Regular readers of this irregular blog will realise that I am rarely overtly political in what I write. I am certainly not party-political, preferring to keep my allegiance to myself, however much of what I write will have political overtones and undertones. You can’t write about poverty without being political. You can’t write about truth without it being a political comment. And, I dare to believe, you can’t write about faith without being political because faith is not lived out in a vaccuum, but is all about matters of life and death, right and wrong, hope and expectation and these are all political issues.

On the whole I have kept quiet about the defining political debate of this generation – Brexit. But the recent parliamentary debates on this have left such an unpleasant taste in my mouth that I feel I need to put fingers to keyboard and commit some more words to the millions that have been written about this so far. So if you don’t want to read a rant, look elsewhere, because this is most definitely one of those!

This whole brexit debacle has revealed the deep flaws within our political system in the UK, and in particular that party-politics has put our country in deep peril. We were led into a referendum on this subject by a Prime Minister whose party was threatening to fracture on this fault line (and who has been notably absent since his resignation when his ‘remain’ campaign lost). He gambled that he would win the referendum and therefore keep both his party together but lost and his party is even more divided than before.

The Prime Minister who replaced him has always been struggling with the establishing some sort of coherent policy in spite of the divisions within her party (and perhaps even within herself as she had voted ‘remain’ but is now resolutely determined to lead the country out of the EU). How many ministers have resigned during her leadership? This was most notable after the disastrous Chequers cabinet meeting in which she declared that she had established unity about the way ahead and within a matter of a day or so several significant members of her cabinet had resigned and declared the plan ‘unworkable’! These politicians have put self-interest before the interests of the country.

There was the ridiculous 5 day debate in Parliament before Christmas when Parliamentary time was dedicated to the question of whether to support the Prime Minister’s deal that she had negotiated with the EU and when it became clear that because of the divisions in her own party and the lack of support within Parliament for her deal the PM suspended the debate without a vote. When it was repeated in early 2019, with no substantive amendments to the deal being debated the PM suffered a humiliating defeat.

And most recently Parliament has debated a number of amendments and voted for one that says that we must renegotiate the deal when the EU has said that there will be no renegotiation on the issues that have proved so contentious. In the midst of the discussions and debate party-politics and personal ideologies seems to have taken priority over the needs of the country.

It’s as if we are on the Titanic steaming fast towards the Iceberg and have voted that the Iceberg needs to change direction!

And, in case you accuse me of solely anti-government bias, I do not think that the Leader of the Opposition has done much to help in this time of national crisis either. Instead of holding the government to account he seems to have resigned himself to a quiet acquiescence that we are going to collide with the iceberg and hope that in the ensuing wreckage there will be an opportunity for him to launch a lifeboat that makes him PM instead.

The country needs to change course drastically!

There have been so many false promises that it is impossible to list them all, but each time they are broken the public trust in politicians is eroded just a bit more. Politicians have made outrageous claims about what will happen in the future when they know that they have no way of backing them up with facts or proof. Fantastical conjecture has been cynically peddled as certain reality (‘£350million for the NHS’ on the side of a bus, by way of example). And some newspapers have been guilty of perpetuating and propagating these lies in the guise of facts in order to further the thinly-veiled political aims of their owners who hide in the background in their wealth-protected bunkers. Others have even protected themselves by investing their wealth overseas, and some in EU countries!!!

You might be able to discern how upset I am about all of this. I did vote ‘remain’ and still believe that leaving the EU is a massive mistake. I fervently believe that what is euphemistically called a ‘no deal brexit’, ‘hard brexit’ or even a ‘clean brexit’ would be catastrophic for the UK, and in particular for those who are most vulnerable in our society. To me it is a devastating indictment of many of those whose voices are loudest about how we should leave the EU that they are among the wealthiest in our country and least likely to be adversely affected by the economic tsunami that I believe is threatening on the horizon.

I am praying hard that somehow in the midst of the parliamentary chaos voices of reason and truth will be heard and listened to. I have written to my MP (who I have seen on TV pronouncing how ‘brexit means brexit’ and how we should leave with no deal, so I don’t expect him to listen to me). I hope and pray that somehow, when peering over the edge into the abyss of brexit, enough politicians will find the courage to set aside party allegiance, to ignore the whips and vote in a way that puts the interests of the poorest in our country first. Trust and truth are not the only victims of this.

Whether or not you agree with my analysis or political standpoint, I hope that you will at least be praying.

Be blessed, be a blessing