The EU is the carrier of my identity now, and I will fight anyone who wants to take that away from me

Yesterday evening, as I settled down to watch TV (yes, it's a Saturday night, but I don't need thrills right now), I was lucky enough to behold that glorious end to the summer season of classical music on the BBC that we all know as the Proms. 

The Last Night of the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall has a splendidly rousing finale which encompasses all that is good about being British: the spectators are not expected to be quiet, in fact they bring tooters and crackers with them; the lead violinist in the orchestra is, at times, allowed to go off-key during solos; the conductor gives a speech where he/she mercilessly mocks the audience; there are crowds gathered in four other concert locations in the UK which are also incorporated into the event, and everyone waves a flag.

It is the most patriotic outpouring of emotion you will ever see. It is like a cross between the Vienna New Year concert and a Six Nations Rugby match where everyone in the crowd is on the same side. The songs are fervently steeped in British history and culture and anyone who claims to be British should know the words to them: Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, known as Land of Hope and Glory; Hubert Parry's Jerusalem; Fantasia on British Sea Songs arranged by Sir Henry Wood (during which it is a custom for the audience to pass around packets of tissues during the section known as Tom Bowling), which contains the Sailor's Hornpipe, when the audience bobs up and down, and ends with Rule, Britannia!, which witnesses an extraordinary display by the soloist, who is expected to do something either amusing or spectacular with his/her outfit. It never fails to please each year. It finishes with God Save The Queen in an arrangement by Benjamin Britten, which I think is better than the original, and everyone sings Auld Lang Syne to finish the night off holding hands.

It is the night of the year when we can see everything good about Britain: the artistic talent of its musicians and singers; the rebellious yet good-natured demeanour of many of its denizens, and the depth of affection that people hold for the little wind-swept island off the coast of Europe that once really did rule the waves. The season has taken place 125 times, and is a direct link to the days of Empire, yet the people who attend the concert are open-minded and cultured internationalists who understand Britain's place in the world, which is the reason why for the last three years, there has been a steady increment in the number of EU flags that have appeared at the Last Night finale. In fact, last night, the blue and yellow more or less outdid the Union Jack. So much so, it made the Daily Express explode with rage:

A cut-out from my anti-Brexit group Facebook feed

Oh but it REALLY infuriated the Brextremists on the readers' replies section:

The Express reported that one very disgruntled Twit(ter user) wrote: (1) "Is there anything as weak, as petty or as demeaning to our nation as the waving of EU flags during Last Night of the Proms? Those flags should be burned, along with all other symbols of degeneracy and the power of finance."

A reader called Dave77 said, (2) "Waving a much detested FOREIGN FLAG is the 100% epitome of being a TRAITOR, when you are celebrating a genuine BRITISH FESTIVAL"

The same bozo said in a later post: (3) "I truly have never heard of one single person that was PROUD to be a member of the much detested EU --That could only happen if your ancestry is somewhat diluted in a European fashion maybe."

And finally, this splendid self-own by someone who goes by the name Henpecked: (4) "The remoaners and all this EU flag waving reminds me of 1930s Germany where a certain party rode rough shod over democracy by sheer force of obsession and numbers.
We must not let democracy be defeated by this shabby lot, democracy must always win."

Well I would like to reply personally to all of these "points" raised (if one can call them that):

(1) Firstly, the Twit - actually, my friend, the very reason people feel they should wave them is because they don't like petty parochials like you who can't see the difference between patriotism and nationalism. The ability to wave EU flags at a British event is in fact a sign of open-mindedness and openness to the world, which is what your idol, Liam Fox, is constantly seeking. He, though, makes you think you need to leave an international organisation in order to be more global, and you lot fall for it.

You know, you can go ahead and burn the EU flag if you like - you think it will trigger us in the same way setting fire to a Union Jack would trigger you. Well it won't, because we're not actually the ones who are highly-strung. The EU flag is not a symbol of degeneracy and the power of finance. To me, it is a very personal symbol of belonging.

Churchill himself said, "We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think of being a European as of belonging to their native land, and... wherever they go in this wide domain... will truly feel, ‘Here I am at home.'" And that's how I feel. Just because your only foray into mainland Europe is to go and do British things on the Costa Del Sol for a fortnight a year, things you wouldn't do at home, like eat a Full English breakfast every day or sing insulting songs to non-British passers-by (although maybe you would), it doesn't mean you have to spoil it for the rest of us - those millions who have made their home in another EU country and are happily settled and integrated there.

(2) and (3) Well Dave, I have news for you: I see Europe totally differently to you. You have never met one person who is proud to be a member of the EU because of the small-town circles you go around in. From the very little information I have gained from your "effort" on the Express thread, it is easy to suppose that you haven't spent too long in the company of more internationally-minded people.

The EU flag is not a foreign flag; it is the flag that represents 28 countries in Europe living side-by-side in peace, and that includes the UK (still). In fact, to me, nobody and nothing is foreign unless he/she/it makes a great effort to denigrate anyone not like them. For me, when I talk about "the north", I mean areas on the Baltic or North Sea, and when I talk about "the south", I mean those on the Mediterranean. I don't get infuriated if someone comes to my town and carries on with their own way of life, because it's perfectly normal. 

I doubt you go to Torremolinos and speak Spanish and eat pinchitos at a chiringuito, so why should a Pole speak English, drink Tetley's and go for a ride to the garden centre on Sundays? In fact, at home, I have BBC as standard TV channel (I have watched German TV for about 5 hours of the ten years I have been here) and drink Marks & Spencer tea. Integration is not what you think - it is the ability to see others as human beings, speak the local language, and not enforce your customs on them.

As for calling the attendees at the Proms traitors, that is really very weak. The fact is, the vast majority of reasonably-minded, balanced people find Brexit to be a betrayal in itself. It is seen by them as a regression of the United Kingdom into a much diminished shadow of its former self. The problems causing people to vote to leave the EU are mainly inflicted on the people by the British government, and it will only get worse when the EU is not there to act as a conscience.

(4) How wrong you are, Henpecked: it is the other way round. We see Brexit as a landgrab by dark and anti-democratic forces. Have you ever wondered why Brexit is being bankrolled by extremely rich businessmen? Because they care not one bit about the ordinary man or woman in the street. They will earn vast amounts of money by pulling the country out of the EU, and to make it happen, they will go to any length. But the best way to make it happen is to recruit the working man. Every revolution has been won by gaining the support of the working man, and every time the working man falls for the trick of the ringleader, which is to curtail his freedoms and get rich off the worker's back. You know the film The Producers, where the writers of a Broadway musical want to make a flop because they'll earn a lot of money out of it? That's really what Jacob Rees-Mogg and his ilk are up to. And you can't see it. 

I am sure you are one of those people that if the EU eradicated plastic pollution from our seas, you'd be moaning about how "Brussels" is taking away your right to drink tea in a plastic cup, even if you don't. In fact, you complain about everything the EU does, even if it is for the common good. 

No, it is not a panacea or an answer to every problem, but it is the best we have, and we should help it to grow, not attack it for everything it does to help.

So finally, I would like to let you know that there is someone here who is proud to call himself a European, and I know a great deal more people like me. Maybe, Dave, it's the circles I go around in...

Why is anti-establishment sentiment thriving even after Brexit?

Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

There was quite a gloating article in the Guardian this week on Brexit and its consequences on the rest of Europe. In a nutshell, it said that Europe had been revolted by the self-harm the UK has inflicted on itself and the instability it has unleashed on the British economy, its politics and society in general. Despite its "I told you so" theme, it is not wrong. But the battle for the soul of Britain has been hijacked by two opposing factions: the rich on one side and the poor on the other, with paradoxically the poor unwittingly doing the bidding of those who would like to subjugate them. Anti-establishment fever tilted the vote towards Brexit, not a genuine desire to leave the EU.

Oh David Cameron, what have you unleashed? In fact, I could replace the former Prime Minister in that sentence with a number of people, like the present incumbent (whoever that is at the time you read this), or maybe a few media moguls. But this all goes back decades. It is a seething collection of pustules that has been awaiting its time to spew its fetid contents all over the skin of public life and drag the victim into a chronic downward spiral of health and well-being.

There is a correlation between the Brexit vote and the current malaise in society - let me explain...

Successive governments have run public services into the ground through cutting costs, economy drives and selling off tenders to the private sector. None of this needed to happen if it were not for ideology-driven politicians whether in national government or local councils, and their chums in the private sector from lobbyists to energy conglomerates, pharmaceutical companies to building contractors. Every one of them is partly to blame for the current situation. The situation is clear: for the last 40 years, cheap is best, and to hell with the consequences. Hospitals and health workers, infrastructure building, public hygiene, education facilities and staff, police, firefighters, the military, even libraries, have been affected by the scything down of their expenses all so that governments, councils and their contractors can say to their clients (that's you), that they have been saving money in your name.

Well I don't know about you, but as far as I am aware, it's the exact opposite of that method that leads to good running of public services. Money needs to be put into their systems, not removed. That means that instead of reducing our income tax bills, VAT payments and council charges, the powers that be should be raising them, or at least looking for ways to maximise returns. When some suited chinless wonder from the richer side of public life comes on TV and warns against voting for various politicians because "your bills will go up", people need to remember that this bozo from the landed gentry is actually worried about his own costs going up. He will be the first to see a reduction in his own income because he is earning more per year than most earn in ten or twenty years. Why is Jeremy Corbyn being picked out for special treatment? Precisely because of that. He wants public services to run properly and rich dudes fear that if they do, not only will they lose money, they'll lose the opportunity to buy into them when lobbyists have finished convincing politicians to sell.

Back in the 1980s, public services were run into the ground until the public clamour to sell those services off was so loud, that this was the most logical step. It was a tactic used time and again by the then government to make the case for its sale. This was true for water, energy, gas, telephony, public transport, even security services. What we saw, though, was a change in the accountability and rights of those public services, now they were private. Trains that were before late or didn't show up at all were blamed on strikes and militant worker-related action, whereas now the services are not much better and in some cases worse, despite being sold off. Outsourcing and selling off public services has led us nowhere, except that now those services need no longer be directly accountable to the government, and ultimately, the public. It also gives carte blanche to those companies to limit pay, reduce workers' rights and entitlements, all in the name of saving money. They have effectively written themselves out of any social responsibility.

It is this selfish ideology that has led to this moment in history (and yes, this is history - PhD theses will be written about this period in the not-too-distant future) where the gap between rich and poor has finally become too wide, and where injustice in society has become plain for all to see where once it was easier to sweep it aside with gimmicks and distractions, fobbing people off with standard soundbites and impersonal press releases.

And things are a lot more complicated than on the face of it. Far from being a country that's full to bursting, as landowners, right-wing politicians and lobbyists will tell you, there is plenty of room. Indeed, only a very small percentage of the land has been built on. The real issue is that it is a country whose infrastructure has not been invested in for a very long time, and citizens' roles in society are becoming less and less welcome, and it shows:

• the hospitals are maybe fully equipped, but many times there are staff shortages or there are not enough beds for patients, leading to dangerously long waiting times. If real investment were made to ensure there were enough fully-staffed hospitals for everyone, we would need to delve deep into our pockets 
• you should send your child to a local school no matter its ranking, meaning that pupils are liable to be turned down if their parents try to apply for a place in what might be a more suitable school outside their catchment area, even if it is just over a designated line. This means house prices in certain areas rise, and the rules prevent any logic from being used. The fallout from this is that people are being forced to do irrational things to get their children into the school of their choice
• the Royal Navy, once the envy of the world, is now a shadow of itself, as is the British Army and the Royal Air Force, all so the defence budget can be spent on a nuclear arsenal that nobody dare use
• there is a huge swathe of building land that is lying unused and empty because building companies refuse to build on it, meaning prices of houses go spiralling up, but more shockingly, their untouched land turns them a huge profit

There are many more examples of this, and people have become sick and tired of being treated like commodities. They know that successive governments have cut everything to the bone, they know the country is dangerously paired back to the very limits of manageability, they just haven't joined all the dots yet, but they are slowly becoming aware of it. 

Having an ideology of saving money for the sake of it has proven recently to be a myth that has badly exposed the long-term dangers of such recklessness in playing with people's dignity and respect, and nowhere has that been more evident than in the case of Grenfell Tower in West London. What has struck me is how someone came up with the idea of saving a few thousand measly pounds by choosing an inferior cladding material in a refurbishment project to make the outside of a tower block more aesthetically pleasing while neglecting the inside, where residents - who are human beings, by the way - live.

The sentiment of grief turned to anger very quickly, leading to a general feeling of ill-will towards the Prime Minister, the government, Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council, and various contracting firms. This is not surprising, but it is a microcosm of UK life in general. The protests we saw in Whitehall and at Kensington Town Hall are just a spit in the ocean of general British dissatisfaction with the way life is going at the moment, and this is manifesting itself in so many ways.

The Brexit referendum last year, in my opinion, was won by a three-way split between different sections of the public: 

• easily-led individuals who believe everything that the right-wing press tells them, as well as unadventurous, stay-at-home monolinguals who know nothing about the wider world except the two-week drunken jaunt they undertake every summer to some touristic Mediterranean concrete jungle
• people with vested interests in pulling out of the EU, such as some unscrupulous employers, financial investors and politicians, who have been heavily sponsored to say negative things about the EU, and finally
• genuinely disaffected, forgotten and ignored people all around the country who wanted to vote for a change and saw it as their way to stage a protest; effectively kicking the government where it hurts for their constant overlooking of their issues (it is these people I can forgive for voting the way they did - so would I, probably)

What the last group fails to realise, is that by voting the way they did, they have done exactly what the people who are profiting from making their lives a misery wanted them to do; that is to say, they are turkeys voting for Christmas, which makes this such a national tragedy. There is also a gap between the educated and the under-educated, leading to a startling decline in trust in true facts and expert opinions, and a worrying rise in people's willingness to tie their misery to any popular movement that will get them out of the terrible hole they are in, whether that be extremist religion, militant political organisations, support groups, pressure groups or general grumbling to mates at the pub. Brexit had very little to do with many people's actual wishes and more to do with a genuine national mood of dissatisfaction with their circumstances.

What the UK needs right now is a long healing process and a coming to terms with the fact that the people have been lied to for many years for profit and nothing more. The recent election on 9th June reflected people's mistrust of the current incumbents and their handling of social matters as well as Brexit negotiations, where even the Daily Mail has revealed that 69% of people favour a softer departure from the EU. People need to regain a modicum of trust in their politicians and their public services.

Anti-establishment sentiment is thriving in lots of little pockets like local issues, or even as a cause of adverse personal experiences with authority, but when the dots get joined up and everyone realises that it is a national issue, there will be a mass protest at the gates of the high and mighty. People just don't realise yet who is to blame, but this is slowly revealing itself now that people see that cuts in services and selling out to corporate greed have led to the situation we find ourselves in the early summer of 2017.

If you want nice roses, you do not cut at the bottom.

A personal message to the people of Scotland: Don't you forget about us!

The debate over Scotland and its position in the United Kingdom has long been discussed on these pages, and in varying moods, depending on the context of the time. A while back I laid heavily into Alex Salmond for his demagogical bluster, opportunism and whipping up of sentimental feelings. I don't regret this, as I feel his policies after a possible vote for independence in Scotland are still incredibly self-glorifying and for all intents and purposes quite unfeasible. But this article is not about old fishface Salmond and his army of cybernats and spin doctors. This is about what the whole issue will come down to in the end: emotion, a sense of belonging, and ultimately familiarity with the status quo.

Comparable regions and nations inside other national borders would be Catalonia, Wales, Bavaria, Flanders, Brittany, Corsica or the Basque Country, and yet none of these have such a distinct identity as Scotland. There are certain items that people from quite close to those regions and nations would recognise as being typical, for example food or clothes. But with Scotland, there is a whole package, most of which would be recognised by many outside these isles, meaning there is simply no country like Scotland. It is a very, very distinct country within a country, and compared to all others in similar situations, Scottish culture and identity is so evidently unique.

Added to this, there are the everyday things we use that originated in Scotland: tarmacadam, the first passenger steamboat, the cash machine, modern economics, sociology, geology, electromagnetism, oil refining, fingerprinting, the Kelvin temperature scale, golf, curling, the refrigerator, the macintosh overcoat, the lawnmower, the Bank of England, the Bank of France even, the New York Herald, the television, penicillin, the ultrasound... the list is endless. Many of the inventions are based on a philanthropic philosophy that has been prevalent in Scotland for centuries. This is borne of a community spirit forged out of the unique conditions their culture, climate and history have created. That's my opinion, you may have yours.

In any case, you may have noticed, I have used "their", "them" and "they". That's because although they make up part of the peoples of the British Isles, their identity is indisputable. And that is the point. Although they are "they", they are also, due to their contribution to the British story, most certainly "us". And I like it that they are.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the United Kingdom needs to go back to the old ways of centralisation - totally the opposite - I am saying that they deserve their own recognition as the great nation they are, but I really don't want them to leave us to our own devices. I want the Kingdom to stay United. They are the down-to-earth counterbalance to the snooty southern English. They provide the social conscience for their southern neighbours' rampant capitalism. They put an anti-establishment middle finger up at the great and the good, which is what those obedient, docile Home Counties people should do more of. The Scottish people I know are also much better educated than any other people in the English-speaking world. In English schools, it's really not cool to be clever, but in Scotland I noticed intelligence is not something to be apologised for there as it might be in England.

I have no authority to tell the Scottish people to stay within the Union, but I would just say this: I have, for as long as I can remember, been British. Not English or Londoner. The universal nature of the word "British" signifies who I am and I would feel the legitimacy of that would be eroded if Scotland were to leave the United Kingdom. No matter what happens, Scotland can do a great job of governing itself. Its ultra-modern Parliament is a uniquely transparent and enlightened institution, with a much more "village hall" feel to it, as a Parliament should be; its policies on education, health and welfare are far more generous and egalitarian than anything found to its immediate south, and quite frankly, its notions of Europeanness are much deeper than that of England. But I don't care about that so much. What I hope, though, that Scotland's political set-up can have a profound effect on England's. I hope England will, over time, take on Scotland's example of the treatment of the poor and needy. I hope England will make strides in opening up academic learning for all in the same way as that in Scotland and I hope England will learn from Scotland that not voting ideologically for the same mainstream parties will result in a much more representative and multi-party parliament in Westminster.

Whatever happens, the referendum in September will have far-reaching implications for the UK. And for that reason, here is my hope for after the referendum: if Scotland votes to remain in the United Kingdom, I hope England learns its lessons, changing its political stance and becoming more attuned to the needs of all people. I hope the nature of the debate that takes place after the referendum will allow us to make the UK much more federalised. Maybe with the knowledge that the Palace of Westminster needs huge renovations, we could even take the House of Commons on the road. Sitting in Edinburgh and Cardiff would be an excellent start to resetting the relationship between all the countries on the island. Parliament would need some logistical backup, but with the technology available to us, this should not be a problem. I would also hope a vote to remain in the UK would see the end of the career of Alex Salmond. His smartypants demeanour and opportunistic ability to articulate his mood whether offended, sarcastic, petulant, super-confident or any other state will have come to nothing, or even been the reason for his demise. My grandmother used to get animated and often threaten the destruction of the television each time Margaret Thatcher showed her face on it. I often feel the same way when that smug megalomaniac's fizzog makes an unwelcome appearance on mine.

If Scotland decides to leave the United Kingdom, I also understand. Let us forget the history of the relationship of the two countries and consider the present: why else would you want to remain in a union where the ruling party never really represents you? Why would you want to remain in a union where the ruling party did things completely against your own instincts? Why wouldn't you want to leave the union that forced the bedroom tax upon some of your most hard-up citizens? I hope the downfall of the Conservative-LibDem government would take place soon after such a referendum, and a lot of English soul-searching would result in the conclusion that England is just too right-wing and London-centric for its own good.

But I cannot stomach that for now. I am sure, if that does happen, I will feel totally devastated. I want Scotland to remain in the Union, not because of the scary scenarios that seem to be the nightmare du jour for the "No" campaign; I want Scotland to remain in the Union because this will do untold damage to my own identity and that of many others. It would make me feel incomplete.

If I were Scottish and had a say in the outcome, I would probably weigh up the pros and the cons and decide still to remain, because (whisper it quietly) I think we are going through a period where we might start learning from each other. The Commonwealth Games, taking place in Glasgow as I write these lines, seems to have had the opposite effect on its people, and provided a new friendship between England and Scotland that politics has so sadly jettisoned. It will be the people who decide the fate of Scotland, and I will not sleep so easily in my bed until I know the results of the referendum.

Finally, I wonder what we would call the UK without Scotland - could it keep the same name? I don't really think so. It would need a new name. Southern Britain and Northern Ireland? SBNI? What a mouthful. The Kingdom of the Isles? More acceptable, but a little bit too Arthurian. Union of England, Wales and Northern Ireland? Well no. So maybe it would keep the name. But frankly, I am not going to even contemplate the idea that the Scottish would vote to become foreigners on their own island.