1966_and_all_that
Well-known member
In today's Guardian the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a very telling comment about Boris Johnson and the potential break-up of the Union.
He wrote: "The problem for Boris Johnson is, I think he had one sentence in his speech yesterday in the Queen’s Speech, about the union itself. I don’t think he’s thought about it, I don’t think he understands it, I think he’s got to start beginning to understand it. He’s a historian, he must remember that Lord North was the prime minister who lost America and that’s all he’s remembered for, if Boris Johnson becomes the prime minister who loses Scotland and sees the end of the United Kingdom, that’s all he will be remembered for. We need to give some attention to this issue, and we need to do it pretty urgently."
I would go beyond that comment and say that I don't believe Johnson is interested in the Union. I think he's an English nationalist with a particularly myopic idea of what that means. For us as a nation to continue this small-minded retreat into some sort of parochial nimbyism would be harmful in the extreme: harmful to our standing in the world and the perception of tolerance that we have become known for over the past 150 years , harmful to our psyche, our values and morality and harmful to our standard of living. The modern world needs to be about community, not pulling up drawbridges. Are we to become like the island of Ireland, bickering and backstabbing each other over nationalism versus unionism? Are we to become like the Israelis and the Palestinians, wracked by apartheid and racial & religious intolerance?
We need a leadership in this nation that believes in the Union and sees only one nation of citizens - where the values of a Londoner, an Aberdonian, a Welsh and Northern Irish person carry the same weight and where these people can all believe that they have a stake in this United Kingdom. At present the Conservative and Unionist Party under Johnson reads like a contradiction in terms, whilst the other mainstream parties do little to pronounce the importance of the Union to their policies and principals.
He wrote: "The problem for Boris Johnson is, I think he had one sentence in his speech yesterday in the Queen’s Speech, about the union itself. I don’t think he’s thought about it, I don’t think he understands it, I think he’s got to start beginning to understand it. He’s a historian, he must remember that Lord North was the prime minister who lost America and that’s all he’s remembered for, if Boris Johnson becomes the prime minister who loses Scotland and sees the end of the United Kingdom, that’s all he will be remembered for. We need to give some attention to this issue, and we need to do it pretty urgently."
I would go beyond that comment and say that I don't believe Johnson is interested in the Union. I think he's an English nationalist with a particularly myopic idea of what that means. For us as a nation to continue this small-minded retreat into some sort of parochial nimbyism would be harmful in the extreme: harmful to our standing in the world and the perception of tolerance that we have become known for over the past 150 years , harmful to our psyche, our values and morality and harmful to our standard of living. The modern world needs to be about community, not pulling up drawbridges. Are we to become like the island of Ireland, bickering and backstabbing each other over nationalism versus unionism? Are we to become like the Israelis and the Palestinians, wracked by apartheid and racial & religious intolerance?
We need a leadership in this nation that believes in the Union and sees only one nation of citizens - where the values of a Londoner, an Aberdonian, a Welsh and Northern Irish person carry the same weight and where these people can all believe that they have a stake in this United Kingdom. At present the Conservative and Unionist Party under Johnson reads like a contradiction in terms, whilst the other mainstream parties do little to pronounce the importance of the Union to their policies and principals.