The distance between us

I have been a passionate advocate of Remaining but I am not blind to the difficulties of the European Union project. This is a screen shot of MEPs today in the European Parliament laughing at a joke made by European Commission President, Jean Claude Junker, at odious Nigel Farage's expense. Junker was reviewing the Brexit referendum and turned on Farage and said, 'You campaigned for the exit and you've gone through it.  Why are you here?' or words to that effect (video here). Farage then went on to castigate MEPs claiming they had never had a proper job between them.

Parliamentary proceedings rarely make good photos or TV but this picture with its  serried and numbered ranks of MEPs leaves me cold.

Meanwhile, we await the vote of no confidence in the parliamentary Labour Party. Oh that Corbyn will go gracelessly but go all the same and not cling on. The first shots of the EU/UK divorce are being fired in earnest, Tory MPs and Prime Ministerial runners are in their various conclaves and Paul Mason (you know Channel 4 news and socialist firebrand) has offered  to broker a deal that we become a member of the European Economic Area (if you are in short supply of laughs see the spoof Twitter account @StPaultheMason).

Hopefully the full enormity of the perfidy on the peoples of the UK committed by Johnson, Gove and Gisela Stewart will weigh on their consciences for the rest of their lives. To have told such lies and then to have blithely stepped away from them as if they were someone else's shit is a confidence trick and disavowal of public duty of the most egregious kind.

Of course the people must be heard - particularly the C2/D/E social groups who turned out in such large numbers and proportions for Leave. But this is a process that is only just starting and months of uncertainty and the gradual erosion of economic confidence and social cohesion await. 

Some people on Twitter say the government must make clear its plan. But we have neither a government nor a clear plan. The Leave campaign are as bemused as the rest of us and it will take much time for a clear set of negotiating priorities to emerge.

There are experienced voices that say this will all end in a fudge and second referendum after some kind of back-channel deal has been pulled from the evil spirits that have been released.

It seems likely that freedom of movement and UK immigration policy will need to be reframed in some way. Angela Merkel is at the moment the restraining hand on French impatience to see the back of the UK and grab up as much of The City's activities as it can.

What becomes of the Labour Party if there is a General Election hardly bears thinking about. But one kind of hopes that UK politics will go through a seismic rearrangement that can live up to the challenge laid down by the Brexit vote.

As for the United Kingdom it is clear that a second Scottish Independence referendum is on the cards and that polls give a clear majority in favour of independence.

But events are moving at the speed of light and we need strong and subtle leaders- the best of whom come from Scotland at the moment - and less of the venal ambition and egotism that has driven us to the chasm over which we are now sit.

It would be nice to think, as Paul Lewis of Moneybox said yesterday, that we will grow accustomed to this uncertainty and gnawing anxiety. I wonder if we will and what the cost and the outcome will eventually be. After all, it is easy for him to say.

These are dark, stormy and terrible days and yet the world pads along its habitual tracks, the birds sing and the wind still blows.

I intend to join the Labour Party today as the choice of a new leader will, I believe, be critical both for progressive politics in the UK. It is not a lot but it is something.

Thank you for passing by.

I saw this by Alistair Campbell after I'd written my piece. Well worth a look. He's in fine form.