only allowed to use the dress, forms of transport and food available in each preceding century, without knowing the final destination?

I appreciate that these exercises might seem highly frustrating to you. However, thank you very much for doing this.

“He took away your and your children’s and your grandchildren’s freedom of movement.
Now he wants to take away your and your children’s and your grandchildren’s free NHS.”

Just thank them for reading it if you get close to them.

Why opposition to National Populism has failed so far👇

nationstateandpolitics.substack.com/publish/post...

Well, at least the New Statesman recognises that under our current electoral system (FPTP, candidates preselected by unrepresentative parties), our elections are essentially celebrity popularity contests.

There’s something vaguely impressive about a spirited defence of the British habit of separate taps, almost as if it were an analogy for Brexit itself.

I think the way our political systems treat voters is as children. The systems we use for electing representatives demand minimal engagement and therefore lead to superficial policies and political instability. I don’t blame the voters but the systems within which they are asked to operate.

Certainly the prejudices lie nascent, ready to be exploited but the buckets into which people are invited to pour their grievances are made by politicians and the press, e.g. see how anti-immigrant fear correlates with press coverage in the UK rather than actual numbers of migrants.

People often have a dismissive attitude towards things of which they are entirely ignorant.

Yes. The EU was always an anonymous scapegoat. We don’t have grown-up politics in this country. Just people playing with identity and fear and prejudice in order to gain power and status and, often, money. That appears to be what the media landscape and the voting system promote.

I think it might go deeper and have something to do with our media and its unwillingness and hence inability to understand and therefore explain the EU. There’s also stuff about identity going on.

Imagine what it’s like to have felt that impatience as a constant noise, like grief, for lost rights and freedoms and easy connections stripped from you and your family and thrown away ever since 2016. But maybe that was at least part of the real intention.

Indeed. This was explained to my class by our lecturer in law school in 1992 (though the phrase is often used as a shorthand for law derived from the EU). How the EU worked or what it was has never been well understood in the UK, by its politicians, its media or, therefore, its citizens.

Well, that was a waste of money because Nigel Farage did it for free, didn’t he?….Didn’t he?…?

“So [Reform Party interviewee], at the same time as Nathan Gill was being paid by Russia to make certain statements in the European Parliament, Nigel Farage was making very similar statements. What was going on there?”

And for anyone who’s interested, here’s my take in 12 pages on how our current electoral system is shit and another 12 pages on a utopian alternative of electing people we might actually trust to make decisions on our behalf: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/edvlv...

He always has been. That our media has been incapable of holding him to account for it is a stain on them.