Two Tribes - What sort of country do we want to be?
I could kick myself. I fell for it. I thought I knew my country. I thought I understood who we were and what we stood for. Sure, there were always going to be a few people at the edges who wanted to pull up the shutters and stand alone; who saw immigration as a mortal threat to our way of life; who dreamt of a return to a mythical ‘better time’ when we were in control of our own destiny. But as the EU Referendum debate has taken hold I’ve realised that I was wrong. I seriously misjudged Britain (or more accurately, England). This is possibly the most depressing conclusion of my lifetime. It means that the values I hold dear, values that I thought I shared with the vast majority of people in this country are not in fact the default values of a sizeable share of the people in Britain. I thought that tolerance, compassion and inclusiveness were part of our DNA and I was proud to be called British. Whatever the outcome of the EU Referen...