Why Hugh Grant is (partly) to blame for us leaving the EU

NEWSPAPERS; European federalists; Brit nationalists; English people; Welsh people; writers; posh people; poor people; thick people; clever people; older people; middle-aged people; nice people; nasty people; freetraders; communists - everyone in that great, glorious kaleidoscope of contradictory humanity who made up the 52% Leave majority (or infuriated them) is ultimately responsible for Brexit. But personally, I blame Hugh Grant. He might, in the strictest sense of responsibility, not be personally culpable for what may yet turn out to be the greatest deception ever perpetrated on the peoples of these islands (or not, as the case may be).

A court of law might think the legal case stretched the true definition of beyond all reasonable doubt. But I still blame him. One of the biggest questions for anyone trying to understand what on earth happened in the UK on June 23 last year is what brought together the colourful coalition who constituted the 52%.

The 48% are a marginally more homogenous group. If the polling is accurate you would find most of them if you rounded up the young, the university educated and the Scots together with everyeone who has ever bought the Guardian newspaper. But what united the 52%? The idea posed by the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman is that it is our misunderstood but often repeated understanding of our history and the identity we’ve chiselled from it.

And when I say our history at the risk of infuriating every proud Welsh nationalist reading this column, I mean the version the vote on June 23 would suggest was understood by most people in England and Wales.

And that excludes the Scots and the Welsh of west and north-west Wales who defied the demographic trends of the rest of the country to vote against Brexit.

Sadly, Mr Rachman doesn’t blame Hugh Grant. But for me that misconception of history and identity he refers to is best summed up by the speech made by the elegantly-touseled-haired one’s character (the Prime Minister) in writer Richard rom-com Love Actually.

The one where he’s so miffed that his secretary had shared a moment with the US President (Billy Bob Thornton) that he launches into a paean to our great and glorious history.

“I fear that this has become a bad relationship; a relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to, erm... Britain,” he says.

“We may be a small country, but we’re a great one, too. The country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter. David Beckham’s right foot. David Beckham’s left foot, come to that. And a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. Curtis’ And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I will be prepared to be much stronger.

“And the President should be prepared for that.”

Swap America for the EU and you’ve arguably got the sentiment that inspired most Brexiteers to the polls.

In this fantasy, we’re David giving the great mighty Goliath in Brussels a jolly good smack on the chin.

Anyone who mentions that Theresa May’s negotiators now have one immense challenge on their hands to make sure that this does not turn into a jolly good smack on the chin for the Welsh industries that are dependent on trade with the EU - and for the banking sector that funds large chunks of our public services is just a whingeing Remoaner. The point Mr Rachman makes is that the idea underpinning this conception of our history, is of the UK as a tiny David taking on the giants of the world. And he argues that this is a nonsense. We remember Drake routing the Spanish Armada; we remember Churchill standing firm against the Nazis; we remember Henry VIII telling the Pope to get lost because he was feeling randy.

But we don’t remember Amritsar; we don’t remember the concentration camps we set up in the Boer War; we don’t remember the East India Company waging wars in our name to protect its trading rights, seize territory and keep the Chinese hooked on opium.

We conveniently forget that for much of our history, we have been the great unreasonable Goliath and that expanding our trade with the rest of the world as a much diminished power within Europe is going to involve trying to paper over some decidedly dodgy history.

It’s not like we’re talking about two different eras. The speeches made by Winston Churchill that are the cornerstones of our identity as plucky champions of freedom were made just as the empire in India was finally crumbling. World War II ended in 1945. India became independent and went through partition in 1947.

Would it make a difference if the people of these islands remembered all of their history instead of the parts of it that help dramatists write cocklewarming speeches?

Since the EU itself was founded out of a desire to subsume a certain type of competitive national identity, while preserving a cultural identity, it’s not too far fetched to say that it would.

All those people who predict the end of the EU and the collapse of the eurozone forget that Europe was scarred by the conflicts of the 20th century, by seeing foreign flags over their capitals and by the shame of some of their own actions.

It is that scarring that keeps the EU together in a bond of communal healing.

We’ve never dealt with our shame as an island. We choose to forget it and remember our history through appallingly cheesy speeches that we celebrate again on their anniversaries and raise a few quid for charity at the same time.

Mr Grant - you’ve a lot to answer for.