Over the last few days a significant number of Mods were due to arrive in Brighton and Hove to celebrate one of the historical beach locations that their forbears came to in the 1960s placing their group identity well and truly on the map, helped of course by the Quadrophonia film which I first watched in the Cinema at the end of East Street, a few feet away from where some of the segments where filmed. The glamorous side of such a violent events means that many of us can enjoy the sight of the scooter riders even though some of us would have intuitively been Rockers rather than Mods when we were growing up if we would have had to choose. It is clear that some events and traditions which may be the sources of great conflict at a given moment do not become embedded in history in a damaging and permanent way. I know several people including some currently in their 20’s who have adopted the Mod tradition, but it is entirely a matter of peaceful culture for them and I am not even sure if they would be aware of the Bank Holiday references. On the other hand having visited Northern Ireland in the early 1980’s and met with people on both sides of the conflict including one man interned in the Maze Prison, it was clear then that the anger and bitterness towards the British from some and the passionate desire to be identified as British by others was hard to imagine could ever be resolved. Although the spectacular result of work by John Major and Tony Blair along with Bernie Ahern assisted by many hundreds of people whose names will never be publicly remembered, led to the Good Friday agreement, the fact is that the peace in Ireland is clearly still very fragile compared to the behaviour of Mods on our seafront. The reality is that people who have not seen or understood such matters are capable of ignoring the risks of getting things wrong as we know from recent debates over the Irish border. Somewhere in the middle of these two examples is the tension between those from a fishing background and those from a farming background which I was unaware of until I met with a group of people in Bognor Regis about 15 years ago. Another similar historic yet active tension exists between Liverpool and Manchester or in other settings such as towns where religious views and support for certain football teams are aligned in a way that enables mistrust being conflated with something that should be just good fun.

A few days ago a senior Labour Politician spoke of possible riots in our nation if there was to be a referendum on the issue of how we would leave the EU. In one sense it seems sensible for Politicians to prevent decisions that may lead to conflict, so if he is right, then it would be easy to argue to avoid another vote. However it is obvious from the debates on TV and on social media that there are some people in our nation who have been very angry since 6^th June 1975 when nearly 70% of the voters chose to agree with the Government of the day and remain in the EEC. It seems vital as our Government approaches the October EU summit and we are being presented with a multitude of documents that tell us how badly things could be if they fail to achieve an agreement, that the sense of anger on the streets from people on both sides of the Referendum result is not ignored by any of our national leaders. It is clearly not acceptable for Politicians to refer to potential riots and on that basis to simply hold back from a democratic process. The men and women who are paid by us, to represent us, must be willing to attempt to deal with problems that go much deeper than a bit of superficial concern. It may seem perfectly acceptable for some of them to use radio and TV studios along with their own social media accounts to argue for one thing or another to satisfy their own agendas. However riots on the Streets, if significantly more than a few people throwing deckchairs at one another on a beach after a days drinking, must surely be taken seriously. The potential rioters may be persuaded not to get violent as long as there is no referendum, but what happens next time they are unhappy with our political decisions? What happens if there are some other people who will hold riots if we depart from the EU? These questions must be considered by MPs on both sides of the EU discussions.