Radio Free Europe

“The Labour government must take sole responsibility for this disastrous chosen path which has resulted in the UK falling into its morass of lowered standards, lawlessness and social disarray.”

Who? I’m afraid it’s Leapy Lee in the current “Euro Weekly”. This comes from his latest rant, this one about multi-culturalism in Britain and unchecked immigration. I know some people who get seriously angry with this guy. I don’t. It’s just not worth it.

But this new assault on the state of Britain intrigues me, as does the English-speaking media here. Why, if people no longer live in Britain, why, if people are effectively disenfranchised, do they feel the need or the right to comment?

I set these questions against the current background of politicians chewing over the EU Treaty, a development - it might be argued - to help make us feel ever more European. But that’s very doubtful. Does living in a different country make one feel less British, more European or a bit - in the case of Spain or Mallorca - Spanish or Mallorquín? Generally speaking, I don’t think so. You can take the boy out of Britain, but you can’t take Britain out of the boy.

I say this as someone who, some years ago, held discussions with a founder of a group to lobby for greater European integration. That group was looking for a type of director, especially a communications director. That was me, or might have been had the discussions gone beyond a pleasant coffee in a London club. You might say that I am a good European, or was - I have cooled on the idea - but I am certainly no nearer to knowing what European, or even a bit Spanish or Mallorquín, might mean.

Plenty of expatriates here have Spanish friends, some have Spanish partners or children, some speak Spanish well, some watch Spanish television or read Spanish newspapers. But there are many who fall into this category only partially or not at all. Is this really that surprising? Among the more assimilated of the expats, there is a despair of their fellow countrypeople who remain solidly “British”. Again though I ask - is this so surprising?

Expats read “The Sun” or other British newspapers, even the local ones; expats go to British bars; expats have dinner parties for fellow expats; expats have Sky. They are no more European or a bit Spanish or Mallorquín than were they sitting on the seafront at Eastbourne.

The ease of access to the media, in its various forms, only serves to reinforce this exported Britishness and to neutralise greater assimilation or to take, for instance, a greater interest in local politics as opposed to events in Britain. The media feeds this and reflects this. Leapy Lee is just one example of this; his column is market-driven in the sense that he is talking to an audience with an enduring interest in the old country. Accordingly, I defend fully Leapy Lee’s right to talk about those “events” even if his chosen subject “multi-culturalism” is outmoded and even if immigration to Britain, which he bemoans, is a phenomenon of human mobility shared by other countries - such as Spain, and such as by Britons moving to and living in Spain. We’re all Europeans now, or maybe we’re not.


Apropos yesterday’s weather. It must have been a near miss right here in Playa de Muro. There were more tornadoes after all. Severe ones. One person dead. People were being evacuated in some places. Heavy weather.


QUIZ
Yesterday - “Homburg”. Todays’ title - who?

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