It was an outburst that initially made me laugh, such was the clumsiness, inaccuracy and frankly vaudeville nature of Ann Widdecombe’s rant at the European parliament. Having heard that she is unrepentant and will not apologize in the least for her pathetic performance that was so out-of-place in Strasbourg, I now not only feel embarrassed about being born in the same country as her, but also ashamed. Europe has just witnessed the return of British hooligans.
It’s a feeling that breaks my heart and one that I never thought that I could harbour. Since the EU referendum, I have read numerous Facebook posts relating how British citizens felt ashamed to be British. It was a feeling that I could not identify with.
Looking back, was I acting like a small child who keeps on loving his brutal father, who regularly comes home drunk from the local pub and throws insults and fists around the house? Or maybe I have come to realise that I have lost that feeling of Britishness – if there is such a feeling – so embedded in my veins. The UK has not only all but left the EU, but has also departed from my heart. It is as if my best friend from school has left me to live in a distant town. Yes, I can still see him but it won’t be like it was. We have had are differences though – I remember that “winter of discontent,” doing my homework in candlelight and queueing for hours in the pouring rain to buy a loaf of bread. Despite that, I shall miss him.
Ann Widdecombe’s outburst is a stark reminder that the void mentality belonging to football hooligans of the 80s and 90s is still alive and doing well in the back streets of our towns and the suburbs of our cities. It is reminiscent of the scenes of violence that I witnessed in the centre of the French town of Saint-Etienne, when England were knocked out of the 1998 World Cup by Argentina. Yes, they may well have been provoked, but the reaction of the England fans was nothing less than uncontrollable violence that has no place in our societies. England had lost, English supporters were frustrated and angry. They took it out on the streets of a French city, oblivious to the damage they were causing in a city centre that was mine at the time.
Ann Widdecombe has rampaged through the corridors of a democratic institution to finally smash the shop window of European democracy.
The European parliament is also mine and Ann Widdecombe is no better than those drunken hooligans. She has rampaged through the corridors of a democratic institution to finally smash the shop window of European democracy by comparing it to the oppression of slaves. She is oblivious to the fact that the EU oppression she is so concerned about comprises workers’ rights, consumer protection, food safety and environmental protections, to name but a few. But maybe she doesn’t want that and is partisan of a deregulated country that lets no one in from the outside and cares for no one on the inside, not even the fish swimming in its waters.
Ann Widdecombe’s magnificent cri de coeur in the European Parliament neatly encapsulated the anger and frustration of so many Leave voters toward the European Union… – Daily Telegraph
Those who voted for Brexit may very well be angry and frustrated, but if as the Daily Telegraph claims, Ann Widdecombe’s outburst did “neatly encapsulate the anger and frustration of so many Leave voters,” there is cause for concern. Her words were not a “magnificent cri de coeur,” but a rancid and disturbing coup de gueule – nothing but a rant.
Donald Tusk was right after all – there is a place in hell for Ann Widdecombe who considers herself to be a clever politician but who made an elementary mistake when pretending to speak French. It may be just as well because if being born in her country has become an embarrassment and shameful to us all, being buried there is becoming a real problem due to lack of space.
