Monstrous, Humiliating, Painful National Crisis

“This is a national crisis. There is an aspect of national humiliation associated with what is going on. The triggering of article 50 was so monstrously premature. We’re sitting on a grenade with the pin pulled out. I don’t see any rainbow at the end of this. The truth is that the EU is a civilising force in international life. Jacques Delors’s great achievement was to make sure that the only kind of Europe was a social Europe. That’s why I’m increasingly clear that the only kind of Brexit is a hard Brexit. What Brexit means is creating divergence from European standards. That process can only be hard, and it will be most painful for many of the people I used to represent….”
David Miliband, The Guardian

John Martin, The Destruction Of Sodom And Gomorrah 1852. Laing Art Gallery.
Image: Wikipedia

The air in my country

“The air in my country is very foul”
Ian McEwan, at a press conference in Barcelona, March, 2017

Pieter Breughel the Elder, The Fall of the Rebel Angels 1562
Oil on oak, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Image: WGA

“Now is not the time to obstruct the will of the people” Theresa May in the House of Commons, 2017.

“Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most urgent needs.” Robespierre, in a speech to the National Convention, 1794.

The embodiment of the people ‘s will, and the exponent of State terrorism: Maximilien Robespierre, smiling his sweet megalomaniac’s smile, before the Revolution.
Maximilien Robespierre, oil on canvas by Pierre-Roch Vigneron, 1786; in the Museum of French History, Palace of Versailles. Image: Britannica.com

We are being bullied into acquiescence with a disastrous rupture with Europe. Our economy and civilization are being degraded, people we love might be torn from us, and we are told to be silent.

Brexit is being imposed upon us in a reign of Terror, in which dissent is suppressed and the rule of law threatened.

“Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil.” Robespierre

“Enemies of the people” Daily Mail denouncing the judges of the High Court who upheld Gina Miller’s case for parliamentary sovereignty.

Our centuries’ old representative parliamentary democracy is broken, smashed under the weight of public opinion polls and political opportunism.

This is not democracy; this is authoritarianism.

If you don’t like Brexit, and you love your country, don’t shut up.  Never stop protesting.

“It is the right of those of us who voted to remain to continue to speak for what we believe is in our country’s best interest and not allow ourselves to be cowed into silence.” Ian McEwan, March, 2017

Detail from The Rape of Europa, bronze by Il Riccio (Andreo Briasco), 1520.
Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest. Image: WGA

DON’T LEAVE, TIFFANY

DOING THE MACARENA TO CATASTROPHE

IF ONLY IT WAS A BAD DREAM

ALFRED’S DOOMS

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