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Diary Attila the Stockbroker: Back from Germany to the battle of Britain

JUST finished a frenziedly busy period of gigs. Charged off to Germany with my band a couple of weeks ago for our last tour before Brexit, cherishing the ease with which we navigated the customs areas and wondering what will be in store next time.

The general view of Brexit among my radical friends and contacts over there is one of bemusement, mixed with unease and anger and that seems to be across the board. Most people think Cameron’s decision to hold a referendum was ludicrous, the voters’ decision to leave was unfriendly and uninformed and everything that has happened since has been a self-harming clusterfuck.

My residual Lexitism disappeared in a welter of concern and fellow-feeling as hardened anti-fascists told me of the boost Britain’s Leave vote has given to the German far right. I literally didn’t meet a single person who thinks that Britain leaving the EU is a good idea.

These people aren’t the “bankers and global elites” of Brexiteer mythology, they are long-time left-wing punks, socialists and anarchists. The fact that an anarchist thinks the EU is a good thing compared to the possible alternatives is a good indication of the kind of world we’re living in right now.

The tour itself was one of the best I have ever done in Germany. Turnouts up, partly encouraged no doubt by my unsureness about whether the band would ever return if the customs regulations and bureaucracy comes back and a swathe of young people alongside long-term fans.  As always over there the whole experience was great fun but under the surface there was a real sense of crisis unfolding, of dark forces on the horizon, of a need to hold together.

At our sold-out gig in Berlin there were quite a few people who first saw me there between 1986 and 1989 at the Political Song Festival in the old GDR. “There’s a lot of people around now who really think that all things considered life in the GDR was better,” said my old friend Robert.

I have heard that so many times over the years and I’ve heard the opposite too. The split is fairly clear. People who valued the economic and social security and dependability of everyday life under “actually existing socialism” are in the former camp, those who valued the greater political freedom after 1989 and were happy to strike out on their own in the latter.

And it is some of those in the former camp, who were told that socialism had failed them and then experienced the way capitalism did, who are heading to the far right.

As in Britain. Immediately after my return last week I headed to the north east, via a thoroughly enjoyable Labour fundraiser in Rugby, for a Rock Against Racism benefit in Newcastle. There I met my old marra Ronnie and his friend Roy and heard the other side of the Brexit story — of the thousands of north-easterners,  hearts ripped from their communities by pits and shipbuilding industries closed, who voted for Brexit in a howl of rage against the Establishment.

They threaten to leave Labour in droves – if they have not already done so – should Corbyn back a second referendum.

It’s easy to say that their anger is misdirected, that it was the Tories, not the EU, who closed the mines and the shipyards down, that places like Hartlepool have received stacks of EU money to help them rebuild.

But the vote wasn’t about logic, it was about sticking one to the parliamentary elite and Roy told me stories of workmates gathering round with their phones and lapping up Tommy Robinson’s divisive nonsense.
 
After a Sunday afternoon gig in Gateshead, a lot of enjoyable cycling and another fundraiser for my mate John Garvani’s Labour election campaign in Leeds on Monday, it was home via another Brighton defeat at Leicester.

Both the Seagulls and Britain have a battle on their hands in the next few weeks.  I live in hope.

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