HONOUR: How important is it?

Ability without honour is useless.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

There is no escape it would seem from Brexit.  How did we get in such a state?  When political commentator Robert Preston remarked to a senior Tory a few days ago,  that it was a, ‘A mess beyond words,’  the senior Tory replied, ‘No it’s not.  Mega clusterfuck of historic proportions will do.’  That seemed to just about sum it up!  So why on earth am I writing about it?

To be honest, because it’s the first time in my life I’ve been embarrassed to be British. I feel the need to apologise for the behaviour of my fellow countrymen and women who are elected, in short, to run the country.  It’s certainly not been an edifying spectacle in recent weeks to see the behaviour of what are, ironically perhaps, called ‘The Honourable Members.’  To observe so much unpleasant argument, back biting, and lack of co-operation does not inspire.

My old and trusted friend the Shorter Oxford has a column or two upon the word ‘honour.’  However, cutting to the chase, it proposes ‘honourable’ as: ‘Worthy of being honoured; entitled to respect, esteem, reverence.’ Hmmm.  Apart from reverence,  which might be a step too far, I would truly like Members of Parliament to be worthy of being honoured.  And I’d  like to give them my respect and esteem.  But recently it’s not been easy.

During the period before the Referendum, I looked for facts –  reasons, arguments that I could grasp for leaving the EU. I simply couldn’t find them.  Nor could I find cogent arguments for  remaining in it.  But that’s not surprising because the arguments on one side appeared to be based on excessive optimism and on the other, excessive pessimism. In the event, both sides were incorrect.  What I wanted was an objective, unbiased summary of pros and cons.  What emerged was a national vote based, it would seem, in  a plethora of emotions, my own included.

In the absence of a fact-based decision, I could only work on the principal that unity is better than isolation.  When it came to the moment to submit my postal vote for June 23^rd, 2016 – and not just because I’d already moved to France –  I put an X  in the box marked ‘Remain a member of the European Union.’ We’re all part of a huge global family now, interconnected in so many ways, that to vote for ‘Leave’ seemed an extraordinary misunderstanding of our true nature and our needs.

Put very succinctly by Hans Rosling, in his book Factfulness, ‘In order for this planet to have financial stability, peace and protected natural  resources there’s one thing we can’t do without, and that’s international collaboration, based on a shared and fact-based understanding of the world.’

I needed a ballot paper with a box that said something like, ‘Remain but work for changes ‘ because certainly a big shift is needed in parts of  EU bureaucracy.  And any French man or woman not directly employed in it, will hasten to agree!

But just as I was writing this, I paused to do a Google search and found, with remarkable synchronicity, a London School of Economics site, and I quote directly from an article in it.

Renwick et al. (2016) in an opinion in The Telegraph June 14 protested: ‘A referendum result is democratically legitimate only if voters can make an informed decision. Yet the level of misinformation in the current campaign is so great that democratic legitimacy is called into question.’

I rest my case! Did the UK government believe the complex question of  ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain’ could be answered merely by putting an X in one box or the other?  Above all, when no sound, reliable  information was given on either choice?  What was the true intention of the politicians? Was it an honourable one?  In other words, were they thinking foremost of what would be good for the whole country?  Or were they thinking of their own concerns, jobs, personal finances? And above all,  the narrow confines of their own political party, whatever it might have been?  It would be wrong to suggest their motivation was not honourable.   But how can I know?  How can any of us know?  All that most of us can clearly see right now is  an extraordinary level of  contradiction, anger, obstinacy and uncertainty.  It’s not a pretty sight.

We need our political representatives  wherever they might be, in whatever country they might be, to build bridges of understanding with the people they’ve been elected to serve.

I’m not sure at what point in our culture calling someone ‘a bit of a politician’ became a pejorative remark.  It doesn’t reflect well on the office.  But neither do the platitudes, repetitive language and double speak used so often do much good either.  When I read of a senior politician suggesting Brexit was a ‘mega clusterfuck of historic proportions’ I  laughed out loud and gave a cheer!  Somebody in the Palace of Westminster was talking like a human being, four letter words notwithstanding.

We urgently need our political leaders to be people of integrity, where what they believe and what they say are congruent.  Less back biting, less manipulation, more honesty, integrity and whenever possible, straightforward answers would be very welcome!   Even a touch of real humanity occasionally would be most refreshing!  I want to believe that high ideals and a desire to create a better world motivated many men and women to enter politics.  Let’s hope that their highest and best ideals will soon be revealed.