As I sat watching BBC1's 'The One Show' fronted by Alex Jones and Matt Baker coming from Buckingham Palace showing young people from the Commonwealth who had done good deeds I thought what's the point? Not that I was mocking those young people far from it as obviously they will enjoy meeting the Queen and the whole pomp and circumstance.
Before the European Union which we will be leaving in 2019 there was The British Empire and its Commonwealth. The empire has long gone but its memory continues in the form of the Commonwealth consisting of former nations that were in the British Empire.
The question has to be asked what's the point of this behemoth from another age and is it time this organisation was disbanded?
If we can leave the EU isn't it time the Commonwealth was gone too?
The UK for better or worse is leaving the European Union in 2019 and that is an irrevocable certainty whether you voted for leave or for staying. In the past, I believed the European Union was the UK's future and the Commonwealth a hangover from the days of the empire was the past but now this dream that I had is unravelling fast.
People moan about the numbers of Eastern Europeans and those from Western Europe also that have come to our shores however the majority of immigrants coming to the UK are from outside of the European Union.
Many of those non-European immigrants come from Commonwealth countries like India, Pakistan, Australia and Canada.
The 3 million or so European immigrants that have made their home here were uncertain about their future as the UK begins talks about leaving the EU. Theresa May has given these people some hope saying they can stay here after residing here for 5 years and the same hope appears to have been given to Brits living in the EU approximately 1 million.
Britain cannot be the country it was
When the 53% voted to leave the EU because they did not want European immigrants here or because they wanted Britain to be a nation ruling itself again what was in their mind? Did they think the UK would go back to the glory days of Britain being a world power again like in the days of the Empire and Commonwealth?
Did they think the UK would return to some pure British nation before the immigration of any kind from anywhere (if that nation ever existed at all) happened? Historically if that was one of their motivations for voting to leave the European Union then they are sadly mistaken many of today's white Brits in their ancestry will have had ancestors that were once immigrants or migrants from Europe.
A new UK will have to emerge once we have gone from the EU and we will trade with the Commonwealth but they will never be like the trade we had with the EU. Let us hope we retain a large chunk of trade with the EU because Commonwealth nations will never come close to matching the EU on that front.
