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

So what do you think of the EU election results?

SW-User

@room101 just shows the same approx 50 50 split between leave and remain. Difficult to interpret. Arguably definitely pro remain parties (lib dem, Green, snp, change UK) took higher percentage than brexit + ukip. Brexit are largest because there is a consolidated vote which the remain parties haven't had.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@room101 A disaster for main parties. The public will not accept a compromise position and its now no deal vrs remain.

I've been arguing on my local Labour left Facebook page that labour has no choice but to have a second ref position.

I did a long post on it before the results came in and I haven't changed my mind.

MartinII · 70-79, M

@SW-User But the very large Brexit Party vote demonstrates the depth of feeling among leavers. I was surprised they got so many more votes than the Libdems.

MartinII · 70-79, M

@Burnley123 I think the public would accept almost any deal Parliament voted for, albeit with varying degrees of reluctance. And it seems to me that, purely from an electoral point of view, the right thing for Labour to do is to acquiesce in a deal as quickly as possible, so that they can start attacking a discredited Conservative Party on their preferred ground.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@MartinII I dunno. For all everyone slags off parliament, it's pretty reflective of where the public is at. We are massively divided.

SW-User

@MartinII @Burnley123 problem is labour have now insisted on a soft brexit ie in customs union etc, hard line tories won't accept the ni backstop (though how you honour the good Friday agreement out of a single market is beyond me) dup hold too much power and will continue to say no to anything that splits off ni (again someone with greater knowledge can explain to me how to resolve the Irish border conundrum)....

Then remember this is only the withdrawal agreement we have to renegotiate this and so so much more before end of the EU budget cycle. So we're back here in just over a year's time.

Whilst I'm a firm remainer the only option is a no deal. That way we're no longer tied and can start to negotiate final settlement. I estimate at least 5 years to do a good job and there is the economic issue. How long will businesses wait? Shareholders aren't going to stomach 5 years of wto tariffs hurting exports so BMW etc will in that time have to plan if not start production migration back into EU territory. That's my feeling anyway business doesn't run on sentiment it runs on what investors want ie return on investment normally short term ie 1 to 5 years.

room101 · 51-55, M

@Burnley123 Parliament is indeed a reflection of where we are at as a people. Which is as it should be. After all, we vote for MP's who represent our values and ideas.

I expected the Tories to do badly, mainly because of the demonisation of Theresa May's withdrawal agreement. Which is something that nobody has been able to pragmatically and objectively explain to me. I still don't see what's so bad about it.

I didn't expect Labour to do so badly, mainly because of the loyalty that Corbyn seems to have among his followers. I think that it's now clear that that loyalty is purely confined to his hard core base and that his ideas and policies are not at all reflective of the average Labour voter.

Which leads me on to a point that Ann Widdecombe made when she was being interviewed by the BBC after winning the South West seat. She said that both the Lib Dems and the Greens are established political parties who have supporters on many issues other than Brexit. Conversely, the Brexit Party has one issue and one issue alone ie to leave the EU. Without a deal. This leads me to conclude what I've feared all along. If we were to have a second referendum, the vote to leave would be much higher than it was in 2016.

SW-User

@room101 I think if we have another referendum likelihood is actually the result would be similar to the original.
Ms Widdecombe is correct to a point. I agree people voting green and lib Dems have other reasons to vote for them.
The deal is actually OK I think. The real sticking issue I can see is that currently there is no argument about our sovereignty ie parliament does something that is it eg we can decide to leave the EU or revoke article 50 without recourse to the EU. But the backstop does reduce that in that we cannot withdraw legally without EU agreement. Which is a conundrum in that so many in the leave side argued this was about sovereignty and we appear (if only temporarily) be worse off. If that bending of the truth hasn't been going on maybe we'd have agreed it back in December.
Also it's a shame no one thought hard enough about the Belfast agreement before we got here.

room101 · 51-55, M

@SW-User No one thought hard enough about anything to do with the EU before we got here 😉

The NI backstop is a major sticking point, I agree. However, as with everything else in the withdrawal agreement, we would have had two years to find a solution. Of course that would require our politicians to take their heads out of their rear ends and to actually serve the country as a whole.

I think that, back in March, Theresa May was absolutely right when she told the House of Commons:

“The outcome of a long extension would be endless hours and days of this House carrying on contemplating its navel on Europe.”

That's what they've been doing for almost three years. They've been looking for problems instead of solutions. And they've been looking for problems primarily in order to hold on to their seats or to extend their own power base.

If a given political party puts together a manifesto which contains some contentious issues, what do they do? They go out and campaign and try to explain to the electorate why those contentious issues are important and why they should be supported. In my view, very few of the current crop of MP's have actually done that.