Thread by @jonworth

We need to talk about blame and responsibility when it comes to #Brexit - from a pro-EU / pro-Remain point of view.

Most of the ongoing soul-searching since #GE2019 has focused on blame - who is to blame for wanting the election in the first place, who is to blame for Remain parties' lousy election result?

Look further back and it is then a question of who was to blame UK side for the poor period of negotiation leading to the Withdrawal Agreement (meaning what was promised in the referendum wasn't delivered).

Further back still there is the blame for those who allowed Leave to win in the first place, and the blame that the campaign was probably conducted fraudulently. Or that 52% of the population on a 72% turnout isn't an adequate mandate - that is to blame.

And before all of that there's Cameron to blame for holding the referendum in the first place, and the systemic unfairness of the First Past the Post election system and the limited mandate for Brits overseas to blame for 42% of the vote giving the Tories a majority.

And then now all the well of blame on the UK side has been run dry, many pro-Remain people shift their focus to the EU.

Save us from our own predicament! Give us associate EU citizenship!

No.

Stop.

When faced with a political outcome you do not like, the responsible reaction is to work to change it.

It is not to seek to engineer a way around the problem, leaving the problem essentially unchanged.

The problem is the UK's political, party and democratic systems. These are all broken. First Past the Post is an abomination. The House of Lords is an abomination. That the UK doesn't have properly codified constitution is an abomination.

The UK's messy devolution, and its lack of clear referendum rules, are an abomination. The UK's political parties are authoritarian abominations. The party finance and campaign rules are not fit for purpose - also an abomination.

I do not need to go on.

The responsible route is to work to change *all* of that.

And we each need to bear our own share of responsibility for the predicament we made up until 2016, and post referendum, and learn personally and collectively from that.

Did I do enough pre-referendum in the UK? No, clearly I did not - I only focused on voter registration of overseas Brits in 2016, I did not campaign with all my might.

Did I do enough to keep the Labour Party on a pro-EU track? Clearly not - I was on the board of the Labour Movement for Europe, but I quit the Labour Party in 2013 and joined the German Grüne.

Did I do enough prior to the UK General Elections in 2017 and 2019? In 2017 no, in 2019 perhaps - with a rearguard action with regard to tactical voting.

Did I go to enough marches and protests about Brexit? No I did not.

Did I expend enough intellectual effort trying to *stop* Brexit rather than analyse it? No, certainly not. I was too much of a bystander, not enough of an advocate.

Over the long term - the two decades I have been politically active - have I done enough to make the case for the EU *on its own merits* in the UK? No, definitely not. I toned down my commitment to a federal EU because it was politically expedient.

Now don't get me wrong - there are good reasons why I did not engage in all of the above. We each have to pay attention to our mental wellbeing as individuals, and to the wellbeing of those close to us. We need to earn a living too. We each have our own limits.

But did I do enough? No.

And hence I take my share of the responsibility. Unreservedly and completely. I did my fair share of things *wrong*.

Is Brexit going to make my life more complex? Yes, definitely.

But there is no point blaming others for that predicament now. I will stoically cope with the administrative headaches as best I can, and draw the lessons I can to make sure I do better - politically - in future.

So what are you going to do next?

Keep blaming people? Or take your share of responsibility, draw strength from that, and do your best to make sure a mess of the scale of Brexit does not happen in future?

/ends