Brexit will conclude the betrayal of Britain’s Working
Class and the corruption of the post-war promise of equality.
I once heard a young journalist talking about the Iraq war after its nominal conclusion but before the financial
collapse of 2008. He declared, even back then, people were – in his view –
bored of talking about it. I’d argue
that we are still very much in the thick of the consequences of that illegal
invasion so that comment seems even odder to me now than it did then.
To put this in context – I believe that Brexit – for
those of us who don’t put political economic and social phenomena in neat boxes
with a public interest sell-by date – has its roots way back before the turn of
this century – and before the gutter press seriously got their teeth into
anti-EU rhetoric – straight bananas and all that crap.
The betrayal of the peace dividend, the trashing of the welfare
state, insane foreign policies and a stranglehold gained by the sly, stealthy and wealthy, is actually what led to Brexit. Bizarrely, many
voters were easily diverted to an incongruous and catastrophic conclusion by
the very people and the very class that betrayed them.
Here I offer up four videos I made for this blog, three short talking heads – two comedy and one not - and one monologue. In this first extract from my recent show Just Words (a rather ropey recording – sorry) I start with the world I was born into in the 1960s and the beliefs people then had, that slowly emerging opportunities for equality would grow not diminish...
BREXIT: 1 - The Con - a slice from my show
*
When the world around us starts to feel scary, the
con artists have an easier job and they love to offer rose-tinted spectacles.
BREXIT: 2 Rose tinted twaddle - comedy poem
*
As the world was destabilised by the illegal
invasion of Iraq, mass migration and economic corruption and with inequality
growing exponentially especially in the UK and the US, terrorism (like much of
everything else) went global. Predictably, people began to fear the mass migration set in
motion by that destabilisation.
BREXIT:3 Reckless destabilisation - performance poem
*
And with global credibility so important to all
political, social and economic aspects of national life – the empire / colonial
fantasists forgot that the world is watching.
BREXIT:4 Collapse of credibility - performance poem
***
I'll be back
blogging in January.
remember to check out my books