MAKING THE CONNECTION is a painting with a pro-Europe theme that can be seen on my website.  www.davidcrew.org

It was shown in the Rye Society of Artists Summer Exhibition of 2018.

The setting for this painting is an imagined ‘Halt’ on the Zugspitzbahn, the railway line that makes its way from the Bavarian town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen towards the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain.

‘Making the Connection’ is my response to the impending loss of our European Union citizenship and its associated benefits and freedoms, due to the result of the referendum held on 23rd June 2016.  I could have made a painting that was angrier and more despairing given my determinedly pro-European position and certainly there is an element of sadness, here represented by the figure looking down the track, wondering perhaps “where do we go from here?”

However, I felt that I also wanted to try and convey the importance of our European historical and cultural connections by recalling some of the inspirational places I have visited.  I chose to do this by ‘applying’ stickers to my much travelled suitcase, which I recall was made in Denmark and bought in Brighton.

There are also pictorial references on the suitcase to a station (the Eibsee) on the Zugspitzbahn at bottom left, and at top right to how the landscape would appear were the painting to be extended upwards, green slopes giving way to mountains.

The images on the suitcase tell as much of the story as I felt was necessary in the context of the painting.  There may of course be more stickers on the opposite side of the suitcase - the spectator is free to imagine which locations these might represent!

DC

January 2019.

• Look beyond the Irish backstop problem: The May `deal’ leads inexorably to a `vassal state’ OR a `crash out’ deferred to 2020.
• The EU27 has made it plain that it will maintain its `autonomy of decision making’: ask EEA/EFTA/Switzerland what this means in practice.
• A Government of National Unity (GNU) must ask EU27 for a timetable extension to work thoroughly through the options. Then Parliament decides OR puts it back to the people.
• The GNU would have two prime tasks:
  1. Set up a Parliamentary Commission of the whole of Parliament to examine in full detail all the implications of each option that commands any reasonable support in the House of Commons. If there is no clear `winner’ in the House voting, then Parliament should ask the people to choose between the top two options – having sent each elector a summary of the Parliamentary Commission’s comparison of the two options.
  2. Begin the national healing: identify the areas where EU migration has deprived the indigenous population of proper access to public services; start a crash programme of sorting it – funded by a temporary `solidarity’ tax surcharge until 2020 (Note: 1p on income tax for four years = £20 billion).
• Who should lead this GNU? The Father of the House – Ken Clarke – has an unrivalled breadth of experience in 24 years in government/50 years in the House. Mrs May should step down and recommend the Queen to call on him to form a GNU. That would be a fitting answer to Her Majesty’s recent call to find “common ground”.