'I Grani', The Restaurant Bar In Nuoro With A Difference

A  few days ago there was a rather interesting article in the Sardinian newspaper 'La Nuova Sardegna' about 'I Grani' (this links to the article). It is one of the venues here in Nuoro that Maria Rita and I frequent probably as much as we do any other. We have celebrated anniversaries here, enjoyed drinks and meals with friends, and we also brought our Canadian friend Claire to eat here when she was celebrating her 50th birthday by holidaying in Italy. Anyway, as soon as I read the article I wanted to translate it into English. Sadly, thanks to a combination of covid and Brexit, there are hardly any British tourists visiting Central Sardinia nowadays but there are still still plenty of Dutch, Scandinavian and German tourists who come here during the season,  and will usually want to communicate in English. So hopefully this will go some way to helping this rather unique venue in Nuoro.

(Pochi giorni fa c'era un articolo piuttosto interessante nel giornale sardo 'La Nuova Sardegna' su 'I Grani', uno dei posti qui a Nuoro che ci piace frequentare, io e Maria Rita. Qui abbiammo festeggiato un anniversario, abbiamo mangiato e bevuto con i nostri amici, e abbiamo portato qui la nostra amica canadese, Claire, a mangiare quando lei festeggiava il suo cinquantesimo compleanno in vacanza in Italia. Comunque, non appena ho letto l'articolo volevo traddurlo in inglese. Tristemente, grazie al covid e alla Brexit, ci sono pochissimi turisti britannici che vengono in centro Sardegna questi giorni ma ci sono ancora i turisti olandesi, scandinavi e tedeschi che vengono qui durante la stagione, e di solito vogliono comunicare in inglese. E quindi, spero che questa traduzione possa aiutare questo ristorante e bar unico.)

English translation (traduzione in inglese):-

I Grani 

Enjoy eco-friendly menus to the rhythm of jazz (by Luca Urgu)

It's a place that you find immediately captivating. It entices you with its range of beverages and dishes, and then warms the cockles of your heart. You are guaranteed a warm and courteous welcome and a patient explanation, if needed, of the various drinks and dishes available. The soothing sound of soft jazz music in the background is no hindrance to those who may choose to bring their laptops along and use the venue as an office for a while. 'I Grani' has a spirit and identity that belongs to the territory of Sardinia and yet, at the same time, it has something which is cosmopolitan, colourful and it thrives on being environmentally friendly. The restaurant bar is in Nuoro's Via Corso Garibaldi but could just as easily be in Florence, London, Berlin or Porto. Their approach cuts across different styles and if it were a dress suit it might seem a little casual, perhaps already used, but once worn you find it fits perfectly and makes you feel at ease. The atmosphere is informal but the spirit of 'I Grani' was conceived with great care and a particular philosophy: inclusive (vegans and vegetarians will find their needs catered to) and with an eye on the world of food and drink that differs from the usual. For example, you find no coco cola here or any other multinational products. Instead, should you find something of a similar nature, it will be eco-friendly, a reminder that there is always an alternative way should you wish to follow it. There is no need to mince words about the fact that a focus on diversity, and the richness of the Sardinian territory, is the core belief of the owners, Elisa Pisanu and Stefano Mongillo, who have managed 'I Grani' for five years. They took over the business, with a minimum of fuss, from the previous owners, Paolo Bianchi and Daniela Chironi, who created 'I Grani' in the first place and who believed that their alternative approach could prove to be a winner. "They were brave enough to have the foresight to create something new for Nuoro. We wanted to continue in the same vein but, at the same time, make some personal adjustments with particular attention to the needs of our customers."

Elisa is originally from Nuoro, and after several years of study and work in Genova, where she met Stefano, she found that she was still suffering from the "disease of Sardinia" and her companion was happy for her to pass the disease on to him. In Nuoro the couple decided to open a place of their own in order to give expression to a sector that they were already familiar with. 'I Grani', already well established at that point, provided the ideal opportunity for their project. "We had already seen something that didn't convince us, but we took to this place immediately," said both Stefano and Elisa, who have really put their personal mark on the restaurant bar. It comes alive early in the morning with a selection of fresh pastries, whipped drinks, herbal teas and coffee for breakfast. Then there is the popular craft beer from Irgoli. Later in the day you can enjoy something from the lunch and dinner menus, renewed every day and with local products providing freshness (vegetables from Baronia, fish from the east coast of Sardinia). As far as is possible, they use 'zero kilometres' produce so that an absolute minimum of waste is involved. The chef reworks many traditional recipes and every day it is possible to choose between at least two first courses and a number of starters and second courses. The menus are written in chalk on to old-fashioned blackboards both inside and outside the bar. "We have to say that this hasn't been an easy period but things are moving forward. It has also been a period of great satisfaction because of the prompt and positive feedback we've had from our regular and loyal customers as well as from so many tourists who like to come here. We insist on the concept of 'being inclusive', which means people's pet dogs are welcome, we offer children something different, and we allow those with food allergies or who are vegetarians to find something which is to their liking." 

For now, in the era of covid, also at 'I Grani' (where in the summer season it is also possible to be served in the small square opposite the bar) they have to play it by ear. However, in the future, and one hopes as soon as possible, there are plans for some new initiatives involving music (Stefano has a past as a DJ), reading and book presentation. 

(Translation by Geoff Davis)

(Leggere l'articolo c'è un link vicino all'inizio del post)

How Well Do the British Know Sardinia?

There is a Facebook Page called Do the Brits know Sardinia? which hasn't posted anything for over two years now. It's a shame because it's an interesting question and, in my experience, the answer is pretty much an overwhelming 'no'! To be fair, it isn't entirely their fault. Sardinia rarely features in the British media and, if it does, it's on the holiday pages of newspapers and dominated by the delights of holidaying in the Costa Smeralda, as if no other part of Sardinia is worth visiting. Lots of Sardinians have told me that the Costa Smeralda, having been hijacked by the ultra wealthy and famous as a go-to destination, is not the real Sardinia. The city and region of Nuoro in Central Sardinia, where I've lived for 12 years now, is much closer to being the cultural heart of the island. At the same time, one musn't forget the south, the island's capitol city of Cagliari, and the delights of both the west and east coasts.

I must confess that when I first met my Sardinian wife I knew little about the island beyond the fact that Gianfranco Zola, the famous ex-Chelsea and Italian international footballer, was from Sardinia, and that the island was one of the world's 'blue zones', meaning it has a much larger proportion of centenarians per head of population, and that people tend to live longer here than is the average elsewhere. Among my friends and relatives, the only person who had heard of Nuoro was my brother, because he'd read the D.H Lawrence travel memoir, Sea and Sardinia, which mentions the town. So perhaps it's a bit unfair of me to criticise my compatriots for their ignorance of what the island is actually like but, I must confess, I have heard some pretty wild assumptions about it over the years!

One of the most common mistakes that the British make is about the size of the island. On one trip back to Bristol I remember the taxi driver, taking me from Bristol Airport to where I was staying, telling me that he thought that Sardinia was about the size of the Isle Of Wight. On another occasion a rather well spoken lady, who was staying in the same bed and breakfast accommodation as we were, in Filton in Bristol, was surprised to hear us say that Sardinia has three International Airports (Olbia, Alghero and Cagliari). "I wouldn't have thought Sardinia was big enough to have more than one airport," she said. When I told her that the land mass of Sardinia was slightly larger than that of the whole of Wales she, rather good-naturedly responded with, "I'm shutting up!" Yes, ignorance about the island and its size is fairly widespread. I remember reading a comment online in one of the British daily newspapers, at a time when Sardinia actually made the news globally because of a cyclone that hit the island in November 2013. It read something like "that's what happens on these tiny overpopulated islands". Well, obviously the commenter didn't know that Sardinian's population of about 1.6 million is less than that of the Greater Birmingham area in the UK and, as I've already written, on an island with a land mass slightly larger than that of the Wales. The map below, with its comparisons with Belgium and Denmark etc., gives a truly accurate impression of the size of the island. 

However, the size of the island isn't the only thing about Sardinia that escapes the knowledge of the British. I have had people ask me if Sardinia is in Portugal or, confusing it with Sicily, wanting to assert that it's the home of the mafia! Others have suggested to me that it must be rather backward. Well, Sardinia certainly isn't in Portugal and it has never been a home for mafiosi. It did, however, once have a problem with banditry, but that has all but disappeared now. As for being backward, well!!! As a part of the Italian state, all the mod cons that are available elsewhere are available in Sardinia and, from my experience, Sardinians seems to have a very good balance between retaining their old traditions and embracing the technology that comes with the modern world. There are other things which come to mind. One of my closest friends actually surprised me, because he seemed surprised, when I told him that Sardinians are no less likely to have their arms and legs adorned with tattoos than they are anywhere else. Yes, there are several tattoo parlours in Nuoro!

I often think of Sardinia as being like the Ireland of Italy. It's an island to the west of the Italian mainland (or 'continente' as the Sardinians themselves say) and, while they have acquired a lot of Italian traits, they have their own distinct culture and character which is somewhat different from most of Italy. And, as with Ireland, that can boast of the likes of BernardShaw, OscarWilde and Seamus Heaney, Sardinia has a very rich literary and cultural heritage. How many Brits know that the famous political philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, was from Ales in Sardinia? Or that the second woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature, in 1926, was Grazia Deledda, from Nuoro? Again, I must be fair, because I hadn't heard of Grazia Deledda before my wife told me about her, when we first met. Most of her books have only been translated into English comparitively recently, and haven't been read terribly widely outside of Italy, so she isn't anything like as well known in the English speaking world as perhaps she should be. 

Then there is the little known fact that Sardinia has it's own language, of which there are many different dialects, usually called 'Sardo' or 'Sardu'. I myself know little more than a few words and phrases in Sardo, mainly because my wife doesn't speak it (although she does understand it when spoken). During Italy's fascist period, the use of the Sardinian language was brutally suppressed and the unfortunate legacy of this was that a lot of parents, while conversing in Sardo with each other, would only speak Italian in the presence of their children. There has been a significant change in attitude over the last few decades, but still the language has no official status in public life. I've seen so many conflicting statistics about the percentage of Sardinians who speak Sardo that it is hard to know the truth. However, it would appear to be a much larger percentage of the population than the percentage of Welsh people who speak Welsh. 

If the Brits do think of Sardinia at all, they are likely to think of an island with lots of sunshine and beautiful beaches, but there is much more to the island than the sea and sunshine. It has a very long history, which dates back to neolithic times, and especially interesting is what is called the Nuragic Civilisation, the remains of which can be seen in many parts of the island in the form of buildings called Nuraghe. There is one such Nuraghi here in Nuoro. We've been lucky enough to visit a handful of the many architectural sites, which preserve many of the remants of Sardinia's ancient history, such as Tharros , on the west coast, and Serra Orrias, near Dorgali, which I wrote about several years ago. 

Tharros

In fact, Sardinia has a bit of something for everybody. Another little known fact about the island is that, there are four ski resorts. Several years ago we visited one of them for the day, on Mount Broncu Spinu, not far from the town of Fonni. Fonni is the highest town in Sardinia and a place where snowfall is common in winter and average temperatures are lower than a lot of places in the UK!

I have to confess that I cannot remember the island of Sardinia ever being mentioned during geography lessons in my schooldays and, as I've already written, there is scant coverage of the island in the British media. So the British can be forgiven for their general ignorance of the island. But then, how much do we know about any of the other main islands in the Mediterranean? It's such a shame that the charms of Sardinia are not more widely known, when you consider its history, rich culture and reputation for hospitality and quality food and wine. It has opened up more to tourism in the last two or three decades, with the rise of budget airlines, but it's still Spain and the Greek Islands that seem to be the more popular destinations for many British holidaymakers. In this post I could have written so much more about the island that I have come to call home, even if I've written far more than I intended to!

The Hostile Environment Reaches The Professor Of Bristolian

I am a Professor of Bristolian and even I am a victim of the UK Home Office's hostile environment. Let me explain. I am not really a Professor of Bristolian. I played such a character in the Terry's Bristolian Language Lessons DVD and afterwards I set up a Professor of Bristolian facebook page which became far more popular than I ever expected, allowing me to indulge my rather bizarre and surreal sense of humour to the full! So why am I a victim of the UK Home Office's hostile environment? Well, it's quite a long story. I nearly had to refuse the offer to appear in the aforementioned DVD because I had moved to Sardinia a few months before, in order to be with my Sardinian/Italian girlfriend, now my wife. It was only the fact that I was back in Bristol for ten days, at the very time filming was taking place, that I was able to play the role of a Professor of Bristolian in the DVD. This was way back in 2010, when there was no mention of a referendum on membership in the EU and Brexit wasn't even a word. My wife has always had an interest in the English language and in British culture and told me that she used to dream of one day living in the UK. "Well," I thought, "I like it here in Sardinia, but I'm still rather attached to my native city of Bristol. No problem, perhaps one day we'll be able to go back and live there." Wrong! I'll explain why.

Everything changed when we woke up in bed and breakfast accommodation in Naples, on our way down to Calabria in the far south of Italy for a family wedding. On the television news that morning, in June 2016, we learnt about how the British had voted in a referendum to leave the EU. Shortly after, I wrote a blogpost What Brexit Could Mean To a Bristolian In Sardinia in which I voiced my concerns about how the referendum vote might impact us negatively. Some of my concerns were unfounded. I am now old enough to be receiving my state pension and there are no problems there. Similarly, the Easyjet service, from Bristol to Olbia in Sardinia, appears to be safe for the time being, on account of the company having made necessary adjustments to their business. However, one of my gravest concerns was expressed thus: 

I had read articles like this in the Guardian about British people needing a minimum income of  £18,600 per annum in order to bring their foreign spouses over to live in the UK. In the event of Brexit would that rule be extended to British ex-pats with a spouse from a EU member state should they wish to return to live in the UK? If so we might find ourselves with an insurmountable obstacle to overcome should we decide that one day we want to set up home again in my native city of Bristol. People have tried to reassure me. "No, it could never come to that!" they say. I'm not so sure. I never believed that there would ever come a time when the disabled and the unemployed would be treated with such crass insensitivity and cruelty as they have been under the present Conservative government with Cameron, Osborne and Duncan-Smith (for most of the time) at the helm. 

Well, sadly, it has come to that, even though we had no plans to return to live in the UK in the foreseeable future. In fact, thanks to the hostile environment being further enforced by the new British Immigration Bill that became law last November, it's far worse. I recently checked the costs involved in the case of an EU spouse, of a British citizen, applying for a visa to live in the UK after 31st March 2022. I was absolutely flabbergasted. The spouse visa fee for an 'out of country' application is £1,523; the Immigration Health Surcharge £1,872 (for being able to use the NHS. I might add here that in the summer of 2012 I had a mild heart attack and received excellent treatment at one of the local hospitals here in Nuoro. It cost us nothing! So much for health tourism in the UK!) Then there's £150 for an English language test (even though my wife's written English is far better than that of a lot of native brits); and finally, up to £300 for the translation of essential documents like marriage, birth and divorce certificates. There are other potential costs that probably wouldn't affect us. Don't believe me? Read this on the Migrate website. So, irrespective of the minimum income requirements, it would cost us nearly £4,000 for the undoubted privilege of living in the UK for just two and a half years. No thanks. I hardly think that is value for money, especially as the country seems to be in a far worse shape than it was when I left in November 2009. We'll stick to the joys of a warmer climate in Sardinia with its spectacular beaches and scenery, better quality food and wine, culinary delights like culurgiones and delicious liqueurs like mirto. OK, the driving here can be a bit indisciplined, the road planning and bureaucracy bewildering, but overall, life is pretty good!

 

Santa Maria Navarrese, Ogliastra, Sardinia

 

 

    

A Famous Singer Checks Out Our Band In Orosei, Sardinia

In a previous post, almost five years ago now, I wrote about the rock band that I joined as a singer, Optimistic Sound, here in Nuoro in Sardinia. Well, with three other members of that line-up and a different drummer, Salvatore Pes, we are now called Nameless. Our usual set is almost exclusively British and American rock covers from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, covering classics from the likes of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Cream, Depeche Mode, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Doors and Paul Weller.

Obviously, because of the lockdown we haven't been too active with regard to performing lately, but a week ago we did our first gig since just before Christmas at a beach bar in Orosei. It went reasonably well and we were advised before hand that there might be a famous Italian singer present, Malika Ayane. Sure enough, she was there with a group of friends and before we started my dear wife persuaded her to pose for a photo with me.

I actually said to her, "devo ammettere che non avevo sentito parlare di lei prima di tre giorni fa."("I must confess I'd never heard of you until three days ago.") Even though it was true I did wonder aferwards whether I should have said that and whether it sounded a bit disrepectful! She didn't seem to mind, laughed, and said she'd never heard of me either! No surprise there! Anyway, later I had a look at her youtube videos and realised that I had heard some of her music before but her name hadn't stuck with me. She has actually had a string of hit singles and albums in the Italian charts, and one of her singles, Senza Fare Sul Serio, has had 43 million views on youtube. A few more than the 1,500 views of the most viewed of any youtube musical videos that I've uploaded from my days of gigging in the Bristol area in England!    

She did stay for half the set but had left by the time we had started our little tribute to The Rolling Stones. Maybe just as well, as I wasn't enthralled with the way my vocals sounded on Brown Sugar and Gimme Shelter! Here's a little taster: Rolling Stones Tribute

Coronavirus in Sardinia and the UK

I must confess that, until about three weeks ago, I was guilty of not taking the coronavirus outbreak as seriously as I might have done. It seemed to be something mainly confined to mainland Italy, especially the north, and with Sardinia being an island (albeit an island larger than the whole of Wales) and no positive cases having been reported here I wasn't very concerned. Then, first there were a couple of positive cases in Cagliari, and a researcher (and her partner) returning to Nuoro from a conference in Udine tested positive. After that, horror of horrors, a dozen or so health workers at San Francesco Hospital (about two miles away from us) tested positive. I found this distressing on several levels. Aside from the risk, especially to older people and those whose health problems have weakened their immune systems, there was the problem it created for the hospital in functioning normally, especially with the risk of further infection. I have a personal interest in this because in 2012 I had a mild heart attack and was treated at San Francesco Hospital where the treatment I received was excellent. Furthermore, I have given private English lessons to three of the doctors who work there, all of whom were extremely nice people. It's easy for some people to sneer and crack jokes but when you realise the pandemic may be directly affecting people you know personally, it's a different matter. Now the whole of Italy has been in lockdown for over two weeks and, strange as it may seem, I'm somewhat relieved and not at all bothered about staying at home most of the time for the time being, however long that might be.

My wife took early retirement at the end of the last year and since then we've very much been taking things at the gentle pace for which, by and large, Sardinia is renowned. However, we have had to put on hold our daily outings for coffee and aperitives at our favourites bars, Nobel 26 in ExMe and Caffé Tettamanzi among others, and it's been cappuccino and caffé normale (or 'espresso') at home instead since Tuesday 10th March. 

How hard Italy has been hit by the coronavirus has made the news globally and now I'm beginning to cast an anxious eye towards the UK because I still have so many friends and relatives living there. There was widespread astonishment here and elsewhere at the initial response of the UK government at how to deal with the spread of the virus. The idea that the British could 'take it on the chin and create 'herd immunity'. 'La roulette di Boris Johnson. Il Regno Unito ha una strategia molto rischiosa per contenere il coronavirus' said the Italian press (Boris Johnson's Russian roulette. The UK has a very risky strategy for containing the coronavirus). Especially shocking to the Sardinians was the idea that this might mean the premature death of, at the very least, 250,000 of the elderly and more vulnerable members of society in the UK. One member of my wife's extended family was moved to write the following about it:- 'Boris Johnson has no shame in communicating to the entire world that his country's economy is more important than the life of his elderly co-citizens and that they can be sacrificed for the sake of GDP. In Sardinian culture elderly people have always enjoyed special consideration because of the knowledge and wisdom they can bring. Moreover, a society that venerates appearance and wealth and has zero consideration for the lives of its elderly is inevitably condemned to decline.' I myself was disappointed but not surprised by the headlines in some British newspapers,  including this monstrosity in the Daily Telegraph (sometimes described as the Boris Johnson fanzine).

A pathological incapacity to even try to be impartial seems to be a prerequisite for anyone wishing to write for that particular publication! How dare anyone question the government's 'herd immunity' strategy! We're British! We know best! We don't need to take any notice of those strategies that have been successful in slowing down the virus in other countries! They can't compete with our British exceptionalism! (They appreciate sarcasm in Sardinia.) Fortunately, the UK has been forced to change it's strategy by models created by a team at Imperial College, London and displaying the folly of the original strategy (and the idiocy of some who write newspaper headlines). Even so, as I write, just after the UK went into 'full lockdown' last weekend, there still seems to be a lot of confusion with regard to what 'full lockdown' actually means and who key workers are. On social media some of my friends are saying not much seems to have changed!

After the aforementioned outbreak of COVID-19 at San Francesco Hospital in Nuoro there were exhaustive tests done on the other health workers and 120 tests returned negative results and Sardinia is still one of the least affected regions. As of yesterday there were 421 positive cases and, sadly, the fatalities on the island numbered 15. In Nuoro there were 26 positive cases and in the last few days the number falling victim to the virus in my home town of Bristol has overtaken the number in Nuoro. Now do you understand why I worry about my friends and relatives in the UK? Here, people appear to be taking the lockdown a lot more seriously. They are observing the recommended distance for social distancing. If my wife or I have to go out for any essential reason we always wear gloves and a mask and I always wash my hands immediately when returning to the apartment after having been downstairs to check the post or take stuff out for recycling. Some may be a bit blasé and claim the virus only has about a 3% fatality rate and some people experience mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. That may be true but it's not the point. The point is that the coronavirus is extremely contagious and those who are asymptomatic can pass it on to the elderly or those living with pre-existing health conditions for whom it can be deadly. Be sensible. Be responsible and keep others safe as well as yourself.

Nuoro And Its Poetry

Before I got sidetracked by Brexit, and the needless anxieties it has brought, I was using this blog to write of my experiences in Sardinia. As my Italian improved I started to do Italian translations of my posts along the original English text (although I have to thank my wife for checking my translation work and making quite a number of corrections!) In recent years I've written far less, as my initial enthusiasm for the project waned, but there are quite a lot of experiences that I have had here that I do wish I had written about. Oh well!

Anyway, a few days ago I came across this rather excellent blogpost, from one of our "madrelingua" English teacher friends here in Nuoro, which perfectly captures how it's such a likeable town to live in and yet frustrating at the same time. Congratulations to Lisette for such a good piece - Sardinia for the soul - Nuoro no est Italia. It actually reminded me of a poem I wrote about Nuoro the first year I was here:-

 
Nuoro

So here I am in Nuoro,
this untidy mess of a town
which is nonetheless endearing.
"Il comune non fa niente!"*
is what I keep on hearing.
Sun scorched scruffy weeds
and dirt and litter adorn
the uneven pavement
while some have sought
to see to feline needs
with a plate or two of fish-heads
left out for the strays;
the buildings blighted by graffiti,
beautiful and ugly in equal measure
and cars parked curiously
at strange angles from the kerb.
And then the gems, the treasure:
the stunning vista of the mountains
from Via Aspromonte
and the valley between Mt Ortobene
and the edge of town;
how Via Corso Garibaldi
comes to life on summer evenings,
the bars packed and thriving,
the Nuorese of every generation
walking up and down
with youth, beautiful and tanned,
showing its propensity
for elegance and style;
the museums displaying
the cultural heritage of a town
that gave us Nobel Prize winning writer
Grazia Deledda and poet Sebastiano Satta
and artists and sculptors
whose charming works beguile.
Nuoro is like a woman
whose potential beauty sometimes delights,
occasionally astounds and also frustrates
wrapped up in the frumpy clothing
of habit and convenience
that draw attention to
the lines upon her face
but seldom have I known
people of such warmth and generosity
inhabit any other place.

Geoff Davis © 2010

* The council do nothing!

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Revoke Article 50? No Way, Says The UK Government

It's rather curious watching the odd goings on in Westminster from faraway Sardinia. Like many other UK migrants living in EU countries, I signed the online petition to revoke Article 50 and allow the UK to remain in the EU. Many remainers were getting very excited about how it was gathering momentum at the time I was writing my previous post What Brexit Could Mean To A Bristolian In Sardinia (Three years On). However, the UK Government have decided not to let some people build up their hopes too much and have sent a most odd email response to all those who signed the petition. Well, actually, the email is from the Department For Exiting The European Union. Here it is in full (or how it should be - haha):-


The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU.”.

Government responded:

This Government will not revoke Article 50. We will honour the result of the 2016 referendum and work with Parliament to deliver a deal, no matter how bad, that ensures we leave the European Union.

It remains the Government’s firm policy not to revoke Article 50. We will honour the outcome of the 2016 referendum and work to deliver an exit which benefits everyone (even though, frankly, that's impossible), whether they voted to Leave or to Remain.

Revoking Article 50, and thereby remaining in the European Union, would undermine both our democracy and the trust that millions of voters have placed in Government and their very close friends, the mainstream media, whose exceptional capacity for objective reporting has alerted us to the dangers of the wrong kind of bananas and the fact that euro banknotes can make men impotent.
The Government acknowledges the considerable number of people who have signed this petition. However, close to three quarters of the electorate, all of whom were very well-informed about the issues involved thanks to the impartiality of newspapers like The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, took part in the 2016 referendum, trusting that the result would be respected. This Government wrote to every household prior to the referendum, promising that the outcome of the referendum would be implemented. And no Government has ever broken a promise. 17.4 million people then voted to leave the European Union, providing the biggest democratic mandate for any course of action ever directed at UK Government. It is true that the 3 million EU citizens living in the UK, many of the 1.3 UK citizens living in the EU and young people under the age of 18 were ineligible to vote. However, we do not need to consider them even if the result of the referendum was likely to have a more adverse effect on them than most other groups.

British people cast their votes once again in the 2017 General Election where over 80% of those who voted, voted for parties, including the Opposition, who committed in their manifestos to upholding the result of the referendum. Please don't say that they had little choice. Had they wanted to leave the EU they would have voted for the Liberal Democrats or the Greens whose parties dwarf the size of Labour and the Conservatives.

This Government stands by this commitment as no Government has ever gone back on any commitment ever before.

Revoking Article 50 would break the promises made by Government to the British people, disrespect the clear instruction from a democratic vote, and in turn, reduce confidence in our democracy. This is despite the present Government's overruling of a democratic decision reached by Lancashire County Council with regard to an application for a fracking site. As the Prime Minister has said, failing to deliver Brexit would cause “potentially irreparable damage to public trust”. It is imperative that we trust the integrity of the Prime Minister as well as such political, social, business and intellectual giants as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Nigel Farage, Dominic Cummings and Arron Banks. We must maintain a hostile environment at all costs. It is imperative that people can trust their Government to respect their votes and deliver the best outcome for them. If the best outcome means 20 mile traffic jams to and from Dover, food shortages at supermarkets, fruit rotting at harvest time, frustrated car manufacturers suffering excessive waiting time for car parts to be delivered, horribly long delays going through passport control at airports, EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU losing a lot of their rights, young people losing an easy opportunity to work, study and live abroad, then so be it!

As the winning team would say: "Suck it up buttercup!"

Department for Exiting the European Union.