Brexit

I thought I might give a personal response to the post Bruce recently put up here on Andy Thomas and his Brexit talk because I don't believe I've written about this subject before which might seem strange given the nature of this blog and the fact that no one seems to talk about anything else nowadays.

I didn't vote in the referendum. That was partly because I don't vote at all, regarding the whole process as flawed, particularly in the modern world when all parties are corrupt and all political ideologies completely separated from any kind of spiritual truth. People say you should at least participate and vote for the least bad option but I've tried that in the past and always feel as though I've betrayed my principles in some way, pompous and self-regarding as that might sound. But I believe the only honest option for me, as things stand today anyway, is to remove myself from the whole process. I am not recommending this for everyone. We all have to follow our conscience in these matters, and I am not saying that anyone who feels they should participate in the democratic process is wrong. But I know what I personally feel about the matter and that is paramount as far as I am concerned. It's not the same thing as not voting because you can't be bothered to or don't care. I just don't want to join in something I regard as corrupt and probably deceitful. The system is broken but that's because we human beings are broken. I know of no solution to this other than the old-fashioned one of spiritual repentance.

I said I didn't vote partly because I don't vote anyway. So that was not the whole reason. The thing is even if I had been willing to join in the referendum, I would have been torn. Not because I don't believe that Britain should leave the European Union. I do. I think the EU is one of those things, whited sepulchres, that have been designed to look fair on the outside but inside are spiritually rotten. It stands for liberal humanitarianism, social equality and all the sorts of things that sound pleasant to the modern mind, but is really an organisation that is gearing up for a totalitarian control of the whole of Europe, no doubt with the eventual aim of joining a world body dedicated to global control. Typical conspiracy theory nonsense, you might say. Maybe, but I believe that the demonic forces, whose manipulating behind the scene activities should surely be ever more obvious in this world, used it after World War Two, trading on the naive idealism of politicians of the time and their earnest hopes that such a war would never be repeated, and instigated a body that would override national identity, supposedly for progressive reasons but actually for totalitarian ones.

So, from that point of view, Britain should clearly leave. However, our economic and cultural lives, particularly the former, have been so closely woven into the fabric of the EU that leaving is probably going to cause hardship. In the short to medium term, people, especially poorer people, are going to suffer. Thus, there are two aspects of the matter to take into account. There is the economic side, together with a certain sort of sophisticated cultural side, liberal, outward looking, progressive in the sense that word is usually understood today. But then there is the matter of principles. What is the right thing to do, regardless of how we will be affected?

Britain is part of Europe. It always has been and it always will be. Leaving the EU does not mean leaving Europe even if that were possible. Our whole life has been bound up with the continent for our entire history. Our culture is a European one, unthinkable without huge influences from mainland Europe which have enriched us enormously. And yet we are an island. Materialists will consider this completely irrelevant. But people who believe in God and think that he has a reason for things being as they are will pause for thought. We have been set apart. Yes, that can lead to an attitude of arrogant self-satisfaction but then beauty can lead to vanity. It doesn't mean that beauty is a bad thing. We have been set apart and many of us sense that we do indeed have a special mission, hinted at in our traditions and legends. What that mission may be, no one is completely sure but it has risen to the surface occasionally. It did so at the time of the Spanish Armada. If Phillip II had succeeded in the invasion of England, Spain would have dominated Europe and I don't think that English notions of freedom and individuality would have spread as they did. Perhaps the scientific revolution would not have taken off as it did. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the British would have colonised America to the extent they did and the whole history of the United States would have been completely different. Speculation, of course, but not without some basis to it.

Then Britain freed Europe from Napoleon. Napoleon was a great man but he had become a tyrant and was imposing his regime throughout the continent. Britain defended freedom. Not alone, of course, but she was the principal agent. Britain's contribution to the defeat of Hitler is clearly another time when her mission manifested itself.

It seems that one of the things Britain can do is save Europe from itself. The British always used to have the particular virtue of mistrusting ideologies and preferring common sense to clever theories. That can lead to the nation of shopkeepers jibe (which is not always an unfair one) but it can also mean that we are not seduced by fancy words and cleverly spun lies. That used to be the case anyway. How much it is now, I'm not so sure but perhaps the Brexit vote shows that the attribute still exists.

If Britain was a nation of shopkeepers, it was also home to some of the greatest poets the world has known, and many of these made a mighty contribution to the expansion of consciousness that became known as the Romantic Movement. This might be another side of its mission. Here on this island are supposed to be some of the most sacred sites in the world.  These act like spiritual power sources that can inspire and regenerate, even today when their power is low. But they are there and the energy can be tapped. They feed into the national psyche and give those in the nation who can respond, which may not be the majority but is a reasonable minority, a connection to deeper realities. The revival of esoteric spirituality in the 20th century, which admittedly often took strange forms, was frequently lead by people from these isles.

Britain has been set apart physically and it has been spiritually too, for better or worse. This is not a cause for an inflated egotism but it means that we in this country have a responsibility. I would say that we have not been true to it for at least 50 years. We have not kept the faith just as Israel, in a different context, did not always keep the faith in Old Testament times. According to Wellesley Tudor Pole, a prominent English mystic of the last century (see here), it was a mistake to join the Common Market, as the EU was known then, and would delay our mission. I would say he has been proved correct. Whether the mission, whatever it might be, has been delayed or thwarted completely remains to be seen.

Most people who voted to remain in the EU did so for solid intellectual reasons, which is not to deny that emotions and fear were involved too. But they regarded themselves as primarily responding rationally. They were convinced that economically and culturally our future lies within a wider body, and regarded the partial sacrifice of national identity and integrity as a trivial thing. On the other hand, it seems clear that many leave voters voted with their hearts, and that is why it is easy to caricature them as ignorant. There will very likely be economic hardship if we do ever succeed in leaving, though, goodness knows, the powers that be seem hell-bent on preventing it. But leave voters may have been reacting at an intuitive level to the knowledge that Great Britain has a destiny that cannot be fulfilled within the EU This is a spiritual reason that can't be justified in a book of accounts or fitted into a globalist, progressive narrative. But if you want to caricature leave voters as ignorant then you can equally well accuse remainers of having no feeling for the mystique of this country, and of being spiritually rootless people who see a country as only somewhere they happen to live, with no deeper involvement, loyalty or connection.

The fact that the establishment is so determined to stop Britain leaving tells us two things. One, they are responding to demonic impulse. That is who they work for whether they know it or not (and the vast majority of them don't know it and would laugh themselves silly if they were presented with such an idea). The second thing is that Britain does have a spiritual mission and it is important. It is worth a lot of effort (apparently) to hinder or even stop it.

The spiritual way is often the apparently less attractive way. That is because it demands sacrifice and strips us of the falsehoods we cover ourselves up with. The fair path often leads to a foul end. This is something we should remember in the coming months.