What is in Kelvin's Head?

I’d like a Featherlight Brexit and no-one is offering it

17/01/2017

The trouble is, I agree with Mrs May.

Oh, don’t get breathless and excited. I only agree with her about one thing. I don’t agree with her about the kind of country she wants us to live in. I don’t agree with her about the kind of Europe we are going to create. I don’t agree with her about the kind of economy that she wants, which I think will harm the poorest most.

No, I simply agree with that most pathetic and seemingly banal political slogan – brexit means brexit. I wish I didn’t but I do.

If the people of the UK voted for brexit then the UK has to come out of the EU. I don’t see any way of that being avoided with the possible exception of the government falling and a new election being fought entirely on the European question. However, that isn’t going to happen and so brexit really does mean brexit.

There really is no having a referendum vote and ignoring it.

I don’t know what was ever meant by a red, white and blue brexit but what I want is a featherlight brexit.

I want a brexit that retains all the best of the relationship we have with the EU and which leaves the door open to rejoining after a period outside.

However, that doesn’t seem available.

I find it difficult to understand why there isn’t anything like that available politically.

The Lib Dems seem in denial that the referendum on brexit actually means we are leaving.

The Tory party seems mostly hell bent on the worst kind of brexit.

The Labour party seems mostly hell bent on removing itself as a political force.

The SNP seem to think that all that matters is whether or not it brings Scottish independence any further forward.

Our First Minister seemed ruffled and unsure of herself today as though she had not had a script prepared for Theresa May’s well trailed speech. It seems to me that now is the time when we will see what kind of politician Nicola Sturgeon is. She’s been dealt a very rough hand and we’ve no idea whether she will play it well. You can’t really judge a politician by how well they play a good hand and she’s more or less had that up until now. Massive poll ratings and huge electoral success have been very impressive but I simply don’t believe she can win a better brexit deal for Scotland than the rest of the UK gets. To some extent the SNP have been living in a fantasy since the brexit vote.

Ms Sturgeon’s hand might get very much worse this year. If there’s electoral success for the far right in either Holland or France then it is plain that the question will not be whether Scotland should be independent in Europe but whether there’s a Europe left which we want to be in.

I want a brexit that means that people living in the UK from the EU can remain in the UK and vice versa.

I want a brexit that retains interdependent trading with the UK and the EU.

I want a brexit that leaves the door open to a reformed European project which seems inevitable and which Britain would be better engaged with than disengaged with.

However, I don’t feel as though anyone is offering anything like what I want.

Who will form the Featherlight Party with me?

11 responses to “We should be wary of declaring martyrs”

Eamonn

08/04/2015

Agree totally. I find myself in a comparable position vis-à-vis the mass canonisations of the ‘martyrs’ of the Spanish Civil War, which assume that all those worthy of commemoration were on the same side.

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Michael Russell

08/04/2015

Anyone killed for professing their faith is a martyr. ISIS is an equal opportunity martyring machine. The various faith communities targeted, including Islamic ones, should build common ground to dismember ISIS. I simply fail to see the point in quibbling about who is a real martyr and who is not.

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1. Kelvin
  
  08/04/2015
  
  Is it your view that someone is a martyr for Christianity because they cannot recite a verse from the Qur’an?
  
  It seems to me that whilst some men and women of violence are being claimed to be martyrs if they should be shot by law enforcement agencies whilst pursuing paths of terror that there’s a huge amount to be gained by determining who is a martyr and who isn’t.
  
  Reply
  1. Bro David
    
    08/04/2015
    
    Not being able to explain a quranic verse was merely a way of discerning if someone was not Muslim. However, is it not just as great a presumption to think they weren’t martyrs, as to think that they were.
    
    The early church seemed to accept that all who were crucified or sent to the lions for their Christianity were martyrs. Perhaps not all did so as a statement of faith, but were nominal Christians caught up with the rest. But the church didn’t seem obliged to footnote who didn’t qualify.
    
    I’m not sure that I understand why your are hesitant. It seems a quibble. I don’t think anyone is leaning toward canonization here, just speaking of them as a whole.
    
    Reply
Jo

08/04/2015

The SEC still keeps the feast of Charles, King and Martyr. I don’t think we get to be too narrow in defining who is or isn’t a martyr.

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1. Kelvin
  
  09/04/2015
  
  Actually, Jo – that’s not quite right. The SEC keeps the commemoration of “Charles I, King, 1649”
  
  There’s no mention of him being a martyr in the calendar (and the current calendar superseded and replaced the one in the prayer book). There are plenty of people who are named as martyrs such as Agnes the week before Charles or indeed “Charles Mackenzie of Central Africa, Bishop, Missionary, Martyr, 1862” the very day after Charles.
  
  It would appear that rather careful thought was given to whether to describe Charles as a martyr and though he is included in the calendar (not least for founding one of our dioceses) any notion of martyrdom is absent.
  
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  1. Jo
    
    09/04/2015
    
    Thanks for the correction, I hadn’t realised there was that detail of difference between the SEC and CofE.
    
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Father David

10/04/2015

Of course, King Charles was a Martyr and is commemorated as such on January 31st each year. The trouble is that Anglicans have no real mechanism for declaring people to be saints or martyrs. Having referred to two recent horrific incidents on the African continent where Christians were slaughtered simply for being Christians, I wonder what the Provost of Glasgow thinks about the Ugandan Martyrs of the 19th century and would you personally regard them to be martyrs? As you know 23 Anglicans and 22 Roman Catholics were killed by the Kabaka for refusing to submit to King Mwanga’s corporal intimacies. The Roman Catholics were beatified in 1920 and canonised in 1964 but what of our Anglican Ugandan brothers – where they equally to be regarded as martyrs, or would you deny them that honorific title?

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1. Kelvin
  
  10/04/2015
  
  The Scottish Episcopal Calendar is again very clear: “Charles Lwanga and his companions, 1886, Janani Luwum, Bishop, 1977, Martyrs of Uganda”
  
  I have no idea why anyone would say that the SEC has no means of declaring someone to be a martyr. Not only do we have such a mechanism, we use it.
  
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Father David

10/04/2015

It would be interesting to know how this mechanism works in the SEC in deciding who is eligible to join the noble army of martyrs? Bishop Edward King of Lincoln is widely regarded as a saint South of the Border. I think it was Archbishop Lang who was asked how it was decided that Bishop King had reached sainthood status and the answer was that he was given a Collect, Epistle and Gospel to commemorate his saint’s day – 8th March, the day of his Heavenly Birthday.

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Harry Campbell

19/04/2015

“We strongly condemn such atrocities, whether they are Ethiopians are not,” the Ethiopian communications minister Redwan Hussein told AFP.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/19/isis-video-purports-to-show-massacre-of-two-groups-of-ethiopian-christians

What a shame the Archbishop couldn’t have said something similarly inclusive about the victims of the Kenyan massacre, and all such massacres, without caring about what their religion affiliation may or may not have been.

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