What worries me about UK politics.

To begin with, let me declare an interest. In 1979 I stood for election to parliament as a Liberal, back in the days when there was a Liberal Party. I was one of the 100 prominent Liberals (‘prominent’ being a relative term in this context) whose names were listed in the press as opponents of the Lib-Lab Pact.

There is no longer any British political party representing my broadly centrist position. I have to say with regret that since the merger with the Social Democrats my former party has turned into something neither liberal (in the classic sense) nor democratic (as demonstrated by its attitude to the EU Referendum result). For me, this explains its failure to fill the vacuum in moderate politics created by the polarisation of the two main UK parties and the rise of fissiparous nationalism in Scotland.

I am troubled by the seemingly inexorable rise of identity politics. In politics, I do not care about a person’s identity, I care about the quality and rationality of his or her ideas. To value ideas only insofar as they are uttered by an approved sort of person and to dismiss ideas uttered by any disapproved sort is a classic ad hominem fallacy, offering no hope of reaching the truth. Identity politics emphasizes irrelevant divisions and breaks down social cohesion to our collective diminution as citizens.

Another major concern is the diminishing respect for free speech. Extreme political correctness is the new fascism. No-platforming, shouting down, political violence and other forms of mob censorship are rapidly destroying our free society. I find it so tragic that things for which my father’s generation fought and died are so little valued and so lightly cast away by people who have the nerve to call themselves liberals. I’m sorry, but such people do not know the meaning of liberalism; they should read JS Mill’s On Liberty and learn what it is.

I value social media. Living as I do in rural isolation, forums such as this allow me to feel close to people all over the world. At the same time, I worry about the apparently deliberate policy of some media to create what has been called ‘echo chambers’; self-reinforcing factions rarely exposed to alternative views. When the certainty of one’s own righteousness becomes intense, there is an unfortunate tendency to respond to contrary views with hostility and belligerence rather than reasoned argument.

(In passing, may I mention that as a former philosophy teacher I know a thing or two about rational discussion. It was frequently necessary for me to play devil’s advocate, putting forward arguments for a view I didn’t actually support because it was necessary that someone should. You cannot convincingly claim to be correct if you are not familiar with the main objections to your view and able to offer reasoned refutations thereof. Without this there is only emotion and prejudice.)

I am disturbed by an increasing willingness to define ourselves by what we are against, rather than what we are for. Admittedly, this is often instinctive and reactionary. During the Scottish Independence referendum the unionist campaign understandably resorted to playing down the prospects of an independent Scotland but I would have preferred to see far more emphasis on what the UK had achieved and could in future achieve through integration. Likewise, the Remain campaign’s scaremongering about the dangers of leaving the EU was far more prominent than any enumeration of the benefits of membership.

I know politics has always been a bear pit. Confrontation is the nature of the beast. Yet it is vital to keep in sight the underlying truth that the UK collectively is far more than the sum of its parts. Split its countries or its society apart and we all suffer.

I wish I could have said the same for the EU. Sadly I can’t. The direction it has chosen is one which benefits just some citizens at the almost unbearable expense of others.