Brexit Thoughts

Attempting to organise my thoughts on Brexit.

When I checked the news on Friday morning I was angry, upset, disappointed, and embarrassed.

Angry, because the country had sided with the xenophobic isolationists. Even if the majority of Leave voters didn't vote on the basis of reducing immigration, it has given the racists the impression that the public is on their side, that their views are legitimate. There are reports that racism and hate crime have already increased in the wake of the vote. I hope this does not continue.

Upset, because it felt like a range of possible better futures had disintegrated. As the Brexit fallout stories started breaking, as the pound dropped and trillions were wiped from the world economy, it felt like Remain's Project Fear was becoming Project I-Told-You-So. There has been a lot on social media about the average ages of Leave (older) and Remain (younger) voters. Voter turnout among older people is estimated considerably higher than among the young: successive governments have alienated young people, because they have not been a major decisive factor in elections (Blair introduced tuition fees; Cameron scrapped EMA, tripled tuition fees, and excluded under-25s from the Living Wage): we need more young people to be politically engaged.

(I caught some of the 'Victoria Derbyshire' program this morning: it featured an interview with an elderly chap who explained that he and his wife have been having very strong arguments with their son, who accused them of voting in favour of him losing his job: his company is already looking at relocating.)

Disappointed, because the blatant lies of Vote Leave had won the day. The dishonesty of both campaigns gave me the impression that our elected officials treat politics as a game over who is better at lying to the public. Major Leave figures have already backtracked on many of the campaigns promises, with Farage saying 'lol ofc we're not gonna spend the money on the NHS', and Hannon saying 'y u think immigration wil go down? rofl wut gave u that idea?' (I have paraphrased). And then there's Johnson: read his execrable piece in the Telegraph, titled 'I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe – and always will be'. It is worrying that none of them seem bothered by the sheer scale of their campaign's dishonesty, even after admitting it so quickly.

Embarrassed, because it was easy to see the rest of the world (excluding Donald Trump) looking at the UK and wondering 'what the fuck you doing, dickheads?'

Hopefully David Cameron will go down in history as one of Britain's worst Prime Ministers, having broken nearly all of his election pledges, the big one that he decides to keep leads to his resignation (at least he was honest about not staying for a third term). He was a weak Prime Minister, who only scraped a majority in 2015 by pandering to UKIP (Farage told his supporters to vote Conservative) and formenting division (Fear the SNP! Scotland will destroy us!), by telling porkies and (allegedly) committing electoral fraud, and he had the majority of the media on his side.

(Did you notice how Cameron and Osborne both seemed to have become aware that nobody trusted them anymore, so one of their favourite arguments was to list some of the people and institutes who happened to agree with them this time?)

Despite all this he believed he could comfortably win the referendum without a media majority, after giving the Leave group a free pass to promise whatever they liked (no official exit strategy was put forward) and present themselves as outsiders fighting the establishment. Fighting a 'Status Quo' vs 'Mystery Change' campaign wasn't a wise strategic move when you've just spent six years impoverishing people and not giving a shit about it.

(Imagine Cameron on Friday morning, looking back to the good old days when the worst he had to deal with was being accused of facefucking a dead pig.)

Now that Cameron is gone, we get to look forward to a new Conservative leader. It might be a contest between Theresa May and Boris Johnson, and I don't know which of those prospects is more terrifying. The posh British Trump or 'Iron Lady 2: Revenge of the Rich'? If May wins, we might get to live under a full-on dictatorship. Interesting times either way.

It didn't take long for a Corbyn shitstorm to ensue: mass resignations and a vote of no confidence. I liked Corbyn: he was refreshingly gentle and genuine, but my opinion of him is dropping. His EU campaigning was disappointing and lacklustre, and late. I don't think fighting 'Vote Leave, Take Control' with 'Don't Vote Leave, It Will Give Our Nasty Elected Government More Power' was a well thought out move. He could have done a lot more, but now is the wrong time for a coup, for the Labour party to be imploding. They could have stayed together, pointed to the warring panicking Tories, and said as one: "Look at what those bellends have done."

It looks like we will be going for the Norway option, which means we will still be paying into the EU budget, still have to abide by EU regulations, and still have free movement of people, but with no input on any EU decisions. Hopefully all the Leave people won't be too disappointed, especially if they voted on the basis of immigration, EU regulations, or payments to the EU...