Let's build a stronger community

WHILE following the Brexit debate on Twitter, I was drawn to a blog by Gemma Rowbotham because it had hokey cokey in the title.

She made a good point about the divide between the Remain and Leave factions, but one paragraph really made me sit up and think.

Speaking as though from the Remain perspective, she wrote: 'But we're the intelligent ones? We're the ones with good jobs.

'How dare they have gone against us, those disgusting, bigoted, xenophobic, moronic, island-minded fools!'

She refers, of course to Brexit, but do her words not also encapsulate the extreme of the finance/non-finance division here in Guernsey?

How often have those on Your Shout been accused by 'the establishment' for bigoted, xenophobic, moronic comments and effectively of accusing them of being 'island-minded' in a derogatory context?

In the same way that Brexit has demonstrated that the UK is divided into Them and Us, and we have seen where that can take a community, is it time for us to stop and look at our own divisions and heal them before catastrophic decisions are made?

Our liberal-minded States members speak endlessly about equality, integration and fairness for all in the community. The current Education debate, for instance, extols the virtue of all-ability schools in bringing communities together, but we look at England torn asunder after decades of all-ability teaching.

Is the lesson to be learned from the referendum that the break-up of the community is the greatest threat? The UK is on the verge of tearing itself apart – something I don't think I ever considered a possibility when I was at school.

Everyone does not have to be 'equal' in a community, but everyone has to feel they are a part of the community. I may have my rose-coloured specs on, but I have this feeling we were more of a community here in the 1960s than we are today, despite all our new rights and 'freedoms'.

What has this got to do with the business pages?

Well, for our island to prosper in the great storm of uncertainty which inevitably is going to follow the UK vote, our industries and government are going to have to be nimble and fleet of foot.

Change is the only constant and the speed of change has just moved up a gear.

Here on the border between the EU and the UK, we will find ourselves between a rock and a hard place and will arbitrage as best we can to reap a reward. The States is coincidentally better staffed with deputies to face the future, which is a good thing.

But don't forget the community.

In all that we do going forward let's make sure there is something in it for everyone and take great pains to explain that to all who will listen. Let's build a stronger community and not widen the divisions.

If Brexit achieves just that for us, then perhaps it will be enough to make it a successful decision after all.