I am ashamed of England tonight. I am pleased that Scotland and Northern Ireland held out against Brexit. I could never blame the Welsh. Brexit is an English initiative. The exceptionalism that underpins it is England’s alone. And that is why it is of a England that I am ashamed.
The shame is multifold. Of the arrogance that we are a nation, better than others.
That’s good, that means we don’t have to be.
I am shocked even though in one way this does not impact me. I have had an Irish passport for decades. I am one of the lucky ones. So are my close family. We can all still enjoy freedom of movement. But I am still bereft. England has been my home.
If England’s not a nation better than the others then why has he stayed here all these decades?
Haha! Excellent. Here’s hoping he’s even more miserable come Monday.
The shame is multifold. Of the arrogance that we are a nation, better than others. That we can still remember WW2 as if we won it. That we can still blame Europeans for faults that are not theirs. That we are too often racist. That we are pig-headed. That we’ve forgotten empathy.
You could Fisk this, but what’s the point? He’s not making an argument, he’s striking a pose.
Orwell noticed this donkeys ago:
England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British.
Though it’s definitely not just an English thing anymore. Elites in France, Germany, the United States etc. are unified in their hatred of their own countrymen.
But Ritchie doesn’t just think he’s better than you, he also has grandiose fantasies about his own importance and abilities, still planning a Thousand Year Gripe from his kartoffelbunker in Norfolk:
Now is the time for visionaries across all of society. It will be hard. But the alternative is to give up. I do not think people will, whatever in the end their chosen role. The aim is not to Remain. The aim is to Rebuild. That’s what we have to do now. And I think we will.
Lol.
Careful, Tim. Isn’t the fact that England still has Ritchie in it a strike against?
IYDLIFO applies.
Steve,
“… whose intellectuals are ashamed …”
Careful now, we don’t want to imply that spud is an intellectual.
Greed
Just thinking about him declaiming this “stirring” speech on YouTube. It would have the emotional impact on me of, say, a spam fritter. It’s hard to see him winning over the masses with this kind of rhetoric: “You are a load of arrogant, greedy, racist, nostalgic numpties. Help me build a greater England.”
“Of the arrogance that we are a nation, better than others.”
Anyone of any nation who feels loyalty to that nation believes that nation to be better than others. Duh!
What would it take to get him to move to Ireland? That could be just the thing to destroy the Good Friday Agreement, so I hope he never goes there. But it would be intriguing to watch what unravels
Let’s face it: the Brexit vote contained an element of English nationalism – a cry of tribal angst. Am personally confident about what ‘English’ means, and that this will change in the coming century. For now, however, I remain certain about who and what the label implies…not least a sense of belonging. I’ve never been confident that residents of Liverpool, the Cornish, or 50pct of London are any more English than my Scottish and Irish friends. I’ve friends north of the border that believe large parts of the central belt are Irish rather than fourth-generation Scottish. But then in my part of Devon, my neighbour – who moved here from Somerset 45 years ago – is still referred to as the blow in.
“believe large parts of the central belt are Irish rather than fourth-generation Scottish”: they’re probably right too. If you refuse to assimilate, why would you be surprised if people draw the obvious conclusion?
I’m with Steve. What has the fat fuck, in common with the legions of other polytechnic level faux intellectuals and diversity advisors, achieved for the nation in the last 20 years ? Other than clamoring for an ever greater share of the earnings of the proles, those same arrogant racists and bigots they so blatantly despise, in order to get ‘funding’ for the next hessian hued bullshit ‘study’ they want to publish, instead of getting a job that might involve having to get up at 7am each day ?
almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box
A favourite. But so many of the great and the good are on the payroll of some government body or another or that of a “charity” that survives only because people donate to it on the grounds of what it used to do without realising that that is no longer the case. They unashamedly live off theft from the poor-box.
@ Steve:
” …chipping away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always anti-British.”
Of course he should have said pro-Soviet instead of pro-Russian, then you’d have a better idea of what kind of creatures those ‘intellectuals’ really were, and still are.
“I have had an Irish passport for decades.”
He wasn’t born there. He’s never lived there. He has one Irish grandparent. Some might call that gaming the system.
Bernie G,
“For now, however, I remain certain about who and what the label implies…not least a sense of belonging. I’ve never been confident that residents of Liverpool, the Cornish, or 50pct of London are any more English than my Scottish and Irish friends. I’ve friends north of the border that believe large parts of the central belt are Irish rather than fourth-generation Scottish. But then in my part of Devon, my neighbour – who moved here from Somerset 45 years ago – is still referred to as the blow in.”
Most people’s idea of England is about the area roughly 40 miles around where they were raised or live, and hugely loaded with nostalgia for where they played, where they had friends, where they first copped off with girls, where they first drank.
I’ve been up to places like Sunderland and down to Cornwall and both feel alien to me. Sunderland people were very friendly, but it didn’t feel like England to me.
We’ve always shaped countries based on changing mutual interest. I’m sure the union was about keeping the Scots friendly rather than a country that could be bought by the French to allow easier invasion, but who is going to invade? No-one when food is so cheap. So, what’s the benefit of continuously throwing money at the Scots? What’s the benefit of people in the midlands throwing money at Northern Ireland? This isn’t some temporary thing, is it? It’s a constant flow of money.
The sheer impotent, petulant rage of these billionth rate non-entity “europeans” is music to my ears.
What would it take to get him to move to Ireland?
Something I think a lot of English people would be in favour of. If I read the Spanish correctly, if I wished to obtain Spanish nationality I’d be obliged to relinquish my UK passport. I know my Brasilian amiga’s on dodgy ground not having handed her Brasilian passport back. That could be reason to revoke her Spanish citizenship & hazard her residence status. A lot of countries don’t permit dual nationality. Germany doesn’t, does it? So why the UK? Either you’re Brit or you’re not. If Spud wants a Mick passport he’s a Mick. Let him apply as a foreigner for UK residency. And deny it.
Yeah dual nationality- if you have it definitely don’t flaunt it.
The Britain & Ireland Common Travel Area is fuck all to do with the EU.
BiS Germany doesn’t, does it?
I think that BiG is a German national by virtue of long residency in (and usefulness to) the Bundesrepublik and I am too by dint of birth.
I am one of the lucky ones. So are my close family.
The ones that have not divorced him yet.
The Meissen Bison December 11, 2020 at 11:30 pm – “I think that BiG is a German national by virtue of long residency in (and usefulness to) the Bundesrepublik”
I cannot be the only one who has been here so long they remember BiG boasting of his application for German citizenship
i see disagreeing with him is now “STRAIGHT FROM THE FASCISTS HANDBOOK” Pathetic, but even moreso are the morons who tell him he’s wonderful
Wales voted to leave so Intake offence at the patronising tone, as if we were children who didn’t know what we were doing and were tricked by the nasty English people
As Steve says , as ‘Remainers’ go he’s pretty much in the equivalent of the norfolk and Suffolk combination – his disdain pretty much provides vindication for Brexit in principle and the criticisms he voiced are little more than striking an incoherent ‘Remain’ pose
Interestingly, the ‘Progressive’ response to Brexit has left Boris high in the opinion polls, even after presiding over the greatest shambles in the history of the nation – where does that leave Murphy and his vision of rejoining as some kind of vassal state?
Andrew – yarp, the potato probably would think being called “an intellectual” is a compliment.
VP – as I get older, if not wiser, the more I come to realise that CS Lewis was right.
Jon – Sure. Russia became haram to progressives shortly after abandoning communist oppression and its gulag archipelago.
Matt – true
Worzel – the wisest thing Michael Gove ever said was that people are sick of “experts”
dearieme – But Scots are just ersatz Irishmen.
If the country (the UK) had voted Remain, then we would have Remained. It didn’t, and the only moral thing to do is to Leave. The long rearguard action of Remainers is immoral, and also to divide the UK into sections is the action of some pretty sore losers. These are also actions of the Left, as seen so often after elections. I personally see that sort of thing as traitorous. Not that I think that voting Remain was traitorous – it’s a difference of opinion. If it had been a Remain vote, and we had Remained, then Leavers would have continued to campaign to Leave, as was their right. So what can Remainers do that is moral? They should stop providing obstacles that damage the country, and instead, for a campaign to Rejoin.
I think that a Rejoin campaign would increase its following if Leave proved to be a disaster, and decrease its following in case of success. However, Rejoin would mean accepting the worst of the EU, and frankly, I can’t ever see it succeeding.
I remember that food was far, far, cheaper prior to joining the Common Market, and fail to see why it should get more expensive when we finally sever the political ties.
Then we come to the question of the Irish. Under the 1948 Treaty, citizens of the Irish Republic can not only live freely in the UK, they can also vote in our elections. There appears to be about 3 million of them – far more than Brits in the Irish Republic. Assume that they voted in the same proportions as true Brits, but overwhelmingly to Remain – what else? – then they nearly skewed the result. They, and those with conveniently dual nationality, probably definitely skewed the NI and Scotland results.
I don’t see why any citizen of the Irish Republic should have any say at all.
“I could never blame the Welsh.”
What have we Welsh done wrong then?
“A lot of countries don’t permit dual nationality. Germany doesn’t, does it? So why the UK?
Because of the Empah. You grant independence (“Dominion status”) to e.g. Oz and make their people both Aussie and British citizens – because otherwise many of the people would vote against independence if it meant relinquishing British citizenship.
(At that time British Citizens were referred to as “British subjects”, an expression that might have seemed archaic even then.)
For what it’s worth, the USA used to prohibit dual citizenship. It’s my guess that it was folly to change that.
He is a cunt.
I’m ashamed that he lives in England.
Fuck off Ritchie. And then fuck off again.
I believe they still do. My sister had to give up her Canadian citizenship to get her US citizenship – and that was only five or six years ago.
“My sister had to give up her Canadian citizenship to get her US citizenship” That’s interesting. And yet Boris famously kept his US citizenship until just a year or two ago.
Maybe they view Canadians as potentially plotting invasions.
Boris was born there, so gains citizenship by birth, but is British from his parents. They obviously don’t do the same deal for people trying to become citizens.