Brexit

The Great British Public has delivered its verdict. 51.9% of those who voted on the EU referendum, voted for the UK to get out of the EU. This was described by Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK’s United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), as a “victory for decent, ordinary people”. This suggests that Farage considers those like me, who voted to remain in Europe, as neither decent nor ordinary. I have to say that Farage is an entertaining character, a kind of buffoon who manages to say the most vile and dyspeptic things in a manner and style that makes you chuckle, even as the rant repels your sense of decency; intelligence, even. Try as one might it is difficult to take this buffoon seriously. The reality is, though, that in this instance the people (albeit with a tiny majority) agreed with the buffoon.  Now that Britain is definitely out of the EU one can hope Farage and his pestilential party will sink into well-earned obscurity.

David (“Call me Dave”) Cameron’s luck finally ran out. The referendum was held with the short-term expediency in mind: to stave off the threat of UKIP and also to end the Tory Party’s internecine decades-long war over Europe. It backfired, and “Dave” had to go. He did the decent thing; and within hours of the defeat of the Remain campaign for which, it has to be said, he had argued extensively, repeatedly and passionately, he announced his resignation. When you go to the people on quasi-constitutional matters and are unsuccessful in putting forth your case you don’t really have a choice. Cameron made a reckless decision and paid the price. I have no sympathy for him.

One of the many problems with such referenda is that complex questions, which, frankly speaking, are beyond comprehension of most people—ordinary or otherwise—get dumbed down to simple “Yes” or “No” type of answers. At the place where I work is a fifty-something, recently divorced woman (her face more powdered than an American donut) who, in line with the demographics of how people voted in the referendum, since published—majority of the middle-aged and geriatrics voted for exit (which surprises me; I would have thought that by the time one reaches middle age, one would have arrived at the considered position that all change of itself is unwelcome and ought not to be aspired for unless there are very clear and obvious advantages)—, wanted Britain out of the EU. In the coffee breaks she would bore everyone with sentences such as "there is a big issue that everyone is overlooking: 'we' are not leaving Europe; 'we' have not turned our back on the people of Europe; 'we' simply wanted to leave a poorly managed, corrupt institution, namely the European Union, which is in dire straits." She would then give examples such as how it was not a good business sense to link your flourishing business with fifteen other failing businesses, as the failing businesses were more likely to bring you down than you keep them afloat. This, I guessed, was the economic argument of the woman for getting out of Europe. You meet people like her (not excessively endowed in the brain department)—they have total conviction about their rightness; what they are right about is a secondary matter. The day after the referendum I tried my best to avoid her, but she ambushed me in the corridor and asked, with a broad grin—revealing a layer of slime on her buck teeth—whether I was planning to go out drinking in the evening. I told her that I might, or I might not. “Would that be to celebrate or drown your sorrows?” she asked,smirking. Another man—a rather pitiful character, who sports a more or less permanent shaving rash, which, I suspect, dents his confidence when he speaks to women—in his twenties, also voted for ‘exit’. He told me that he wasn’t really sure why he voted for ‘exit’. “I could have easily voted for ‘remain’,” he informed me. “Why didn’t you?” I asked him. He looked puzzled, intrigued, puzzled, intrigued and abashed. “Dunno,” he replied, finally, with the air of a man who had realised that the EU referendum was one of the myriad mysteries of the universe that was simply beyond his understanding and he was not even going to try. “I had to vote for something. Too many foreigners are coming here. Something needs to be done about it. I mean, we all feel sorry for what is going on in the Middle East, but it doesn’t mean they all have to queue up to come here. What about the local people?” I opened my mouth to tell him that civil wars in the Middle East, Libya, Afghanistan etc., to which Britain, by the way, has contributed in no small measures, had nothing to do with the referendum, but then closed my mouth. What’s the point? He had voted for ‘exit’ and we are ‘out’. As Lord Hill, the UK’s European commissioner, said before he resigned, what’s done is done; it can’t be undone. And, as the man candidly admitted, he could have easily voted to stay in the EU except that the two stray neurones in his brain (perhaps the only functioning ones) decided to fire at the precise time he was in the polling booth, and he decided to vote in favour of ‘exit’.

The tone of the debate was not balanced. Cameron was accused by the 'leave' campaigners of orchestrating ‘Project Fear’—depicting an Armageddon-type scenario if we were to leave EU. Economy would go into a meltdown; we would all be in the breadline, and would have to sell our children and push our wives into prostitution so that we could get a bowl of soup etc.. Cameron and his trusted friend, the Chancellor George Osborne, did not leave anyone in doubt as to what was likely to happen—reeling off names of a number of financial institutions, none of which, I guess, had predicted the 2008 global recession, to support their arguments—if Britain voted out. I think ‘Project Fear’ worked with a proportion of people—it certainly worked for me. (It may well become 'Project Reality' in the coming years.) The ‘leave' camp said that theirs was an optimistic project, by contrast. They all acted as if they were possessed by a rush of hope, with varying degrees of success, or, in cases of Gove and Iain Duncan Smith—both of whom have the air of bringers of bad news, and, to paraphrase a character from a Howard Jacobson novel, the further air of never having been bringers of anything else—no success): we were taking back control of our own affairs. The 'leave' camp had its own bogyman—the immigrants. The mendacious arguments put forth by the 'leave' camp were jaw-dropping. They would introduce a point system (already in place for non-EU citizens) which would stem the flow of immigrants from Europe (in particular former Soviet Bloc, Eastern European countries); more money would be available for public services, in particular NHS, as we would not be paying £ 350 million a week (or was it a day?) to the EU; and of course we would not have to worry about the seventy million Turks whom the Germans were all ready to welcome into the EU, and were lying in wait, explosives tied to their genitals, to blow themselves up on the London Underground.  Everything was a lie. Turks are not about to join the EU anytime soon (and even they did, so what?). There will be no appreciable reduction in the number of EU nationals coming to Britain; the free movement will continue for the foreseeable future; and, not only will there be no extra funding for the beleaguered NHS, more savage cuts in public services will follow. Farage announced cheerfully, within twenty-four hours of the exit that he fully expected Britain to go into a “mild recession”. (On the other hand, on the BBC's Andrew Marr show on 25 June, there was the pathetic spectacle of the Tory Business secretary Sajid Javed, who, incidentally, was with the Remain campaign, but has since discovered that his heart was actually with the Exit camp, and who just a few weeks back was issuing all sorts of doomsday warnings in case Britain left the EU, squirming and backtracking on those prophesies. He was followed by Iain Duncan Smith, who, without batting an eyelid, reneged on the Brexiters' pledge of reinvesting the £ 350 millions they will not be sending to sent to Brussels (a lie in itself) in the NHS, even when the poster of the 'leave' campaign was shown to him. (What does this show? It shows that in the admittedly high standard for shamelessness amongst the Tories, Duncan Smith has a thicker skin than Javed, who had at least the decency to squirm.)) I wonder how long it will be before the Great Unwashed realise that they have been swindled. The days are long, so little happens, and there, really, is nothing to do than park your bum on the sofa and numb your mind with day-time soaps (and chill out twice a month, when you get paid(!) the benefit money, in the company of your mates, with a joint or two of cannabis); but it is inevitable that there will be further cuts in the benefits, because we are going to be poorer, and how is one to cope? (And don't expect Boris Johnson to part with even a penny of the obnoxious sums of money he gets paid to shovel out his weekly tripe in the Telegraph).

We should expect no special treatment from the EU when we leave. As the much reviled Jean Claude Junker (whose presidency of European Commission was opposed by Cameron using every dirty trick in the book) cryptically commented, it is going to be a painful divorce, but it wasn't a tight love affair in the first place. If the leavers are hoping that Britain wold get a Norway-style deal, it's not going to happen. There are more chances of hair growing on Iain Duncan Smith's bald head than Britain being offered that kind of deal. Also, seeing as the 'leave' campaigners are pathologically averse to free movement of people across European nations, they would be wasting everyone's time if they attempted Norway-style deal when Britain leave the EU. It is also interesting that after telling tall stories and giving false promises to people, the 'leave' campaigners are suddenly in no rush to invoke article 50, which will start the process of Britain's exit from the EU. Why is that? If they really thought that the EU was really so demonic, get out of it quick. My guess is that there will be political pressure on the leavers to invoke article 50 by Christmas.

Lord Heseltine has suggested that the triumvirate of the Boris Johnson (an untrustworthy sleekit, a proven lier and a philanderer), Iain Duncan Smith (an uninteresting, thoroughly boring man; someone should slip prussic acid into his tea) and Michael Gove (a born mediocrity; also, he looks like he has taken a fatal overdose of rancour) must be put in charge of negotiating Britain's exit from the EU. For this reason alone I would like to see the fat clown Boris Johnson to be Britain's next prime-minister. These three have inflicted this gigantic con on the UK, telling the nation a truckload of lies, and they should be put in charge of the negotiations with the EU. They ought to be held fully accountable for all the consequences. (If they need help Farage could help). Boris Johnson will then find out that if you are trying to fuck a tiger, you'd better make sure that you duct-tape the back legs of the tiger (which he can't do; it is difficult to see what leverage Britain will have in these negotiations other than the vailed threat that a messy Brexit will adversely affect the EU countries); and you are a tiger (which Johnson isn't; he is a fat clown; he is worse than a bad egg; he is, like, bad chicken)).  

The whole ‘remain’ versus ‘exit’ debate was a vicious internal fight within the Tory Party. The main opposition party, the Labour, officially backing the 'remain' campaign, was virtually absent. Its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has the charisma of a dishwasher, ran a thoroughly spineless and dispirited campaign. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but the man is not capable. He does not inspire confidence. Only the deluded or gullible (and there aren’t many of those outside of the Labour Parry members) would trust him with running the country. You might as well put that chap Boycie from Only Fools and Horses in charge of the country. As long as this nincompoop is at the helm of the Labour Party, the Tories have nothing to fear. Jeremy is a loser with a capital L.

Coming back to the EU referendum, Britain has probably conformed to its world-stereotype, I am afraid: we are unique in our sense of (misplaced) self-importance and poisonous exclusiveness.