Patriotism and the petit bourgeois

The Guardian made much of the plans at Jaguar-Land Rover to close for a week at the end of March  to overcome Brexit chaos. We haven't left -- but the plant is still closing for a week says the Guran . Nothing to do with a way to limit overproduction of their increasingly unpopular diesels: 

“We knew we had to take reactive action to mitigate the potential effect of a bad Brexit or no-deal Brexit. Suppliers need notice to get their parts across to us. It was a prudent thing to do.”

 The headline is not enirely misleading:

Jaguar Land Rover begins Brexit shutdown as sales fall

But we have to wait until the end of the piece to get this: 

In March alone, sales fell 8.2%, mainly because of an 11.4% decline at Land Rover, while Jaguar recorded a 0.2% dip...The carmaker blamed weaker demand in China, whose economy has slowed sharply. JLR sales in China slumped 34%, while sales in Europe were down 4.5% because of uncertainty around the future of diesel vehicles and regulatory changes.

But the prize today goes to the Times's C Foges (behind a subscription wall alas), preparing already for a new Referendum and worrying. Remain will have to make a better case:

If that second vote comes, Remain must be ready to remedy the mistake made last time around: leaving all the patriotic tunes to Leave....the stereotypes have been set. In the red, white and blue corner are the Brexit patriots with a big-hearted love for Britain and unshakeable belief in what this country can do. In the blue and gold corner we have the Remain rationalists, rather wet creatures who spend more time in the Dordogne than outside the M25, who prefer brie to cheddar and fizzy foreign lager to real ale; who are, in the prime minister’s poisonous phrase, “citizens of nowhere”. Allegedly we are happy to condemn Britain to an eternity as a “vassal state” as long as the cheap Polish cleaners keep coming and our quarterly merlot run to Calais isn’t disturbed. Supposedly we care not for our nation but for ourselves, wishing to protect our gilded lives as beneficiaries of globalisation rather than its victims.

Well -- these stereotypes need addressing and countering. What does Foges propose to do about this? Nothing -- she attacks Leavers again:

The trouble is, much of it is drawn from a cartoon version of our past: Britain sweeping the globe with our empire; Britain standing alone against Hitler; Britain’s Boudica Margaret Thatcher winning all those battles in Brussels. In the version of our past used by the Brexiteers all the United Kingdom needed to succeed was a certain bulldog spirit, a dogged determination that can be traced back through the Iron Lady and the Blitz Eastenders to the intrepid pioneers of empire. If only we had more of this spirit, they cry, then Brexit could be the curtain-opener to Britain’s renaissance as a global power. As one particularly annoying placard I saw hoisted by a Leave activist said, “BELEAVE IN BRITAIN”....Leaving the EU runs counter to this spirit [shown in 'willing to work with others']. Whether liberal, free-trading Leavers like it or not, it would signal to the world that we are a nation in retreat. How dare Brexiteers claim that those who wish to remain in the EU simply lack the requisite belief in our country?

It is particularly annoying, that slogan, isn't it? No witty remarks!

And then to make a personal case to convince all the undecided:

No, Brexiteers do not have the monopoly on patriotism....Similarly, I do not doubt that Britain will survive Brexit, but it is because I love and revere this country that I pitch my aspirations for it a little higher than mere survival. I don’t want us to survive: I want us to thrive and lead and influence...I do believe in Britain. I believe that no country in the world is better than ours. No country has our particular mix of benevolence, humour, creativity, culture, economic dynamism, social conscience and global connectedness [except for Leave voters, of course]...  This last one — connectedness — is vital. For I also believe that British success has rested not on grit’n’guts alone but on a canniness in geopolitical affairs; being wise about how to maximise our friendships and our reach. It was with a spirit of international community that we nurtured the Commonwealth after empire. It was co-operation with our allies that ultimately won the war. It was closeness to the Continent that helped lure global companies to our shores in the 1980s.[well yes -- but who has benefited is the issue --still not addressed]

Good luck with that thinly disguised strategic sentimental patriotism with its cartoonish visions of the metropolitan middle classes having agreeable dinner parties with amusing foreigners.