Shropshire Star

Shropshire Star comment: Vital that corrosive divisions are healed

With the exception of the English football team, 2018 was far from being a vintage year.

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Uncertainties surrounding the NHS, political turmoil affecting all of Britain’s major parties and the ongoing strife surrounding Brexit meant many headlines were negative.

It was a year when the occasional positive – a royal wedding – was met with something not so positive, constant tabloid carping about Meghan and the like.

And though we basked in beautiful sunshine during a long, hot summer, let’s not forget the damage caused by the Beast from the East, which caused some business closures as well as misery for workers, residents and schools.

Though we might reflect on the year just passed with a glass half full outlook, there’s no denying that 2018 featured more difficulties – many of them still unsolved – than it did solutions. And as we head into 2019 it is a time to put the past behind us and make renewed efforts towards a brighter, more harmonious future.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged the nation to overcome the struggles and divisions of recent years in his New Year’s sermon. And irrespective of one’s religious beliefs, or non-religious beliefs, that is a message to which we can all cling.

For the overwhelming issue in recent years has been division. From the struggle for Scottish independence to the election of a right-wing American president, from the rise of the Far Right across Europe and war in parts of the Middle East to the gradual disintegration of Europe; recent years have seen a fragmentation of a world order that had maintained relative peace and harmony since the end of the Second World War.

And of course, the debate over Britain’s future relationship with the EU has become increasingly hostile.

Norms that we had once taken for granted have been shattered as opinions polarised. Liberal views that had held sway for some decades were swept aside and uncertainties introduced.

The traditional orthodoxies disappeared and new extremes held sway. Irrespective of your position on either side of the political divide people were pushed into increasingly tribal positions.

As entrenched opinions grew, opportunities to conciliate disappeared. Bitterness grew, hostilities intensified and opportunities to come together for our greater interest disappeared.

Brexit remains the chief difficulty facing our generation, just as the financial crash dominated headlines 10 years ago and caused years of struggle and loss.

We would be wrong to imagine Brexit is a policy that will only affect the rich south or eastern counties where immigration has reached untenable levels: it will affect each and every one of us right here.

So far, Parliament has failed in its public duty to deliver on the referendum and find a solution that both upholds the will of the people and also delivers in the national interest. There will be movement in 2019, as the clock ticks down, though all the signs point to increased rancour and division.

Locally, our health service, our police service and our sense of community remain under pressure. The NHS appears to lurch from crisis to crisis; our police service is underfunded as crime and fear of crime rises. And our sense of community is under threat from anti-social behaviour and a failing of public services.

Against such a backdrop, it is up to all of us – and to our leaders – to show greater unity. This year must be a year for healing divisions, for working collaboratively and for taking decisions that benefit the many and not the few.