When you put Britain First...

Good evening readers. This week on the blog, we're looking at the theme of Britain.
Britain, that geographically similar bundle of island parts that has, for several centuries now, escaped all attempts to break it apart. Sure, we could all be better off with some crazy devolution-maxi-plus option where a layer of government on every street corner allows all of us all to manage our own affairs but, whatever your recent persuasions on the Scottish referendum may be, it is hard to deny that every extra level of such bureaucracy will bring with it enough red tape to make the bunting for a jubilee.

We are, as we've been all our lives, united. In fact, we're not only united but proud. Proud to be British. The best of British. Good old fashioned British values. But what are these ideals, these values,  for which so many people are prepared to fight.

Last month, former Prime Minister and failed public speaking champion Gordon Brown was roused enough by these ideas to give what many have called a barnstorming performance of a speech in favour of the union. A plea to all of those still not convinced by the notion of togetherness that we are, in fact, greater as a sum of our parts, better together.

Why then, in the month since our estranged partner decided not to divorce the rest of us, are we now seeing a rise in the popularity of the Britain First movement?

I must confess that, I've only just come on to this one- given to my avoiding the internet and the turmoil facebook brings, but, as my news feed is steadily being filled by these Britain First pages, I, like many people, have finally noticed it.
A quick look at the website feels like a second coming of the BNP and their fascist rhetoric. The homepage runs a piece about the absence of a white history month and the abhorrence of having a Black History Month. It then demeans any point it may have been making by talking about a Gypsy History Month.
These people, as far as I can see, have been dropped on their heads. Either that or the severe bashing of rhetoric and fascist literature they have been subjected to has left them dazed and concussed. What other reason can there possibly be for someone to claim they are putting Britain First whilst at the same time demanding that the repressed, those forced to flee, those put through the most inhumane and unthinkable injustices known to man, that seek refuge on our island in the long held knowledge that they will be accepted and taken in- where they can live a free and happy life and where they can contribute to society in a way impossible in the lands of their past must look elsewhere? Who are these people that believe their birth right is to look down on difference?
For anyone in doubt, I can confirm that these are the people who believe it is their right to be before anyone else in the dole queue. They want their imported A&E service before any foreign cleaner, doctor or nurse- despite the fact that they've been there all day and that the service only runs because of their input. And yet they're happy to share their own powerful mother tongue with the rest of the world, nay, take offence when it isn't used at all times.
Well, I say let these people have it.  Let them have the language they've half learnt yet feel so strongly about and let them keep it just as the day they were born. Not for them will be the new mongrel terms being coined everyday. Not for them are any of the words required to order takeaway food. Not for them are the words of technology or the language of the internet they will need to survive.

Let them instead own the word bigot. These people, these 'Britons' don't deserve even the term used to describe them. They show nothing of the values of inclusion, of compassion, of growth, togetherness or industry. They wouldn't be opening up their hospitals for those in need and they won't be giving anyone a leg up in the world when they need it the most. No, these people look out for themselves and nobody else. They'd have poets, writers and radical thinkers against the wall quicker than you could say fascist and so, this week when your facebook wall is peppered with the Britain First posts, I'd ask you to please take a moment to think about what exactly Britain is and what exactly their message is. Don't repost, don't share or like. Simply give them a little Anglo Saxon reminder of your own- in the roughest, most primitive words they understand.