Reflection column with Canon Hilary Barber: Fantastic Kingdom
I’ve just spent three weeks in the South West of France, to find the coastline I love burnt to the ground while fires also rage in Spain.
It’s also been hot here with hose bans implemented across the country. And yet we still have those people who deny the climate emergency.
While I was away I read a book called Fantastic Kingdom which was written by Helene Von Bismark, a German journalist and historian, whose PhD is on how Europe sees the UK.
Helene has a fascination for the UK and a deep love of Europe, and the role and relationship the UK has played over the years.
She paints the picture of Great Britain: this great union of nations working together to create something greater than the individual, that went out to conquer the world. The British Empire, created enormous wealth and influence and is a world leader in many areas of international life. The UK is renowned for providing international leadership and influence through its soft power of the monarchy and international aid.
Parliament creates laws that support society, providing freedom of speech and protection from those who wish us harm. Democracy by way of with a highly respected second chamber of experts holds the Commons to account and makes legislation as good as it can be for the whole nation.
Faith communities can thrive – building their own places of worship, but also working together to overcome poverty and the climate emergency, things that we hold together as human values, and law and order.
And yet the British press and influences from abroad look to divide this united Kingdom. Instead of nations working together across borders for the common good, suddenly, we revert into island mentality, closing down borders and freedom of movement.
Suddenly, international aid for which as a nation we have been so revered is to be cut, those men and women who came here out of fear and persecution are no longer welcome and told to go home.
The public is told that if we leave the EU there will be more money for the NHS and that the world is simply waiting to sign economic trade deals with the UK – but after ten years of Brexit, all we can see is empty words and a UK economy that has shrunk under consecutive governments.
Suddenly the UK that has always looked outwards has turned in on itself, obsessed with immigration, flags, and in sighting hatred, looking to create division, and to break down those things that have held us together for so long.
Politicians who according to social media can never be trusted – who are only in it for themselves. This is not our history, it’s not our story, and it certainly isn’t the culture we want here in Calderdale. Kindness and deep respect for the stranger who is lost and bruised is our song, and the real measure of society in all its fullness, is how it cares for the poor and vulnerable. Let us not forget who we really are.