Brexit: Bloody Hell

The results are in. Britain will leave the European Union. 

Pretty much my reaction.

Fallout was immediate. In a single 24 hour period, the UK economy fell from 5th to 6th in the world (you're welcome, France!), the British pound fell faster than a frozen turd from an Easyjet toilet, and £200 billion was wiped from the stock market- or to put it another way, almost exactly the same amount as our EU contributions for almost another quarter of a century. Many people were quite rightly losing their minds. Events moved thick and fast: you know that you've had an emotional shit-storm of a day when even David Cameron resigning fails to lift your spirits. Farage gave a sickeningly smug speech at the announcement of results: "We won it without a bullet being fired".

Seeing as a Remain campaigning MP was shot just over a week ago, the turn of phrase wasn't even factually correct. Of course, the Leave campaign have been nothing if not consistently disingenuous, and have comprehensively lied about pretty much everything from first to last. One small example: did you see their campaign bus?

The implication here is pretty obvious, right? We send this money to the EU: we should spend it on the NHS instead. I'm sure many people agreed; presented in this specific, biased phrasing, it sounds reasonable. On the very morning that results were announced, Farage was on TV backtracking.

Or, for those of you who can't bear to watch a video of Farage:

I hate when I accidentally print something I didn't mean on the side of a FUCKING BATTLE BUS

Of course he couldn't promise that. He's not in government. But Leave implied it, the gullible believed it, and the rest of us were left in gibbering despair as the numbers rolled in. One does have to ask though; did people really know what they were voting about? Actually, scratch that: did the Leave campaign themselves actually want this result?

UKIP are, after all, a single issue party: get Britain out of Europe. Much as it pains me to write these words: they have succeeded. There's simply no need for Farage or UKIP anymore. Admittedly, outside of UKIP it could be a different story. Perhaps Boris really did expect us to vote for Leave, as it would strengthen his hand in the inter-Conservative party dick-swinging leadership stakes. Cameron has already announced that he'll be out of office by the end of the year, so it appears that BoJo's plan has succeeded.

Our next Prime Minister. May God have mercy on us all.

It would be remiss of me to move on from a discussion about the Leave campaign without a word or two about Michael Gove. The fish-faced man-child was a prominent figure in the Leave campaign; possibly as he sensed a terrible cause and felt an irrepressable urge to jump aboard. Having decimated British education during his brief yet impressively regressive stint as the education minister, Gove had the big brass balls to go on national television and claim that people should just go ahead and ignore expert advice. 

"People have had enough of experts". What in the ever-loving-fuck are you talking about? This is a prime example of anti-intellectualism at its very worst: when a highly paid Conservative MP is telling voters to deliberately ignore the facts and vote with their gut. "What's that, the economy will crash by how much? Don't listen to those eggheads! Let's go and Get Our Country Back and kick out all those unwashed Poles, who's with me? Huzzah!"

This (almost commendably) liberal approach to the truth urged people to ignore numbers and do what they felt was right. Fine. If we do accept that as a premise, I find it distressing to think a majority of British people would vote for the Brexit. If we ignore appeals to facts and just go with moral convictions, then surely it is better to be a part of a strong, safe, and cooperative group of nations, rather than flicking V's at our erstwhile neighbours as we bugger off over the horizon.

What could possibly go wrong?

Again, if we are going to ignore factual or economical arguments, then why don't we consider the human cost of this vote? How many lives will be uprooted now that we have decided to leave the EU? How many opportunities have been lost? For example, how about we consider just one small facet of European cooperation such as Erasmus. I know many people who've visited European countries under the Erasmus program and found it an immensely culturally rewarding experience. It deepens understanding of our common humanity and brings us closer together across national boundaries.

That's gone now.

Bladdy Europeans, enriching are culture and educatin are yoof.

It's this side of things that I feel has been lost in the debate. We're not just storming out of the European Union in a grandiose flounce, taking all of our toys and MEPs with us. All the little things are going to disappear. Even the nice things that just made our lives better or easier, like Erasmus, the Capital of Culture (thanks for regenerating Liverpool btw), the E111 insurance card, or the pet passport.

PEOPLE VOTED FOR WHAT?!?!

Of course, the Brexit is not only depressing because it means we will leave the EU. It's also a worrying signpost on where we're heading as a nation. Do we care about young people? Do we care about human rights? Do we want to be part of a prosperous, compassionate, and fraternal Europe? Do we want to move away from the petty national squabbles of the previous century? The referendum results would suggest a resounding "no".

The fact of the matter is (as I've already mentioned), that I personally believe the British people were drastically misled about the EU by our press. As someone who grew up in England, the anti-EU bias is everywhere, and translates immediately from the front cover of the Daily Mail to everyday conversation. Take the whole "bendy bananas" furor, often held up as the arhcetypal "barmy EU" regulation. It was premised on a lie. The regulation itself just said that bananas shouldn't have "abnormal curvature", which unless your bananas are double-jointed shouldn't be a problem. No bananas were banned. Yet, the story was reported in the right-wing press, repeated in everyday conversation, and became part of the EU folklore: the fact that it wasn't true didn't matter, only that it shaped how people saw the European Union.

We don't give a shit about refugees, but we're willing to draw a line in the sand over fucking bananas.

Put simply, I don't think people really voted to leave the EU: I believe they voted to leave the version of the EU that they've been told exists. The one which is to blame for immigration, and thus all our other social problems. It's not true, but that doesn't matter: people believed it.

Whilst the short term economic impact has been immediate, we'll be living with the long-term ramifications of Brexit for years- possibly decades. Trade deals will need to be renegotiated from scratch, visa rules changed, foreign immigrants expelled to Europe and British immigrants recalled from Costa Del Sol.

1.2 million Brits currently live in Europe. Good thing there's so many jobs and houses for them to come back to!

Not only that, but the question has to be asked: how long will both the EU and the UK last after this vote? Will other countries follow our example and leave the EU, leading to a collapsing house of cards? The French far right have already endorsed the result (as have the dream duo of Russia and Iran); given that xenophobia seems to be sweeping across Europe, it remains to be seen how long the EU itself will be able withstand the forces of regressive hatred. And as for the United Kingdom, the SNP have already indicated that they will seek to hold a second independence referendum. This was to be expected following a Leave vote; the Scottish saw Brussels as a valuable counterweight to Westminster and will want no part of whatever Conservative-dominated government takes shape in the coming years.

Fair enough. Room for one more?

So, Scotland will almost certainly leave the UK in order to rejoin the EU. Furthermore Sinn Fein have already called for a poll on Irish unity, though admittedly it does seem unlikely to go anywhere. Irregardless, we have nobody to blame but ourselves: when Scotland overwhelmingly votes to remain and is dragged out kicking and screaming by the English, it would smack of rank hypocrisy to force them to stay in a union they wanted no part of.

So, for now we face an uncertain future. Things look bleak. It seems the best thing to do is to sit in a darkened room, rock backwards and forwards and keep muttering our new national mantra: "It's alright. It's fine. It's alright. It's fine."

The Day Today - It's Alright from Peregrine Waltersploy on Vimeo.