Plan B

Alright, I spent 24 hours drinking, wandering around in a daze, and hoping I was experiencing some sort of psychotic break.

But I woke up this morning with a hell of hangover, sore feet, and it had still really happened.

We are now officially in a crisis situation. Which means we take a deep breath, break the emergency glass, and crack open Plan B.

1. Get Together

I get mocked by friends on the left for being a heartless, capitalist bastard, and mocked by my friends on the right for being a pinko liberal. I’m the hipster of modern politics. Whatever opinion you have, my opinion is, you know, like, a bit more nuanced? Like, I’m really into opposing this new piece of legislation, but it’s super underground and you probably haven’t heard of it.

Well, that’s not an option anymore, not for me and nor for anyone else. I don’t care if you’re centre right or centre left, a free market lover or an animal rights campaigner. I especially don’t care whether you’re for or against Corbyn. If I can keep my ego in check (I mean, sort of anyway), so can you. If you feel the same alarm, shame and anger I do right now, then I’m on your side.

And I really mean it. Even if you like Marmite. Even if you prefer cats over dogs. Even if Tyrion Lannister somehow isn’t your favourite Game of Thrones character. #tyrionforlife #implife

We can argue what this country’s future should look like later. Right now, we need to make sure that this country has a future.

2. Get Civil

I hate this result. I really do. I think that the decent people who voted Leave were wrong and, frankly, either misinformed or willfully ignorant. There is a hard-core nationalist movement flaring into life in the UK, and I wish the Leavers would take ownership of what they have unleashed.

But at some point we have to acknowledge that the vast, vast majority of people who voted Leave are not fascists. They are not knuckle-dragging simpletons, led by a consortium of the land owning gentry. They are friends and family, the people who live across from you and work with you and share a joke with you about the trains running late.

The decision to Leave was the most stupid and dangerous one the voting public has made in my lifetime, but we can’t begin to get anything done until we reach out.

And this is as much advice for myself as for anyone else. There are some very persuasive whispers coming from my hind-brain right now, whispers that have been getting louder and louder over weeks of biting my tongue and clenching my fists each time I saw some jeering bully vent on one of the students and retirees I’ve been campaigning with.

But that is not a voice that gets to be heard in a civilized society. It belongs inside boxing rings and on the comments section of YouTube videos.

So don’t grab the nearest pensioner and ask how they like what Brexit has done to their pension, or, as I myself feel like doing, vowing to campaign to cut pensions funds to cover the damage to the economy.

There is a deep, dangerous divide in the country; it runs between old and young, rich and poor. People of my generation did not create this divide, and have overwhelmingly worked to try and reduce it, but we still have to admit that it is there.

The time for persuasion will come; right now we should just connect, and, hopefully, explain. Let’s resist the temptation to shout at those Leavers we know, and just explain, to those who will listen, why we are so unhappy.

And let’s listen to them too.

Because I know there are millions upon millions of people on the other side of this divide who are as scared by its existence as we are.

3. Get Professional

There have been people demonstrating in the street outside Boris Johnson’s house. I understand why. I understand the anger. Trust me, I’m angry. I’m very angry. I’m so angry it’s slightly surprising I haven’t had a stroke.

But anger isn’t enough. Anger isn’t a manifesto.

What are the demonstrations against? The democratic process? What do you think will happen when the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, the Sun and the Times start mocking a generation that thinks it can go best out of three if it doesn’t get the result it likes?

Because they’re already doing that, and it only stokes feelings of mutual hostility

We need to show people we aren’t a bunch of disaffected drop outs. Some of us are doctors, some lawyers; some are students, some teachers. Almost everyone under 29 did not want this, and the best thing we can do is present ourselves as living, breathing human beings who, between us, make up the future of this country. The distaste for expert opinion is one thing, but it’s much harder to dismiss your GP than a policy wonk on Newsnight.

4. Get Organized

Petitions are great, but they’re not enough. We need to consolidate around a platform, and, ideally, around a political leader.

At the moment it’s hard to say who that leader is going to be. I’m not a Labour voter, but I think it will probably be Labour. I don’t want to have the Jeremy Corbyn debate; this isn’t the time for that. For the record, I will support any Labour leader who is strongly pro-EU. If Corbyn is that leader, then that’s fine by me. If he is replaced by that leader, that’s fine by me too. Whoever it is needs to go on record saying they think the referendum result was bad for this country, and then I will campaign fro them.

The Lid Dems are making a lot noise about being the anti-Leave party, and they might start being relevant again. Happy to support them too, or a Lib-Lab pact.

In the incredibly unlikely event that a pro-EU Tory splinter group emerges and becomes a viable alternative, they get my support too. No time for grudges.

Almost anything could happen.

But we have to be ready. Just talking about it isn’t enough. I’ve been trawling Facebook and there are already hundreds of different groups, different petitions, etc, etc, etc

The first and most vital step is to put everyone in touch with each other. The Stronger In campaign was badly, badly managed, but a lot of the volunteers were real champions. I turned up whenever I could spare the time; they were out there almost every second of the day. The official campaign is done and dusted, but maybe something will come from the grassroots supporters.

Maybe we’re looking at the start of a completely new party; I don’t know.

At the moment the only concrete, sensible groups I know of are local ones, concentrating on local problems. There hasn’t been time for anything else.

If you Like this or Share this, I’m happy to write up a contacts list and keep you posted on anything I find. Or you can let me know if you find something.

Either way, we need to shelve our political allegiances and make sure that the people who feel the same way know one another and are ready to work together.

5. Get Focused

I really don’t think there’s a possibility of just overturning this decision for a while. Respect for the Rule of Law and democracy is about the only thing holding the country together right now. We fuck with that at our peril.

Some people think the petition for another referendum is a good idea; I don’t. They might be right in terms of keeping the flag flying, but in the short term it will achieve nothing and only alienate us from the Leavers who just want unity.

If you disagree, message me; I’m open to any ideas.

There is a chance that, as time passes and the terms of Brexit become clear, there really will be enough grass roots support to justify a second referendum on those terms. We would need a party willing to put it through as a Private Member’s Bill, and enough support in both Houses to get it through.

The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act makes an early election more difficult than it once was. If one is called, though, we will have to put our weight behind any parties offering to stay in the EU, a second referendum or at least a sensible negotiating stance. We will have to put pressure on all such parties to form a pact, so they didn’t stand against each other.

Anyway, I can’t tell you what the long-term future holds for this country, but I do know that in a few months’ time, we have to be in a position to do AT LEAST the following:

· Protect public services from an onslaught such as they have never known, focusing on the most vital ones: NHS, schools, police, etc

· Fight tooth and nail against the repeal of the Human Rights Act

· Start repairing the enormous damage to our standing in the world and continue to express solidarity with those fighting against the far-right in Poland, Hungary, Austria, France and beyond

· Do what we can to convince companies to stay in the UK

· See if we can forge a halfway sensible arrangement with the EU

· Save the United Kingdom, if possible. Manage Scottish independence as peaceably as possible, if not.

· Ensure the Northern Ireland situation doesn’t spiral out of control.

Again, let me know what I’m missing if you disagree. In my estimation, this is the absolute bare minimum we need to get done.

We need to be able to put pressure on whoever is in power to achieve the above, and to rally public opinion against them if they do not.

6. Get Tough

None of us have ever known a political battle as brutal, polarizing and chaotic as the one we face now.

Half the country is livid at the other half, and billions of pounds have vanished from our economy. In terms of both the stock market and the Pound, we have already seen some of the worst falls in history, and there is more volatility to come.

People have already lost jobs, I think many more will lose theirs too. If our rating status is lowered, the cost of government borrowing goes up. This is seriously bad news.

If gloomy buggers like me are right, then sooner or later there will have to be more cuts. Cuts to services already struggling to cope. Cuts far deeper than anything George Osborne ever imagined.

No more jokes about Turkeys voting for Christmas. It’s going to be bad and people will suffer.

And from that suffering will come more political uncertainty. The vast, vast majority of Leavers just want this to be over and to get on with their lives, but we cannot ignore the dangers of the newly emboldened anti-thought, anti-compromise minority tapping into increasing fear and anger.

Yes, I know it’s unfair, because some of them are the people who demonized the working class as scroungers in the first place. But life isn’t fair.

We can’t be complacent. Some of the language floating around at the moment chills my blood. We have already seen violence; I think we may well see more. We’ll certainly see hatred.

Perhaps you think I’m an alarmist. I hope you’re right. But then, people told me I was an alarmist for even thinking it was necessary to campaign in the first place.

I would love to be wrong. I would love for Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and Chris Grayling to turn out to be political geniuses with an economic plan that astounds me, not to mention an ability to bring people together. I would love, this time next year, to be singing Boris Johnson’s praises as a visionary leader.

But immigrants aren’t suddenly going to vanish and there aren’t suddenly going to be better services available. Life for the average person is going to get worse, not better. There will be fear and anger and uncertainty; there will be a sense that what was once unthinkable is now up for debate.

Be tough. Be ready for things to get a bit scary. Hope it doesn’t come to that, sure, but be ready and remind yourself we are, at heart, a decent nation.

7. Get Patriotic

I’ll be honest; I’ve prepared Plan C.

I am lucky. I have the resources to start again somewhere else. I’ve already spent years working overseas, and in some senses it would feel more reassuring to go back to that than stick around here. I come from a family in which some of my ancestors have had to do that multiple times over the centuries, as various bits of the world lost their collective minds. That’s Plan C.

But I can’t do that yet, because it turns out that when push comes to shove, I am a patriot.

In China, where I’ve spent a lot of my working life, the words for patriotism translates literally as ‘love country’.

And I do love the United Kingdom. I do not hate what is foreign; I simply love this country.

I love it because of what it has done and what is has stood for. I love it because it possesses an almost unique ability to cherish its past while seeking to make amends for its misdeeds. I love it because it has been a bastion of decency, honour and fair play.

I love it because of its immeasurable contribution to the modern cultural world, to the very idea of liberal democracy.

I have travelled more widely than most, and I have never found anywhere quite like this strange, fractious and resilient nation of ours.

And while there is much that divides us, the one thing that unites all Britons from Derry to Aberystwyth is a kind of genius for stubbornness. We have always had, as a nation, an ability to look overwhelming odds square in the face and say ‘fuck you, overwhelming odds. I’m British.’

It is why we have produced some of the world’s best writers, thinkers, soldiers, inventors, civil rights campaigners and boxers. In our heart of hearts, we’re contrary bastards.

And it’s still as strong as it ever was. It’s why Boaty McBoatface became a thing, and why, as I write this sentence, I have to chuckle. It’s why we bought thousands of copies of Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in The Name’, just to ensure that The X Factor winner didn’t take the Christmas Number One slot in 2009, and why I feel genuinely proud of that accomplishment. 
 
 But it goes deeper than that. It is why we built the modern world only to complain about it, why we overthrew a king and then replaced him with another one. It is why we praise the Queen at the same time as demanding she have absolutely no power.

It explains a lot of what is good and a lot of what is bad about us, and in my experience the good has always outweighed the bad.

I think that the Leave vote was in no small part down to this stubbornness, egged on and misinformed by liars and demagogues. The world told them to do as they were told, and they said no.

If it’s that spirit of defiance that has brought us to the brink, it’s also what is keeping people like you and me going now.

Look, I don’t know how this will all play out; I may be much more cynical than most, but none of the indications are good.

Still, we are regarded now from the pages of history text books yet to be written, and I am damned if our generation ends up as nothing more than a footnote in a once proud nation’s slide into idiocy and self-harm.

If this is the end of what I thought my country was, then I want to know that I did everything I possibly could. I want to have gone down fighting. I want to have been carried out of the ring, bruised and bloodied and shouting to be let back in.

The situation is awful, the Union seems to be cracking up and there are bits of my family that might never speak to other bits of my family again. I feel it, you feel it, we all feel it. I’m not saying the odds don’t seem overwhelming right now.
 
 But, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, ‘fuck you, overwhelming odds. I’m British.’

8. Get Involved

There are no side lines anymore. Whoever you are, wherever you are, if the United Kingdom is your country, and if you feel this decision was a disaster, your path is clear.

Like this and/or share it, and I’ll at least have a list of people who are willing to be contacted or maybe give half an hour of their time every now and then.

Across this country, there are thousands of people doing what I’m doing now.

Put all those people together, and we’ve got a fighting chance.

We all have our own Plan C. I don’t know what that means for you; perhaps, you’re considering just shrugging it off, living your life as best you can, and hoping it’ll work itself out. I don’t mock you for that at all; this is a shitty deal. It’s your choice.

But please understand that it is a choice. You can choose to do nothing or you can choose to do something.

Thanks for reading this, and good luck to all of us.