The Great Failure

I renewed my passport before it was necessary because I really wanted another red one. I wanted to continue demonstrating my European mindset, if not my membership.

When you renew a passport, there is a period of time when you send your valid passport away and wait for your new one to arrive in the post. As a migrant it gave me pause. I possess no other official document to certify I am a British Citizen. When I took part in my citizenship ceremony I was given a certificate, which looked as if it had been printed on Sutton Council’s one working printer, and a hideous paperweight. Neither would help should Immigration come calling (save perhaps throwing the paperweight at them).

I am lucky enough to be educated, relatively computer savvy and would be able to collect the necessary evidence to prove I am eligible for and received British Citizenship. In a sad indictment, it likely helps that despite my Jamaican birth; I’m light skinned and can, if required, speak with a British accent. But despite that, the public antipathy towards migration that has been whipped up by successive Governments in order to deflect from their own failed domestic policies coupled with the political and procedural failures of the Windrush Scandal left me unsettled.

It’s through this lens I turn to Brexit and the political and procedural failures of the UK Government and Parliament.

I believe that Brexit was triggered for two major reasons – the reduction of migration and a rejection of the European Court of Human Rights. “Take back control of our borders and our laws,” are the only arguments that have remained consistent throughout the process.

It is laughable to believe that we are leaving the EU because of its bureaucracy by undertaking the most bureaucratic exercise in British History.

The argument that the European Commission is undemocratic is worth discussing, but unless the Brexiteer plan is to also get rid of the Civil Service and the House of Lords, we will need to have the same conversation in Britain.

The Leave Campaign kept promising unicorns, but there was never a possibility of restricting movement and retaining the single market and there was always a red flag re the Irish Border.

To say that these impasses have “evolved” is a lie. They were there, right at the start and the British State has been more concerned about political party unity than about coming to a national consensus.

The Prime Minister is governing as though she has an authoritarian mandate from the electorate to chart the only available course for Brexit. She does not. She called an election and lost that mandate when she lost her majority. In fact, the only way she managed to form a Government was to pay a huge sum to the DUP to engage in a confidence and supply arrangement. It is an almost delightful irony that the very party now blocking her deal is the same DUP.

Mrs May told the public on Wednesday 20th March that the problem was not with her, but with MPs. The same electorate that voted for Brexit, voted for those MPs, with the loud message that the Brexit negotiations needed to be a cross-party, national conversation. The PM ignored that and instead, declared her own dismal understanding of the political reality into which this country has been led.

I will spare a moment for the Opposition. Corbyn leaving a cross party negotiation because Chukka Umuna was invited is ridiculous. In politics, honour is predicated on consistency (or at the very least a well-articulated evolution), so to keep harping on about cross party intervention and then abandoning it because you didn’t like one of the attendees is neither honourable nor useful.

The Independent Group should all face by-elections. MPs run on a party manifesto and if a sitting MP has rejected her party’s policy platform, then the electorate should be able to decide which platform they prefer. Those throwing the word “democracy” about should be on board with that.

Brexit has triggered a full-scale failure of the British political system - a failure that has alienated both Leavers and Remainers. While we will undoubtedly continue on marches and walks and sign petitions, it is unlikely that our politicians will provide a solution.

And so I rejoice in my red passport, which arrived, and use it as my one personal and ongoing protest against the failure of the State.