Brexit

IMG_20160621_140343761[1]I’m scared. Tomorrow we vote to decide whether to leave the EU and let a far right wing band of liars run the country or to stay in the EU and let a not quite so right wing crew keep cutting our welfare state to the bone.

It didn’t feel like this last time. Indyref (the vote for Scottish independence) was exhilarating – young folk were learning about politics and there was an energy that I have never seen or felt before. Sure, we knew we might not win, but – and this is important – much as we hated Westminster rule, nobody was predicting that a vote to remain was going to be a total disaster.

But this time is different. The Leave campaign has disgusted me with the depths it has stooped to in order to gain voters. They’ve made it all about immigration, and whipped up a fear and hatred of some of our fellow humans for others. Not amongst my friends – at least, I don’t think so – but from enough potential voters in England for it to be a very real possibility that the Leave vote wins.

And that has me worried – about the cost of living in a post-leave UK, about my future rights, about the future of my research and even my job. Selfish worries, but natural ones. And I worry about the poor, and the disabled, and all of the other disenfranchised and minority residents of the UK.

But I’m also worried for all of us. Because the Leave campaign have whipped up some nasty xenophobic, racist, bigoted feelings in folk and now they are out of the box it’s not going to be easy to repress them. I have seen families falling out because they are on different sides of this … I can’t call it a debate, it is not that respectable – let’s call it an “issue”.

But there’s more. I have Leave voters telling me that they are going to vote with their guts, their hearts, that they are taking their country back.

I keep trying to explain to them that it was never theirs in the first place. The Tories are playing games with all of us. Whoever wins, it will be little rich boys in charge. But with the (not by any means perfect) EU, we have some hope that their wings will be clipped.

So tomorrow I vote Remain with a heavy heart. I vote to legitimise one right wing bunch of arseholes in order to avoid an even worse outcome.

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10 Responses to Brexit

  1. scottx5 says:

    Sad mess. Agree the worst is the permission to let your hate out into the open as if it was a legitimate feeling instead of something we strive to get above. Yesterday the national Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ran two stories together. The first was a statement by the husband of Jo Cox followed by a light-hearted piece on how “silly” some of the claims made by the leavers side were. The message is that nothing is important, even a person’s life matters less than our RIGHT to be amused.

    Will be watching the news.

    Lighter side (?) I’ve been interested in volunteering with Provincial Health Care as a Engaged Patient for over a year. Recently responses have come in from a new department tasked with discovering “inefficiencies” in the system by taking statements from patients. One of their pet opinion channels has been the Regional Health Advisory Boards that meet monthly / locally and then conference yearly at great cost.

    I had volunteered for the advisory group a few years ago in a moment of weakness and was told then I wasn’t qualified. Now, the Advisories are going un-staffed and government is desperate because this faux “public voice” has gone silent. Today, I was called again by the Patient Access agent that they would welcome my input and I declined on the grounds that medical service in my district is almost entirely broken and if that’s any indication of the uselessness of their advisory boards then I want no part of it.

    We’ve had a change in government here and they are finding most of the public input channels are full of scammers and the long-time dead. And the only people INTERESTED in making things work are us shit-disturbers who NEVER go away.

    Take Care Sarah.

  2. VanessaVaile says:

    Very disheartening — on too many levels to keep track of. Somewhere in my reading I came across a comment relating the referendum to feeding gremlins after midnight. We, alas, could be poised over the same abyss.

  3. scottx5 says:

    Sorry to hear the news this morning Sarah. The next step is to watch who emerges as the leadership and to start asking questions of them. Their status is no longer as wing-nuts flying free on the periphery but people responsible for the actions they’ve initiated. Miracles have been promised and a daily reminder of their not appearing is a useful start. There’s no longer any reason to be anything but direct and make these fools accountable.

    • NomadWarMachine says:

      Hard times ahead for them – as they have promised things that they cannot fulfil. I just hope that Scotland can pull away from them and stay in the EU.

  4. scottx5 says:

    The news in Canada has pointed out that in both Scotland and Ireland a good majority of voters wanted to stay in the EU. That suggests independence wouldn’t be too difficult to manage and represents a rational choice. The British vote seems to have hinged on nostalgia and an Imperial disregard for others. The “we deserve to be in charge” mantra is the same junk Trump is pushing in the US. The obvious problem with this position is everyone else in the world has to believe in the same fantasy, and they don’t.
    What worries me is so many people in Britain voted to stay so how does the world isolate the bigots and nasty-folks without punishing everyone? Like there’s now talk of free-trade with Canada to make up for losses in trade with the EU. I we assume over here that the leavers are legitimate representatives but represent values values we reject, do we deal with them to not hurt those who wanted to stay? Or do we assume we are dealing with pariahs like we did with South Africa? Do we punish everyone for the stupidity of the few (slim majority or not)?
    Hopefully, this mess will be a caution to voters in the US to think about more than their narrow impulses.

    • NomadWarMachine says:

      Yup, our First Minister has said that a 2nd indyref to leave the UK and stay in the EU is “on the table”.

      I don’t think that everyone who voted to stay is a bigot, though many are. Some folk are just pissed off at Tory austerity and saw this vote as a way out of it. Sadly, they are going to find that they are wrong.

      I do think, though, that England is sliding towards fascism (and I don’t way that lightly), and so I can quite see that other countries might not want to form any sort of alliance with them.

  5. scottx5 says:

    I do agree that bigotry and blaming others (immigrants) wasn’t the whole of it. People over here feel abandoned and betrayed by politicos too. Things are getting worse, it’s harder to scrape by and for some, Trump’s status as a businessman answers the thinking that government is just not managed properly. There’s also the irony of voting for politicians “we all know are in it only for themselves” and then being outraged when these “crooks lied to us.”
    The people with Bernie Sanders are different. They see a rotten future with those in charge now and will vote for those with honest intentions and realistic plans–or start their own party. These are educated people and mostly at the beginning of their careers. They don’t have loyalty to a past that was better than now, they have bad now with the chance for a better future. And they see Trump won’t deliver, they know it.
    One thing every investment book always mentions is that money loves stability. An unstable England with no clear leadership, a policy process based on distorted suppositions and such a close vote makes for an uncertain place to invest.
    Sad that so much damage has to happen apparently without purpose.

    • NomadWarMachine says:

      Yup, the situation with Trump is equally awful, and understandable. Education is the key, as you note – but real education, not the curricula that our politicians force onto our schools.

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