James O'Brien: Why The Queen Is Wrong To Say We Can Find Common Ground
25 January 2019, 12:51
The Queen urged the country to come together to find common ground. But James O'Brien explained why it won't be possible, thanks to the far-right.
In a rare speech understood to be referring to Brexit, Her Majesty said: "As we look for new answers in the modern age, I for one prefer the tried and tested recipes, like speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view; coming together to seek out the common ground; and never losing sight of the bigger picture."
But James had some examples of why there's no hope of that happening.
Speaking on his LBC show, he said: "There can't be any common ground. How can people who are not liars have common ground with liars? How can people who understand things have common ground with people who don't understand things?
I would love to be wrong, but common ground to me would be the national interest and given that the Brexit side of the argument are now arguing that we're deliberately damaging the national interest in the short term in the expectation of some unspecified and unguaranteed benefit in the distant future, how can anybody argue that that we can even share the national interest?
"When you have somebody like Suella Braverman and Chris Grayling publicly stating that we should press ahead with this policy proven to be the opposite in many cases of what the people who voted for it were promised, we should press ahead with delivering something that nobody voted for. Nobody voted for 'it might not be that bad after all' or 'it looks today like there might be some areas that some EU countries want to give us permission to carry on behaving as we behave now'. That's not a victory, that's a mitigation of a loss.
"So where's the common ground between people who aren't xenophobic and people who are xenophobic? Where's the common ground between people who applauded Nigel Farage's despicable Breaking Point poster hours before Jo Cox got murdered and people who believe that Jo Cox was murdered precisely because of far-right rhetoric and racist politicians? Where is the common ground?
"Where's the common ground between Gina Miller and the bloke who threatened to kill her and ended up in jail?. Where's the common ground between people who find sub-Nazi propaganda on posters despicable, disgusting and profoundly unBritish and people who cheer it while claiming to be patriotic?
"Where's the common ground, your Maj?"
