Bewildering

On Sunday I will be 60 and I’m feeling a sense of bewilderment around that. It’s a strange time. I’m full of anxiety, fear, immobility, paralysis: about my life, about our political and existential crises, about the survival of our planet. And at the same time I’m wondering about this ‘bewilderment’, what it might mean to ‘be wildered’.

On the beach today I found a stranded guillemot and was advised by the RSPB to help it back into the sea. As I held its beating body in my hands I felt its mysterious aliveness, felt again my yearning to know and to be known to ‘the wild’.

I wanted to know what was right, what was needed. I wanted to know the unknowable. I don’t know if I did the right thing, I don’t know how injured the guillemot was, whether it will survive. I have to accept this not knowing, to become able to bear it. I have to learn how to live in this painful place of knowing so much and at the same time knowing nothing. 

Let's Revoke and Rethink

This week we have a breathing space and a unique opportunity to rethink the future of our country. Thanks to the Wightman case, the UK can unilaterally Revoke Article 50. This option is now rapidly gaining ground. It was mentioned as the preferred option of many who attended Saturday's historic march of over a million people to Parliament. An online Petition calling for revocation has now reached over 5.4 million signatures. Last week it was only 28,000. Please sign the petition- and tell your friends. colleagues, family, neighbours, shopkeepers, fellow commuters, everyone you know to do the same. Let Parliament know the strength of our commitment to safeguarding our rights, freedoms, security and economy.

Whatever you may have heard, the high number of petition signatures is not a fake. You cannot sign multiple times and there is a verification process to ensure only those entitled to sign are doing so. The Petitions Committee is working hard to ensure they can cope with the high volume of traffic on the site. You may have to wait for a while to receive the verification email: until you have verified you have not signed - check your spam filter, be patient, and make sure you have genuinely signed. 

When you have signed, write to your MP and tell them. There are breakdowns of signature by constituency so this is a powerful message to our representatives. 

It is not undemocratic or seeking to overturn the will of the people to ask for revocation and a rethink. In June 2016, 37% of the electorate thought that they wanted to leave the European Union. We can speculate about the many reasons for that vote. But the options now have changed. We have Theresa May's deal that no-one wants and has been rejected by Parliament twice. We have the very real threat of No Deal, which some MPs are disgracefully promoting despite the government’s own assessments of the harm this would do to our country. In three years we’ve gone from a fake promise of sunlit uplands to preparation for food and medicine ‘serous shortage protocols’. Business is already suffering, threatening our jobs and prosperity.

Since June 2016, we have also seen the election of Donald Trump, the rapid rise of far right populism here and abroad, the suggestion of improper influence in the referendum campaign and the Electoral Commission's confirmation that there was overspending by Vote Leave. We have seen death threats to anyone wanting to question our direction of travel. Remain voters have been called citizens of nowhere. Our judges have been called enemies of the people. In June 2017, we had a General Election when the Prime Minister lost her majority - a clear rejection of her 'red lines' for a Hard Brexit. She now relies on the unrepresentative DUP to decide not only the future of Northern Ireland, that voted to stay, but of the whole UK. The wishes of Scotland and the views of all those who voted Remain have been sidelined. There's a real threat to the Good Friday agreement and our fellow EU27 citizens and Britons living in the EU27 have been left in limbo for over 1000 days. The government has been held in contempt of Parliament. Until late last week we didn't know whether we were going to crash out of the EU this Friday!

Still Theresa May will not compromise. This situation is not due to intransigence by the other EU countries but of  the Prime Minister's own red lines. With her signature lack of consultation, she has designated herself as the only arbiter of what Leave voters wanted.  What an unbelievable state of affairs: a British Prime Minister who finds Parliament 'indulgent' and who is taking away her own citizens’ freedom of movement.  But her deal is not wanted by either ‘side’ - it can only pass now if strong-arm party tactics prevail over MPs voting in the national interest. We must demand now, this week, that they put a stop to this and vote to Revoke Article 50 while we decide where to go next. 

Please sign the petition today, tell your MP, and ask everyone you know, however they voted, to do the same.  Please share this as widely as you can. Let's Revoke, Rethink, and rebuild our country.