I caught a part of a Radio 4 program on Friday called As Others See Us, by Neil MacGregor OM. A lady Indian academic was talking about the way modern Indians sees us in different ways. Having been part of the British Empire for example, and using English as one of the official languages as well as potential future trade and Brexit of course. You can hear the programme (HERE). It's one of a series.
What struck me is how negatively she viewed Brexit.
She said that a lot of India's problems came from border disputes with their nearest neighbours and she could see the advantages of eliminating borders in the way that the creation of the EU had allowed. She thought such regional arrangements were an unalloyed good. I think most sensible people would have agreed with her. In fact it seemed so wise a thing to say I made a mental note to write a post about it.
Before I could though, I noticed Charles Moore at The Telegraph HERE has devoted his column this Saturday to damning MacGregor with faint praise. His piece is called: Remainers are wrong to think the world hates Britain for seeking independence.
Moore takes him to task for speaking to foreigners who, in his eyes, don't understand Brexit. The programme was one of a series broadcast every day last week speaking to foreign writers, thinkers, politicians, etc, about the way they see modern Britain - prompted by Burns poem about which I posted a few weeks ago (HERE). He says MacGregor "had a struggle to get most of his interviewees to condemn Brexit" which rather confounds the title of his piece and was certainly at odds with the Indian lady I heard although she was graciously polite about it.
I do not get the impression the world 'hates' Britain for seeking 'independence'. I don't think anyone abroad sees Brexit as independence - as if the 'Brussels Empire' as Moore refers to it, is based on the model we gave the world over a couple of centuries, pillaging countries for their wealth to enrich a few nabobs back in England.
No, they are rather puzzled and bewildered that a country like the UK wants to diminish itself and cannot work cooperatively with its close neighbours, preferring instead to shout and argue from a distance. Perhaps it is more understandable to other countries familiar with our mindless football hooligans, traveling thousands of miles to brawl and vomit over foreign fields.
To give you a flavour of his article:
"I single out MacGregor’s programme not because it was ghastly – it wasn’t; it was civilised – but because of its failure of intellectual reach. It appeared in the same week as the vice-chancellors of every single British university announced, preposterously, that a “no-deal” Brexit would set them back by decades".
Our own academics and industialists, unlike Moore, don't understand Brexit according to him. That Brexit might damage academia is 'preposterous'. Moore knows best obviously. And for a final shot:
"At this strange moment in our history, one gets more sense out of the Democratic Unionist Party than our allegedly greatest minds".
When someone thinks the DUP provides more sense that our greatest minds, they really need to seek urgent help. Moore doesn't ask himself if he and his own list of chosen foreigners, the ones whose opinion he quotes in his article, all pro-Brexit of course, really understand it either.
Time will tell but I am confident that the man who told us in January 2017 (HERE) that "Only those who don't want to leave see Brexit as mind blowingly complicated" but was able in July 2018 to warn us (HERE) "Of course the implementation of any decision that changes the life of a nation is fantastically complicated" will sooner or later see the error of his ways and admit that the Brexit he championed is a disaster.
OM by the way, after MacGregor's name, stands for Order of Merit (I had to look it up and I know that you knew what it meant, but I thought I'd save anyone who didn't the bother).
