Leaving Fortress Britian

The last time we traveled to Dublin we the people of this little minded land had yet to make the disastrous decision to harden our borders. A pathetic collective hissy fit that means that making a simple trip through Holyhead to Dublin now requires passing through an internal border.

What possible benefit can an internal border have for citizens?

Presumably there is some small logic in the minds of all those little Englanders who not only voted to leave the European project but smirking and smug in their victory bullied and dragged the populations of three unwilling nations along with them. Presumably it was about more than just creating opportunities to generate revenues from taxation and arbitrage for an unscrupulous and greedy few.

But the result is nothing short of embarrassing. The tawdry assemblage of repurposed shipping containers deposited at the end of the car park at Holyhead ferry terminal to flog duty free booze from the pallets it was delivered on speaks volumes about that small logic—a logic of ``taking control'', a logic of me, me, me that can only function on the predicate of them, them, them.

What was it that those little Englanders believed in when they voted? What were they hoping for? Surely, even in spite of the comically mendacious campaigning by the the pro-Brexit lobby, surely no one was under the illusion that anyone other than tax collectors and smugglers would ever profit from hardening our transit borders with France and Ireland. Is it just that they are haunted by an atavistic fear of Johnny Foreigner? Does the mentality of ``NO BLACKS, NO IRISH'' still lurk sinister and unspoken—the attitudes expressed recently by some of our elected representatives seems to suggest that it might.

Maybe England's new borders are actually about protecting the world outside of them.