Normalisation

Brexit has brought the worst out of the UK. From the Brexiteers to the media, it has at times been painful to see and hear.

The BBC has for many decades been a beacon in that it was not just our, but the World's most trusted news source. Now, it just repeats the Government line. If this were not bad enough, it has given Nigel Farrage a platform either on its news broadcasts or on Question Time, amplifying what was a tiny minority voice into something far louder.

Last week he launched a new party, The Brexit Party, and this was the main story on the BBC across all its platforms, and yet there is no evidence of how big its support it, where its funding comes from, or if it is just a slightly less racist version of his old gig in UKIP. The Brexit Party have learned from the referendum, and now are funded by Paypal donations, all of less than £150, so to hide from anyone interested in who really is funding all this hate.

That the BBC and other media do not challenge the trope holding Brexit up, that removing the freedom of movement is the prize worth fighting for, and the alter on which the economy should be slain. Freedom of movement has helped UK business expand, be able to compete with others not just in the EU but globally. It also means there is a demand in the housing market, and in retail and service industries. That loss of freedom of movement will not only stop EU citizens from living, working and studying in the UK, it stops UK citizens from doing the same in the 27 other EU countries.

That many retired boomers living having retired to Spain, voted for Brexit, and will in the end force them home from their life on the Costa del Retirement. One couple came back last week, suntanned, to support the Brexit Party launch. Nothing more Brexit.

And then there is the jingoism, nationalism and plain racism that Brexit has unleashed. People who have lived in the UK all their lives, being swore at on the bus, neighbours turning on neighbours, and blaming "forriners" on all the ills of the country, when most is a result of UK Government policy, and it is the Government only too happy to not disagree.

Whatever happens with Brexit, it is hard to see how the country can come back together any time soon. I have lost friends due to Brexit; I called one a swivel eyed loon, or not directly, but used the phrase to describe Brexiteers and UKIP supports. We have not met for over 5 years. I have unfriended people on Facebook, muted others, and groups like the Armourers one is full of Brexit rhetoric, and scorn at Parliament for standing up for our and immigrant's rights, doing what is best for the UK as a whole.

Will UK have to be broken in pieces for us to realise what we had before Brexit, so we have to rebuild it, like the final line in Jerusalem?