It is only fitting that in discussing a TV film that is essentially a biographical drama about Dominic Cummings, I should emulate the man in his penchant for entertainingly interminable blog posts. So before discussing the film, I will make a long disclaimer as to my views regarding Brexit, then wend my way slowly towards the topic of the film, only to digress on to another topic entirely.
When I watch and read those who most vocally support Leave, I am struck by how much I dislike them. They are either rabid liberals, dreaming of some free market utopia where Britain beats out all the international competition, or vulgar populists (who are nevertheless doing the work of the rabid liberals). This is of course a generality and there are indeed many I like, but the Fields and Scrutons and Frasers of this world are unfortunately rare.
The pro-EU side (to be distinguished from Remain more broadly, just as Leave is not synonymous with being anti-EU) is no better. Such disdain they have for the natural healthy sentiments of nation, home, tradition. And I find their insistence on a second referendum to be one of the most astonishingly unaware and reckless campaigns in British history. Anyone who recognises the injury the first referendum caused cannot honestly, unless afflicted by a most remarkable stupidity, argue for another one.
Unfortunately, there appears to be no decent way out of this situation. Referenda do not have constitutional legitimacy, but the government and opposition party having promised to carry out the result, be it leave or remain, gave the referendum complete legitimacy. To seek to reverse it by any means would deepen the constitutional crisis; yet to carry it out without a deal, which seems to be the direction we are heading in, would likely mean an intolerable economic burden in the short term. Sadly, I think 'project fear' may be right, and Britain's shallow economy probably cannot weather what would be in store for us.
The best solution I know of is that we should stay in the single market, but not the customs union (why did the government rule this out?). And we would do well to extract ourselves from the political institutions and from the ECJ and ECHR (yes, I know the latter is separate from the EU, but in the minds of many voters it is rightly associated with the broader European project). Add to that the European Arrest Warrant and I would be jubilant. This is basically the Booker-Hitchens option. It would reduce the power the EU had over us considerably, lessen the amount of money we would have to pay them, and keep us insulated from the shock of a 'no deal' Brexit while giving enough to satisfy those like myself who wish to leave the EU.
But even if all this isn't achievable, I think many Leave voters would be content to stay in the EU if something was done to significantly limit immigration and to protect UK jobs, reinvigorate increasingly dilapidated local communities and local economics (which does not mean ugly high density housing and more warehouses and chain shops), and thus give up on this sham low-wage economy we are building. We can do all these as a member of the EU, and I think they are the main reasons why people voted to leave.
And yes, we can reduce immigration drastically while remaining a member of the EU. People indeed object to EU immigration, but concerns are possibly more directed towards immigration from outside the EU -- that's 326,000 per year (or 248,000 net) which we could reduce -- considerably higher than EU immigration to Britain. And besides, I suspect we could reduce EU immigration even from within the EU. Other countries seem to have managed it.
Of course, this sort of compromise will never happen as the Remain side is so immoderately pro-EU and anti-conservative. And so we are doomed to endless battles, as this is a political war in which no side is willing to yield.
But technically Leave has already won, and so any concessions made should be firstly made in their favour.
Yet therein lies another enormous problem: the people who fought the war (i.e. Leave voters) do not believe the same things as those who won it. And so they face rampant economic liberalism, including continued mass immigration, and absolutely no concession to either the social conservatism or economic leftism that influenced the vote.
Yet therein lies another enormous problem: the people who fought the war (i.e. Leave voters) do not believe the same things as those who won it. And so they face rampant economic liberalism, including continued mass immigration, and absolutely no concession to either the social conservatism or economic leftism that influenced the vote.
This all brings us to Brexit: The Uncivil War, Channel 4's drama reenacting the whole horrible affair. Except it's not really about Brexit, but rather one man, Dominic Cummings, who is portrayed as the mastermind of the Leave vote. His character is rather like Sherlock Holmes in fact (though I never watched the TV shows in which Cummings starred), or perhaps that other Holmes-inspired television creation, Gregory House. Outrageous, self-absorbed, detached, unloved yet admired, ingenious, miserable. I don't have much of an opinion about the real Cummings -- he seems to be the sort of progressive modern conservative I don't much agree with, though what I've read of his I found thoughtful -- but I did not like his character in the film. And I have no kind feelings for any man who is eager to manipulate this wretched world of virtual politics -- social media campaigning and the like.
I do not think Cummings was the reason, or even a main reason, why Leave won the vote, as the film seemed to imply. Looking back on historic events, people always think they were all but inevitable, and so we go searching for the causes and triggers. But the reality was that it was extremely close, and that it could have easily gone the other way. Leave seemed to win in spite of the campaign, as far as I'm concerned. I do not remember the campaign going well for Leave -- or Remain for that matter: on one side, think Obama's 'back of the queue' comment and Bob Geldof on the Thames; and on the other side recall that stupid bus (Cummings' ingenious idea), and then most saddening of all, the murder of Jo Cox (which was days before the vote). I think most people ignored it all and went with a gut feeling, a prejudice even (in the good Burkean sense of 'pre-judgement'). The film is nearly all about high politics, as if these unattractive and silly politicians were what convinced the country to vote to leave the EU. But the hostility to the EU had been there for a long time and was deeply embedded. It really was a democratic event; and like nearly all truly democratic events, it was unwieldy, uncontrolled, and almost destined to fail.
The film also has a bias, I'm afraid, though it's much fainter than I expected. The remain side is depicted as somehow more noble and kind. This viewpoint baffles me. The problem with pro-EU Remainers (not merely in the campaign but for decades before) is that they have a lack of observable empathy with those who voted Leave and little attachment to those noble things like nation, history, tradition, place. To be fair, though, the film covers some of this.
The film also really went after various politicians, nearly always Tories (or UKIP), depicting in them in the worst possible lights. Actually, I didn't mind this at all. Arron Banks is a boor. Daniel Hannan is pomposity incarnate. Many of those Eurosceptic Tories really are insufferable. Though the same could be said for an equal number in the rest of the Conservative Party, and indeed on the other side of the aisle, but I doubt Channel 4 are about to create a drama depicting the shady, slimy, unlikeable characters in the Labour Party.
There is a great emphasis in the film on the slogan 'Take Back Control'. And perhaps rightly so, as it is the slogan everyone remembers. But the slogan, now that I reflect upon it, rather depresses me. The most frightening thing about Brexit is that, if we do 'get our country back', there might not be much we can reclaim. We are a small, relatively unimportant nation. All we have is our history. Our constitution has been eroded, immigration is transforming us, we have lost a sense of continuity with our past, often outright rejecting it. All those things I love, which make me glad I belong to this tribe, to this island -- its literature, its music, its traditions, its institutions, its liberties, its ethics, its way of life, its personality, its Christianity -- all these things are fading, to be replaced with the happy ignorance of literature, a country where the most vulgar pop music reigns supreme, and which we all are expected to condescend to, where traditions are viewed as irrelevant or even pernicious anachronisms, where institutions must be rebuilt and 'updated for our times', where we must all subscribe to an ethic devoid of meaning and purpose, kept alive by rampant consumerism, while we endure the loss of patriotism, a way of life that is no longer recognisably English.
I do not think Cummings was the reason, or even a main reason, why Leave won the vote, as the film seemed to imply. Looking back on historic events, people always think they were all but inevitable, and so we go searching for the causes and triggers. But the reality was that it was extremely close, and that it could have easily gone the other way. Leave seemed to win in spite of the campaign, as far as I'm concerned. I do not remember the campaign going well for Leave -- or Remain for that matter: on one side, think Obama's 'back of the queue' comment and Bob Geldof on the Thames; and on the other side recall that stupid bus (Cummings' ingenious idea), and then most saddening of all, the murder of Jo Cox (which was days before the vote). I think most people ignored it all and went with a gut feeling, a prejudice even (in the good Burkean sense of 'pre-judgement'). The film is nearly all about high politics, as if these unattractive and silly politicians were what convinced the country to vote to leave the EU. But the hostility to the EU had been there for a long time and was deeply embedded. It really was a democratic event; and like nearly all truly democratic events, it was unwieldy, uncontrolled, and almost destined to fail.
The film also has a bias, I'm afraid, though it's much fainter than I expected. The remain side is depicted as somehow more noble and kind. This viewpoint baffles me. The problem with pro-EU Remainers (not merely in the campaign but for decades before) is that they have a lack of observable empathy with those who voted Leave and little attachment to those noble things like nation, history, tradition, place. To be fair, though, the film covers some of this.
The film also really went after various politicians, nearly always Tories (or UKIP), depicting in them in the worst possible lights. Actually, I didn't mind this at all. Arron Banks is a boor. Daniel Hannan is pomposity incarnate. Many of those Eurosceptic Tories really are insufferable. Though the same could be said for an equal number in the rest of the Conservative Party, and indeed on the other side of the aisle, but I doubt Channel 4 are about to create a drama depicting the shady, slimy, unlikeable characters in the Labour Party.
There is a great emphasis in the film on the slogan 'Take Back Control'. And perhaps rightly so, as it is the slogan everyone remembers. But the slogan, now that I reflect upon it, rather depresses me. The most frightening thing about Brexit is that, if we do 'get our country back', there might not be much we can reclaim. We are a small, relatively unimportant nation. All we have is our history. Our constitution has been eroded, immigration is transforming us, we have lost a sense of continuity with our past, often outright rejecting it. All those things I love, which make me glad I belong to this tribe, to this island -- its literature, its music, its traditions, its institutions, its liberties, its ethics, its way of life, its personality, its Christianity -- all these things are fading, to be replaced with the happy ignorance of literature, a country where the most vulgar pop music reigns supreme, and which we all are expected to condescend to, where traditions are viewed as irrelevant or even pernicious anachronisms, where institutions must be rebuilt and 'updated for our times', where we must all subscribe to an ethic devoid of meaning and purpose, kept alive by rampant consumerism, while we endure the loss of patriotism, a way of life that is no longer recognisably English.
Take back control is a meaningless statement unless you ask the necessary follow up -- take back control of what?
Just as an addendum to this post, the music in the film was pretty good. I recall there being lots of Beethoven -- which is wonderful. I am terribly sensitive to music in television. The ubiquity of the sleek, colourless, flavourless, odourless, half-synthesised soundtracks is thoroughly disheartening. We were, however, subject to a soul-destroying synthesised version of Rule Brittania towards the end. It is a metaphor for how I feel about the referendum generally: it is the right tune, a great patriotic tune, but mangled and contorted and rendered pathetic.
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