Let’s heal our differences and try and think of some solutions. The elect are failing us.
Last Friday morning, after very little sleep, I awoke to the devastating news with a feeling of dread sickness. Not for the first time. I felt exactly the same sense of doom and dismay when Thatcher won the general election in 1987 and again when Major won in 1992. The electorate has once again been conned by demagoguery and lies, by an appeal to the worst in human nature. Then it was greed. Now it’s prejudice. Once again, the poorest people have been made promises that the Savile Row suited elite have absolutely no intention of keeping. And politicians, with a few exceptions, are still a bunch of bastards. And they deserve the two fingered salute.
It’s absolutely pointless to blame the electorate for delivering this verdict. Something so complex and nuanced as our relationship to the rest of Europe can’t be reduced to a binary question. There are never enough choices on the ballot paper anyway, never a ‘none of the above’; but this time, there needed to be a Reform option at least. There are many perfectly respectable reasons to reject what the EU has become. Perhaps it will reform in response to Brexit, a potential positive from which, however, we are unlikely to benefit.
No, the responsibility lies firmly with those individuals that the public elected in the trust that they would govern the country responsibly. Instead we have selfish careerist professional politicians who have no regard whatever for our welfare – and though we endured the coalition government on the basis that it was favourable to stability – there has been scant regard for stability at this time of palpable crisis. This cock up is the fault and responsibility of the Government and the Tory party. For all his education, for all his superior knowledge and intelligence, David Cameron was monumentally stupid to put the country at this risk.
The media also must share in the responsibility, The Sun and The Daily Mail of course, but also the BBC, which over recent years has revealed itself to be little more than an establishment apologist. In its pretence of balance the airtime was divided between right wing versus even more right wing.
Of course, I’m sickened by the racism that’s been expressed, but I’m also appalled by the snobbery of some Remain voters. It must be clear by now that I voted Remain, but I haven’t forgotten how it was a subject up for discussion. There might have been a gut feeling one way or the other, but there wasn’t an obvious answer. There were many issues. It involved a computation and balancing of seriously contested points. Yes, it’s very annoying that the vote of someone who considers and weighs the issues had equal value to the vote of someone who didn’t know the EU from their arse. But there it is. That’s democracy. It’s always been like that, or we wouldn’t have had Thatcher. Democracy isn’t necessarily such a great thing. The Nazi party was democratically elected. Trump might be democratically elected. A decent democracy depends upon such things as an uncorrupt press and decent free education, which in our case we have not got. And hindsight is wonderful, but a division of opinion was on the cards, it was on the polls, we all knew it would be close. Far from blaming 52% of the electorate, the majority, we Remain voters might just as well blame ourselves for not talking them over, for not listening to their concerns.
I have an Irish passport, and before last Friday I’d already decided that if we voted to leave Europe, I’d leave Britain. But for all its faults, I love Britain, although I’m not sure any more what it means. Now, after four days of waking up to this nightmare, I’ve decided to take a more measured approach. Seventeen million people are not racists. A small percentage of our population is racist and racist feeling has been drummed up by a very small percentage – by three disgusting people whose names I’m not even prepared to type. People had different reasons for voting to leave the EU. For example anger, hopelessness, frustration, for example a sense of identity and pride and fairplay, for example hopes of a substantial cash injection into the NHS, fears of job losses to migrant workers. There’s real poverty in this country, side by side with rampant consumerism. There’s carelessness, there’s a loss of faith in voting, yes, there is little Englishness and xenophobia, but there’s also a hatred of bureaucracy and coercion, a standing up to bullying, and a fed-upness of being fucked over by uncontrollable forces. And there’s a cluelessness about how the world works, which is actually worldwide and general because nobody really understands Economics, which is why we’re in thrall to this unpredictable (and unsustainable) monster called ‘the markets’, and how we’re persuaded to buy ‘austerity’ and bankers get away with daylight robbery on a massive scale. And people had different reasons for voting for Remain, not all of them as pretty as Internationalism, Human Rights and Co-operativeness over climate change. Business interests perhaps, a bet, a holiday home in the sun? Anyway, on Friday morning I felt that I didn’t recognise my country, my country that had delivered this sickening result, but now I’m realising that over- generalisations are unhelpful and untrue, and there’s something about it I do recognise at last, in amongst all those different reasons.
I’ve been attached to the internet like a maniac, looking for solutions, looking for someone who knows the answers, hoping for a reversal in the face of what at the moment appears to be economic suicide and international disgrace, (and the terrifying possibility of a new Government even worse than those we’ve already suffered in terms of the erosion of workers rights, cuts to public funding and lack of concern for the environment). Can the House of Commons vote against it? The House of Lords? Can we have another referendum now people are more aware of the ramifications? (As if!) What about the Queen – what on earth is the point of her? Can Scotland save us? Apart from some good jokes – ‘I preferred it when all those celebrities were dying’,’48% Sense and Sensibility, 52% Pride and Prejudice’, ‘It’s an Eton mess’ – I haven’t found anything or anyone to give me confidence or hope, except Nicola Sturgeon! Gosh, it must feel good to be Scottish at the moment. I’m relieved that Jeremy Corbyn is hanging in there, and I like the response of Caroline Lucas – ‘progressives need to be working together’ – but it doesn’t seem to be happening. Yes indeed, now more than ever, we need to build bridges not walls, (except for a few affordable houses). This is no time for being scared. It’s time for being brave, resourceful and together. Together in both senses of the word – solid and rational; and not blaming each other for problems caused by greater forces than any of us could control.
Can anything positive emerge from this chaos? a) it must! b) Tories out, Progressive coalition in? c) it’s clear we can’t leave everything to these elected individuals any more. We have to get local and we have to get involved. If harder times are coming we need some ideas about: growing food, planting trees – apple and plum trees included, regional regeneration, looking after the local environment, alternative currency systems, small co-operative business, looking after each other, healing the rifts in communities, recycling and reusing waste, for example. I don’t necessarily have the ideas, I just know we need some! If we’re going to lose car factories – let’s make bicycles! Offices are emptying – let’s live in them!
A friend said to me, ‘the Brits are great in times of crisis.’ I hope it’s true. My feeling of Britishness has to do with a good laugh through a stiff upper lip over a nice cup of tea. It’s probably nostalgic and mostly to do with language, so I’ll finish with a beautiful poem that can’t be faulted, except that it was written when ‘man’ meant ‘person’. It expresses better than I ever could the gut feeling that prompted my vote, my sorrow at the result and my hope that we can heal our divided society.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
John Donne
