I’ve been meaning to write this update for some time now but the carry-on this week has been nothing short of spectacular. Every day brings some new twist in the strange and sordid tale of Borist Gump, Nigel Fromage and Michael “Macbeth” Gove but before I get to that, let’s rewind eleven days to the evening of Thursday 23rd June, 2016. It’s the evening of the European Election, the polls are closed and I’m stuck in Stansted Airport waiting to board a plane that is already two hours late while earwigging some D4 high-flyer from Dublin waffle on about how he’s had several meetings cancelled this week by clients due to Brexit jitters and all the poor fella is trying to do is set up “offshore accounts for property developers”. I’m sure the pretty young lady he’s droning to is sympathetic to his plight, I’m sure she’s dazzled by his business acumen (I could be wrong, it could be the light shining off his slicked back hair) and I’m also sure that if he does not shut the f*** up, I will have a psychotic break down and beat his smug face to a paste.
As I stand there wondering if I could plead temporary insanity and extenuating circumstances in the resulting murder trial, his nasal twang butts into my reverie; the gobshite went to my alma mater, Trinity College in Dublin. “F**ker’s probably a BESS-head” (1), I think to myself and feel an upwelling of disdain as I imagine him sashaying into the Arts Block for his first lecture of the week at 1500 on a Monday, pausing a while on the myriad comfy sofas outside the theatre so he can finish his mocha latte before swaggering in fashionably late with a knowing nod to the Burberry clad, fake tanned oompa-loompas that are the female of the species. In contrast, the scientists and engineers like me will have been in since 0900 with a full lecture schedule for the day and no fucking comfy sofas whatsoever. We’ve got stone steps instead – dual purpose which means more efficient use of space and décor that encourages one not to hang around outside the theatres doing frivolous things like sipping over-priced coffee. That absolute wanker, that waste of semen, that…
“No, actually I did engineering as my undergrad at Trinity. I focking (sic) loved it”
AH JAYSUS!! Ronan the Barbeerian trained as an engineer? Oh the shame, the ignominy, the HUGE MANATEE! What on earth turned him to the dark side? He could have done something useful with his life but no, he went into financial services. I’ll bet he trained as a computer engineer and got lured t…
“Ah yeah, civil engineering was great craic.”
FUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKK!!!
Suffice to say, by the time I eventually made it to my mum’s flat in Dublin (very) early on Friday morning, I was not in the best of form and my mood was darkened further by the preliminary results being reported by the BBC. With 15 of 382 constituencies reporting, the Leave side’s lead was in the tens of thousands but that was to be expected; the results were from a lot of council’s in the north of England where the Remain campaign had singularly failed to answer people’s concerns about uncontrolled immigration but there were still the major metropolitan centres in London, Manchester, etc. to report along with the Welsh, the Northern Irish and the Scots. I stayed up as long as I could but eventually the toll of a long day and David Dimbleby’s solemn commentary proved too much. I went to bed around 0200 not especially hopeful of a resounding Remain victory but hopeful of a slender one at least.
I woke up later that morning around 0930 to find that:
- Great Britain had voted to leave the EU. Well, that’s not strictly true; the Scottish had voted overwhelmingly to remain as had London and most of Northern Ireland but everywhere else, Wales included, wanted out.
- The pound had plummeted to its lowest price since I was born 31 years ago
- David Cameron had resigned in an emotional speech outside No. 10 that morning
Holy shit…didn’t see that coming. Apparently neither had the Leave campaign – indeed at the start of the night they were expecting to lose as with the polls so close, everyone, the bookies, the investors, the speculators…everyone…had expected the status quo to win. Surely the plebs wouldn’t vote for Brexit, they know which side their bread is buttered on, fear of the unknown will be trumped by the comfort of familiarity and we’ll wake up on Friday morning to find that the British public wishes to remain within the EU or so went the narrative.
The twist was though that the English and to a lesser extent, the Welsh had finally had enough of austerity, a lack of jobs, longer NHS waiting times, fewer places at schools and all the other public issues which the Leave campaign had unfairly blamed on uncontrolled immigration from the EU, flipped the bird at the Westminster elite, ignored the warnings of financial armageddon and decided to “take their country back”. I will admit that I was livid at the decision – not because I think that those who voted Leave are idiots or fools. Indeed, I can understand their motivations and the fervent desire to disobey the powers that be when they purport to know what’s best. I’m livid because the people that have likely been most disadvantaged by an influx of migrant labour, the working class, chose the likes of Johnson, Gove and Farage to provide their salvation. Will Self summed it up quite well in post result debate with Dreda Say Mitchell on Channel 4 news as he quipped sarcastically “Oh! What’s that up there in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s Boris Johnson come to deliver you social democracy and a more equal society”.
I’m in a quandary; on the one hand, I am dismayed at the, in my opinion, ill-judged decision to leave the EU which, though far from perfect, I believe to be an example of international cooperation that should be celebrated, not shunned. It’s not that long ago that the peoples of Europe were bombing each other into oblivion. The racist overtones which accompanied the Leave campaign have also manifested in frankly disgusting acts such as Polish (and other nationalities) being told to “go home” as a result of the vote or having notes pushed through their letter boxes referring to them as “vermin”. It is unfortunate that while the majority of Brexiteers are not racist and had legitimate (and unaddressed) concerns about uncontrolled migration, all the racists are likely Brexiteers and the result has brought them crawling out of the woodwork.
On the other hand, I love the fact that the people told the political elite they could shove it and voted as they saw fit. Despite the dire predictions of the Treasury, the patronising warnings from politicians both domestic and foreign, the overwhelming and fervent wish of the rest of Europe, Joe Public stuck to his guns and voted as he / she saw fit. While I believe the result is ultimately a victory for the far right and for isolationism over cooperation, at the same time I can’t help but smile at the chaos it’s unleashed. I’ll deal with the resulting political fall out in my next post but we’re certainly in for a bumpy ride.
Hold onto your butts!
(1) BESS stands for Business, Economic and Social Studies and was the largest course in Trinity in terms of students. While I am painting a (mostly unfair) caricature for humorous purposes, I’m not sure whether it’s popularity was down to course content or social shenanigans.