I’ve been particularly struck by the media’s attention on Sunderland following the EU referendum. Even the New York Times has cast its view on a city most US citizens will never even have heard of.
Despite being the first to rubber stamp Brexit, my city hasn’t always been so insular in its views. Time travel back a thousand years or so and a man called Bede, born in an area now known as Monkwearmouth, was emerging as a progressive scholar. The impact of this 7th Century religious man on global thinking cannot be underestimated. His contribution to the accessibility of Latin and Greek teachings to his fellow Anglo-Saxons helped indoctrinate English Christianity. Despite this liberal heritage, Sunderland’s decision to vote leave is both regressive and at odds with the clear EU benefits to the city. As Bede himself once wrote: “All the ways of this world are as fickle and unstable as a sudden storm at sea.”
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