The Brexit Soap Opera: The origins

Britain’s geography, history and monolingualism

Britain’s geography and history are the two main reasons for Brexit, the desire of Britain to extricate itself from a 45-year old marriage to the European Union.

Great Britain, not to be confused with the UK, is an island, Europe’s biggest. (United Kingdom= Great Britain+ Northern Ireland). Two thousand years ago, it was termed ‘great’ simply to mean bigger than the ‘little Britain’ (either the Irish island or Brittany). Great refers to its relative size, not to anything else. As a result of living on an island, the English people developed an islandic mentality. They think they are intrinsically different than those on the European continent. They drive on the other side of the road, their signs show miles because Europe uses kilometers. They refuse to join Europe’s common currency. The Brits preserve a nonagenarian monarch, and pretend to seek her consent for every major political action. Though it takes only two hours to travel from Brussels to London by Eurostar, Brussels is overseas, because it is overseas. The sea separating Great Britain from Europe is the psychological factor behind Britain thinking of Europe as a different continent, Europeans as foreigners. The islandic mentality nurtured for sufficiently long time in sufficiently large numbers made Britain’s marriage with Europe an uneasy one.

Britain’s imperial history is the second reason. The British Empire was the largest empire in human history occupying more than quarter of the earth. That past has cultivated a sense of superiority and entitlement. English people as a rule know only English; they expect everyone else to speak in English. In my experience- I worked in a British multinational for a decade- British expats rarely attempted to learn the local language. My British colleagues would discuss cricket in groups that included French, Germans or Italians. It was not deliberate, I don’t think. They simply assumed that since Cricket was a game invented in England, everyone in the world must understand it.

Monolingualism inevitably produces nationalism. When an Englishman walking on Oxford Street hears the cacophony of foreign sounds, none of them intelligible to him; when a Polish waitress talks to him in a strange accent; when Romanian barbers chatter in Romanian while cutting the Englishman’s hair; he becomes truly nervous. His island has been invaded by aliens. Languagism and accentism are often underestimated as compared to racism and genderism. They can be more toxic. For foreigners to reach top offices in Britain, they need to speak like Brits. The UK government may allow ministers belonging to other races (e.g. Priti Patel or Sajid Javid) as long as they have the right British accent. If Poles or Romanians could speak English with the BBC accent, they would become more tolerable, too. But thanks to the EU, they enter the UK at whim with their foreign accents and deficient language skills.  

The funny thing is that the British accent itself changes every couple of miles. When I lived in Derby, I was shocked to hear ‘b-oo-s’ (bus), f-oo-n  and d-oo-st. It took me a few weeks to understand the British midlanders. (No subtitles when you speak with someone on the street). Derby accent, though, is an accepted British accent, however deviant. Cockney, Yorkshire, Essex are all different accents. Even Scottish and Irish can be endured, because they are formally recognized as British. But Hungarian and French accents definitely belong to aliens.

 The monolingual islanders with an inherent feeling of superiority and entitlement had to drive the aliens with strange accents out of their land. Observers say Cameroon’s announcing the referendum was wrong. It was simply a trigger. The UK-EU marriage has always been an awkward one. Way back in 1975, the Labour party had voted for Britain to leave the European Communities. Over the next decade that party remained Eurosceptic. Its current leader, Jeremy Corbyn, depending on the day of the week, either supports Brexit or is not opposed to it. UKIP (UK Independence party) was formed in 1993. Its successor, the Brexit party, has gradually increased its vote share to make it a leading party in the 2019 European elections in the UK.  

The other island

The Great Britain Island can easily exit from the European Union. But there is a problem. Look at the map. Part of the other island lying to the west of Great Britain belongs to the UK. This island was partitioned by the British Empire in 1921. The southern Ireland was predominantly Catholic; the Northern Ireland had a large percentage of Protestants. If the two parts had remained in the UK, Brexit was easy. If both parts were out of the UK, Brexit would have happened by now. But the southern part freed itself from the British Empire, and is now the Republic of Ireland. The Northern Ireland, on the other hand, decided to be part of the UK.

This was another uneasy arrangement. Because Northern Ireland has two types of Irish people. Irish nationalists who dream of a United Ireland and Unionists, loyal to the UK. The ambitions of the Irish nationalists (remember IRA (Irish Republican Army) or Sinn Fein?) provoked violence, bomb blasts and police brutality. “The Troubles” continued from the late 1960s to 1998. Finally, with the signing of the Good Friday agreement, peace was established. The agreement recognized Northern Ireland was part of the UK, but with close links to Ireland. Every Northern Ireland resident was given a right to become the citizen of the Republic of Ireland. In future, if majority so wishes, Northern Ireland is free to leave the UK and join the Irish Republic. A Common Travel Area (CTA) allows free movement of people between and within the two islands.

This international treaty is a role model for creating peace. It successfully stopped violence for twenty years. And then the Brexit referendum happened.

The curious division

The border between the two Irelands is not natural but man-made. One hundred years ago, it happened fairly arbitrarily. It is 500 km long, with over 200 crossing points. The road N54/A3 crosses the border four times within 10 km. The drivers don’t notice changing countries because the border is currently open. When the border was closed, one railway line between Clones, Monaghan and Cavan crossed the border six times in eight miles, with custom checks at each crossing.

The border also goes through some houses, libraries, farms. Imagine a house whose residents live and eat in Ireland but sleep in the UK. This is not a fiction, but reality.

The two Irelands are so closely linked that 30,000 people cross the border daily for work on the other side. Every month 177000 Lorries, 208000 vans and 1.85 million cars cross the border. How efficiently can these people and vehicles move once a new border comes up? And how do you erect an international border inside a house or a library?

The British Empire effected three partitions based on religions. Ireland (Catholic-protestant), Israel (Arabs-Jew), India-Pakistan (Hindu-Muslim). The Irish partition in 1921 was the oldest. It has now come to bite the UK. What goes around comes around.  

If the Irish border were to remain open, Northern Ireland will become a giant zone for smuggling. It will cause the collapse of the single market. EU can’t allow that. (For fifty years, contraceptives have been smuggled from Northern Ireland to the Catholic Irish Republic).

Following the referendum in 2016, Theresa May called for a new general election. She lost more seats and needed an alliance with a small party called DUP. DUP is the Unionist party of Northern Ireland. God is a great storyteller. Cosmic irony is the device used in the Brexit story. The Unionist party with its ten members refused to be treated differently.

Islandic mentality, superiority complex and monolingualism inevitably triggered Brexit. The Irish issue created a roadblock.

Thus began the Brexit soap opera, with no end in sight.

Ravi