Help Is On The Way

When I saw British Sea Power play the night before the EU referendum in 2016, their anthem of welcome and tolerance, Waving Flags, raised the roof and the hopes of those of us keen to embrace the continuing spirit of acceptance at the ballot box the next day. We all know how that worked out.

Three years on, at the Con Club in Lewes last night, it was a rare outing for the lead track from 2011's Valhalla Dancehall album that seemed to catch the political zeitgeist as Yan spat out the chorus "I just don't know/Who's In Control" with a mixture of genuine anger and confusion. Not that anyone can provide an answer in these troubled times but at least a British Sea Power gig in a small sweaty club afforded me the cathartic opportunity to drink beer, dance and bellow along in my own bewilderment.

With a crystal clear sound, the band served up their special mix of the raucous and the tender. Remember Me and No Lucifer were rowdy and the appearance of Ursine Ultra, the dancing bear, and Noble's stage climbing added a chaotic dimension to proceedings. The highlights of the set, for me, were two more recent songs: A Light Above Descending and Praise For Whatever were passionate and poignant, the latter being the outstanding track from 2017's Let The Dancers Inherit The Party album with an outro reminiscent of Bear from 2010's Zeus EP.

The rousing finale of The Great Skua, with an EU flag being waved in the mosh pit, was life-affirming, as always; but I had probably already taken most comfort from the optimistic refrain, "Help is on the way", in set opener, Machineries of Joy. Until that help arrives, at least we have British Sea Power.

Welcome In

With my anxiety over the EU referendum reaching fever pitch, what I really needed to do on the eve of polling day was get an early night. What I did instead was go to the best small venue in Britain (as voted by the NME), have a skin full of Sussex Seacider and listen to rousing anthemic music that celebrates the heritage and diversity of our island life.

The mighty British Sea Power rolled into the excellent Tunbridge Wells Forum last night as part of a series of dates to road test new material. Despite seeing the band many times in recent years, I did not see them at all last year - and how I have missed them. Opening with the title track from 2013’s Machineries of Joy album, they immediately had the sold out crowd on their side. With all six band members on the tiny stage, there was no room for bears or robots but there was still some space for their customary foliage.

Seven or eight new tracks were aired and, although Yan did not introduce them, we had been promised numbers with working titles typical of the band, such as Electrical Kittens, Telstar II, Tropical Banana and Kugelschreiber Hotdog; that eclecticism was also reflected in the more electronic elements of the songs. It was not all new material, though: in a two-hour set there was plenty of room for BSP favourites.

Remember Me, voted one of the top ten songs of the 21st century by 6 Music listeners, was greeted rapturously by the audience and, when Hamilton took over vocal duties from his brother, we got rousing versions of No Lucifer and Carrion. By this time things were starting to get hot and sweaty - there was moshing, stage front - as the band ramped up the tempo. Old live favourite, The Spirit of St. Louis, even led to accusations from keyboardist Phil Sumner that Noble was rocking out like Guns ‘N’ Roses.

The song I desperately wanted to hear was Waving Flags and, of course, British Sea Power did not disappoint. This inspiring hymn to tolerance – “welcome in/from across the Vistula/ you've come so very far” - with its open-minded attitude, had the audience bellowing along with arms aloft. At this momentous, and somewhat poisonous, point in our history it was life-affirming to hear European immigration validated rather than demonised.

Earlier in the evening, support was provided by ex-Hefner frontman Darren Hayman as part of his audio-visual project, Thankful Villages. Thankful, or blessed, villages are places where every soldier returned alive from World War I. There are 54 in England and Wales and he is visiting each one to make a piece of music and a short film. With just a guitar and some spoken audio for accompaniment, he played a short set of poignant and tender melodies celebrating rural life.

Fear and Loathing

Just over a week ago, a colleague and I were handing out Labour In For Britain leaflets outside the village hall before an EU referendum hustings meeting, one of a series of debates organised by the local MP in the run up to the vote. Rural Sussex is not natural Labour territory but most people politely took a leaflet; some were actually enthusiastic, a few declined and two were downright hostile. The first gave us a Tebbitesque "On yer bike"; the second, an elderly woman on two walking sticks, took me aback when she snapped, "No! You've come here mob-handed because you're scared you're going to lose!" Scowling and muttering, she hobbled off into the hall.

In the meeting, after pitches by Leave and Remain speakers, the MP invited comments from the floor. Amidst a succession of muddled points about sovereignty, the likelihood of Turkey joining the EU and the veracity of the £350 million per week figure, the elderly woman made an aggressive contribution of telling clarity: she wanted to leave the EU to keep out immigrants, to reduce the threat of ISIS and to take back control. It was easy to recognise its source: a lethal cocktail of tabloid rhetoric, vintage Boris Farage and plain fear. What she said encouraged others: a young woman, who confessed she was not old enough to vote, bemoaned the loss of the British Empire and laid this at the EU's door.

The next day, I became involved in a debate on social media (not something I usually do) with a Leave campaigner who had used an image of British servicemen returning from the war in support of an out vote. I pointed out to him that the EU existed to ensure that there would never be a European theatre of war again and my late dad, who had lost his mum in the Blitz and then been involved in the bombing of Dresden, was a passionate supporter of the European project having seen at first hand the suffering on both sides. I was told to bugger off and that people like me were giving away British freedom.

A few days later, I overheard my children discussing the referendum debates they were having in their classes at school. They were talking about the minority of kids who supported 'out' and the reasons they had given; immigrants, and the need to "keep them out", was the constant justification. My oldest two, aware enough to not want to stereotype the outers, were skirting around the issue. It fell to the youngest to articulate what they were all thinking: "All the mean kids are supporting Leave," she said.

Mulling over all of this the night before the murder of Jo Cox, my wife and I were puzzled that we seemed to have reached a point where we are living in a climate of bitterness and resentment. Politics had clearly failed a section of the electorate but that did not entirely explain the quick conversion to anger and hatred; sections of our own community seemed to be bound up in a straitjacket of fear and loathing.

When politicians talk of immigration it is either to fudge or inflame. The worst examples of print media - The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Express - have been doing only the latter. When I spoke at the hustings meeting, I said that immigration is a two-way street: there are 2 million Britons living and working in Europe and, like it or not, we are living in a smaller world; the NHS would not have survived without immigration and our ageing workforce needs migrants more than ever. I was applauded by some for my comments but when I looked across at the elderly woman she was snarling not smiling.

There is a need for honesty about immigration, not undeliverable promises and certainly not the hysterical hyperbole that some politicians and journalists have been peddling of late - they should hang their heads in utter shame. Jo Cox's assassin had seemingly flirted with neo-Nazism for 20 years; something made him violently snap now and the febrile atmosphere of our current culture and politics cannot be discounted in this.

Together We Stand

To hear Jeremy Corbyn speak about the European Union as a force for social justice yesterday evening was to remind me that, up until now, the debate over the EU referendum has largely been a battle of swinging dicks, trading hypothetical consumer testing points. In a race to appeal to the electorate’s lowest common denominator – what’s in it for me? – it was refreshing to hear a high-profile politician outline what is in it for us.

Corbyn was sharing the stage at St. Mary in the Castle in Hastings with Judy Rogers, a local Labour councillor, and Shakira Martin a vice-president of the National Union of Students. Their compelling stories underlined Corbyn’s point that other voices were not being heard in, what has boiled down to, a playground spat between two Old Etonians.

Rogers outlined the struggle, throughout her career, to achieve pay equality with her male counterparts and Martin, a young black single-parent who was involved in Corbyn’s leadership campaign last year, spoke of the power of education to transform the lives of people in her position.

Taking his cue from these confident women, Jeremy Corbyn outlined a positive view of the EU and defined Britain’s Tory government as the real institution of restrictive self-interest. Rather than focus on business, he proposed a vision for a reformed EU that builds on the great strides in social justice already made in the areas of employment rights, human rights, climate change and air and sea pollution.

It was a message that is not heard often enough in the referendum debate as it fails to permeate a mainstream media obsessed with personalities, conspiracies and splits. Corbyn refuses to play that game and instead invokes the spirit of Robert Tressell by emphasising that we can only move forward if we work together, and that we will only go backwards if we stand in isolation.