How can Britain's divisions be healed?

The country is massively divided on Brexit and these divisions are only getting deeper. Here is when Owen Jones, a prominent left-wing Guardian journalist, went to interview people at a rally for Nigel Farage's Brexit Party. He got insulted and shouted at by almost everyone he was filmed interviewing. The main points made by these people were about democracy but ironically almost nobody tried to engage him in rational discourse and one person even said that the Guardian newspaper should be banned:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sltIisHseA]

The mood at the Brexit rally was one of right-wing anti-establishment anger fuelled by tribal bitterness against anything that they disagree with. Obviously, its a rally and it's the hard-core rather than the majority of party support, but they are the hard-core of a party which is polling very well.

The Brexit Party won't win a UK General Election, but they will probably push the Conservative Party into supporting a no-deal Brexit. Boris Johnson, now the clear front-runner to replace May, has already said that Britain must leave the EU by October 'with or without a deal'. There is no deal that could conceivably be negotiated that would appease the majority of Brexit voters.

The anger and sense of betrayal felt by the people at the Brexit rally is only likely to increase. If the unscrupulous and caddish Johnson walks back on his no-deal promise then Farage and our right-wing tabloids will further inflame these tensions. If there is a no-deal Brexit then there will be a huge recession and people will feel betrayed again. This anger could go in different places but some of it will go further down the well of the nationalist right.

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room101 · 51-55, M

I agree with all that you've said. Apart from the implied criticism of Boris Johnson re a "no deal" Brexit.

A "no deal" Brexit is the default position if we don't agree a deal with the EU.

HootyTheNightOwl

@room101 That is slightly different to Boris (or anyone else, for that matter), saying "Right, no deal it is, then". A default no deal can't be pinned down to any one minister.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@HootyTheNightOwl It kinda can. If his strategy is 'my deal or no deal' then that is basically asking to crash out.

room101 · 51-55, M

@HootyTheNightOwl I never said that a default "no deal" can be pinned down to any one minister. It's the default position because:
we had a referendum
we chose to leave the EU
we triggered Article 50 (we had to because the EU would not negotiate with us until we did)

Ergo, if we don't agree a deal with the EU, we leave with "no deal".
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Unless we revoke Article 50!

HootyTheNightOwl

@Burnley123 Wasn't that May's stance from day one??? The only reason we are still debating now is because the backbenchers got in her way...

@room101 In all fairness, another way that May screwed up was by invoking Article 50 way too early in the process (i'm not even going to mention the fact that she forgot about Gibraltar as she did so, either).

We could have saved a lot of this fuss right now if she'd opted to sit down with everyone and find out what they wanted before rushing to trigger Article 50... maybe, just maybe she might have gotten more support for her deal if there was a bit of something in there for everyone.

Looking at the situation that we are in right now, it's impossible to find a way forward unless we revoke, given that the rest of Parliament are going to kick up a stink if the new Prime Minister decides to go with a "no deal" triggered by us as a country - and revoking is going to open up an entirely new can of worms among the public which could see mass protests and possibly rioting once again.

No matter how you look at it, getting out of the country could be the most attractive response right now - at least until the dust settles, given the possibility that this just might go nuclear and blow up in our faces.

room101 · 51-55, M

@HootyTheNightOwl First of all, getting out of the country is not even worth considering as a viable suggestion, let alone an attractive response.

Any leader has to do what they believe to be right. Yes, they have a cabinet and other advisors who are part of the decision making process but, it's their responsibility to make the final decisions. Triggering Article 50 was put to the House of Commons. It was debated and it was unanimously agreed (498 to 114 votes) to allow Theresa May to invoke Article 50.

That was the opportunity for our Parliamentarians to delay and/or to put forward their preferences/ideas/wants etc etc etc. Having passed on that opportunity, Parliament proceeded to fall apart at the seams. And they have done nothing to pull themselves together on what is probably the most important decision that they have had to make in the last 40 years.

I'm no fan of Theresa May, nor the Tories in general, but this wasn't her screw up. The whole debacle is a screw up by Parliament.