Something About Made Beds, Caveat Emptor & Other Dumb Thoughts About Brexit From Someone Who Should Be Asleep.

I’m writing this at 1.30 in the morning three days after Britain voted to leave the EU in one of the most incredible displays of a country not considering its choices since anything the US decided not to do about guns.
I’m staggered, as I am sure the rest of the world is, at the result, and the immediate backlash which includes:
- France overtaking the UK as the 5th strongest economy in the world
- The British pound plummeting to the lowest it’s been in 30 years
- The British Prime Minister announcing his plan to resign
- Scotland announcing its plans to keep in the EU, as they initially voted, going so far as to consider a second independence referendum in 2 years.
- Ireland considering reunification and independence to stay in the EU
- Spain announcing plans to claim dual sovereignty over Gibraltar
- Britain’s opposition are tabling a motion of no-confidence against its leader, and
- An overwhelming number of reports across England of racially motivated attacks and verbal abuse directed at people seen as “not British” (that’s any colour not white, for those of not well versed in history).

In summarising the day after, James O’Brien said on his radio show:
“The single thing that we can all agree on now is that no one has a clue what happens now... It doesn’t have to be frightening, but nobody knows what’s going to happen next.”
He’s absolutely right, of course, this could be a time of tremendous hope and optimism, a one time superpower claiming its new place in the modern age and finding greatness again. As we’ve seen since the vote came through, most of the major markets have slowed or stopped trading in held breath and the world, it seems is waiting to see what else is going to happen.

But it’s not without its moments of deep suspicion. One of the Pro-Brexit side’s biggest mouthpieces, Nigel Farage, did a complete reverse on his claim that the money sent weekly to the EU should, if the Brexit happened, be relocated to the NHS. He denied ever saying that.
He said it on national television.
It was on the side of a giant fuckoff bus.
I could go into some of the many and myriad ways that Nigel Farage is a catastrophe, a melted waxwork pressed from the same mould as our own Peter Dutton, more outward of his batshit prejudices, compounded with a taste for leadership, only (and up to this point thankfully) never let loose in a ministerial portfolio. I could explain how he and his allies in the bid to make Britain leave the EU were, if not mistaken, blatantly lying to a disenfranchised people who’d lost faith in their political system. Rather, it is to the wilfully uninformed that we come to. The Independent is now reporting that people who voted to leave are requesting a second referendum. And the reasoning is fundamentally aggravating. To quote one woman : “I would go back to the polling station and vote to stay, simply because this morning the reality is kicking in.” It should.

From the Independent:

Electoral services workers have reported calls from people asking if they could change their decision after Friday’s result became clear, while some publicly admitted they intended to use a “protest vote” in the belief the UK was certain to remain in the European Union.

Now, amid a wave of backtracking from the Pro-Brexit camp on issues ranging from immigration, to the future of the NHS, if there is a legitimate reason to cast another vote by all means, yes. Vote again. It would be one rare time voters who were lied to get to show their displeasure satisfactorily.
Otherwise, and this is as sincere a statement as anyone will offer to anyone who is now scared of what they voted for: No. You asked for this. Deal with it.

Three years ago, Australia had a massive panic attack. As with all panic attacks and manic episodes, our nation was prone to lash out in irrational behaviour, which, it could be argued, we did.
We voted in a leader who was neither wise, nor compassionate, of substance nor, as it seemed, viable. He bought with him a cabinet that not only set about dismantling and disenfranchising their voter base, but tried to convince us succeeding the goals they had (cutting back our immigration, scrapping carbon tax, destroying the NBN) was worth breaking promises they made (cutting the ABC & Medicare’s funding, not providing a guaranteed 26 weeks maternity leave to expecting mothers and selling Medibank private, to name a few of the worst contenders). 
Better or worse, however, we kept this pack of arguably undeserving individuals in power. When there was talk of recalling the Prime Minister, it was laughed down. Even as they cut the arts and planned to waste millions on a plebiscite for the apparently Herculean feat of recognising that some people want to get married differently.
My big problem with these people casting another vote, be it because they feel lied to, they feel like theirs was a vote of protest and was seen as unimportant, they feel they went in uninformed, or they plain just changed their mind completely undermines the idea of Democracy and even putting the vote to the people in the first place.
I’m not entirely sure why this is what I am so mad about. But it may be because I have always taken a vote as a very serious thing to do. I was told early in my life, however idealistic, that people fought and shed blood over a right to have their say. It’s been denied to Aboriginal people and women in this country, it the former’s case until fairly recently in our history. I treat it with an amount of respect and dignity I’m sure others don’t. And that’s fine too. But to protest the result of a vote to the point of demanding another is, even when it’s people of my shared beliefs and ideologies doing it, a situation in which I find myself utterly shocked.

“I didn’t think my vote would be important” has been said by many people who either voted to leave in protest, or by many who simply didn’t. Which should tell everyone whose ever told me their vote is unimportant how dire that statement is. And in this time of uncertainty, while the ugly bigotry that hid in the UK until this vote gave them a cause to throw off the decency society demands of them, while the pound continues to lose value, while the world stares disbelieving into a union jack- coloured question mark of a country, here in this country, we have a very clear, and very real choice to make next weekend as Australia goes to the polls. We have seen and heard what our current Prime Minister wants.

And the words “Caveat Emptor” are blazed across the sky.