Brexit

“I am sick to my stomach” said my long time friend Judy on the morning that the Brexit poll results went public.  And she looked so sick too as she had to sit down with the tray with our coffees on it. She was in pain. “My heart” she said as she patted her chest and tried to make light of it.  She’d been up since six am fielding calls from distraught friends, mostly young, who felt their identities and futures as Europeans had been stripped from them overnight.  

Somehow the seriousness of the situation – the possibility of the Leave vote getting the majority had not been apparent before that horrible morning.  The people who wanted to stay in Europe seemed quietly confident that sense would prevail, that the clouds of xenophobia and nostalgia for tough little Blighty who beat the Germans twice would disperse when the moment came to choose.  The strings of  fluttering Union Jacks in the High streets generated a party mood, the jubilation of a jubilee which has now taken on a bit of the flavour of a dance of death.

Losing a referendum is not like losing an election when there is wrath mixed with disappointment but no damage had been done – yet.  We consol ourselves - maybe the buggers won’t be as awful as we fear.  They may improve, who knows, especially with effective opposition. But disappointment doesn’t cut it when it comes to losing a referendum.  The damage is all done and there’s just a gun to look down the barrel of.  

A disturbing revelation is the fact that the majority of Leavers were apparently the older generation.  A bitter young woman on the radio said more or less “What right have those who won’t be here that much longer to decide for us whose lives have just begun”.  I can see her point. Having money in the bank has always conferred power, but perhaps having years in the bank should count for something too.  

I don’t know all the arguments and until recently was barely aware of Brexit let alone its ramifications.  I’m sure I’m not alone in that.  Now, though, it all seems such a ghastly mistake to let what amounts to a national fit of peak threaten the power balance of Europe creating barriers everywhere.

Enough.  I am upset like so many others here and probably everywhere else.  And England is so very beautiful at the moment. Warm sunny days, lanes with hedgerows full of flowers and little creatures.  Green grass that’s been let turn into meadows.  All so lovely and so vulnerable.  Along with the Union Jacks in the High Street here are other strings of flags. Red crosses on a white background.  I last saw one of these at a performance of Henry V being upheld by a standard bearer on the field of battle.   The flags of the rest of the United Kingdom joined it to make the sporty little number that the British flag is now.   Is that really what people want – a denuded flag, a denuded England, just cheddar and no camembert or bratwurst?

There is a petition on the go for a second referendum on the grounds that yesterday’s was almost fifty fifty to say nothing of the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland were heavily pro Stay.  Maybe given a second chance the dice would fall differently.  Let’s hope so.

But after this no more referenda.  Just thoughtful government to take responsibility for what is to happen and voters on guard and ready  to argue if we don’t like what it says.  That arrangement makes me feel more or less safe.