<
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/aug/13/brexit-brain-science-psychology-divided-uk-debate>
"One of the most significant political events of the past few months, it has
seemed to me, wasn’t strictly a bit of politics at all, but an emotional catch
and quaver in the voice of a politician. The politician was the Conservative MP
Steve Baker and the sudden sob in his throat came about during a TV interview
about the efforts to resolve the Northern Ireland protocol.
Baker, you will recall, was one of the most strident voices in the Brexit
argument, a leader of the Tory European Research group, the ERG, which
frustrated Theresa May’s efforts to find a compromise deal with the EU. The sob
in his voice and the tears in his eyes prefaced a short, heartfelt confession
about the extreme private stress that those Brexit machinations – and
subsequent arguments over Covid lockdown – had caused him. Speaking
subsequently to the
Times, Baker expanded on that state of mind. “I felt
absolutely worthless,” he said. “I felt repugnant, hateful, to blame for all of
the troubles that we had, absolutely without any joy, constantly worried about
everything to the point of mental torment. A constant state of panic attacks
and anxiety. It’s not a state anyone should live in.”
Matters came to a head in November 2021 at a weekly prayer group that Baker, a
Christian, attended in Westminster. “I suddenly just started crying,” he
recalled. “I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t speak. I was just clutching
myself, sobbing my heart out.” One of the reasons that he was opening up about
that now, he said, was that “I’m very conscious there’s lots of people out
there who blame me for their misery. But it’s an unfortunate thing on this
question of leave and remain that leaving has caused a great deal of anxiety
and anger and depression for a lot of people. But being in the EU has caused a
lot of anxiety and anger and depression for people…”
Baker’s courageous candour was significant in our national conversation, it
seemed to me, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, that outpouring was, to
my knowledge, the only public occasion on which a leading Brexiter had owned up
to the pain of doubt and anguish that the referendum had occasioned. It was,
also, a very telling illustration of a truism about the whole ongoing
cataclysm: that, though the vote obviously had fundamental real-world
consequences for our economy and our politics, it was arguably best understood
as a psychological rather a political moment."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
