The Boiling Frogs of Brexit
It is said that if you throw a frog into boiling hot water, it will immediately jump back out. Heat up the frog’s water slowly however and the poor creature won’t realise that it is getting cooked.
Cruel scientific experiments aside, I find it hard not to feel that a comparable fate awaits Remain-voting Brits and EU nationals living in the UK, particularly in England.
For people who believe in an open, pro-immigration, multi-cultural society — the ‘frogs’ of Brexit — the waters had already been heating up for a while prior to the referendum on EU membership.
With the Brexit result in June 2016, the pot was immediately placed on the larger burner and the gas was cranked up to full. Racist and xenophobic attacks in the UK began to skyrocket.
For many, the Leave vote legitimised their most hateful prejudices — and continues to do so.
Far from being ‘good winners’, the nastiest and most ignorant individuals within the Leaver camp turned to hate crimes against Muslims, Jews, Poles, Romanians and other labels perceived as ‘foreign’.
For many, egged on by promises to “take back control”, the Leave vote legitimised their most hateful prejudices — and continues to do so.
Sensing the social heat rising after the referendum and extrapolating in the direction of travel, a small minority of frogs (some French, but of all origins) immediately drew up plans to leave the UK.
Personal reasons for leaving are manyfold: disgust, anger, fear for one’s safety, a logical sense of diminished employment opportunities — but all have the same root cause: a greater share of the eligible voting public chose Leave over Remain.
These people are now in the majority and recently discovered that their vote does make a difference after all.
And here is the thing that hurts frogs so much: It is not just that the UK is leaving the European Union, disruptive enough in its own right. It is the fact that so many people actively voted to rip the UK out of the EU.
And to hell with the disastrous social consequences suffered by others. “Yes, I realise that thousands will endure upheaval and persecution, but I want my country back.”
It is not just that people listened to politicians promising to tear down EU bureaucracy and all the EU-imposed legislation they are still unable to identify. It is that they listened to politicians who were comfortable sharing a platform with outright xenophobes.
These people are now in the majority and recently discovered that their vote does make a difference after all. No prizes for guessing whose attention politicians will be vying for at the next election.
As attached as you may feel to life in England, is this a climate you wish to live in?
Many frogs simply have no ability or desire to leave the country in the near future, whether because of work or family ties. Therefore the majority will simply grin and bear the consequences — the lower standard of living, the mobility restrictions, the toxic politics, the feuds with family members and friends.
Some are doing their best to fight back against Brexit, or at least against the hardest forms of Brexit, via legal challenges, marches, online campaigns and other initiatives.
The challenge however is immense. Branded ‘Remoaners’ even when pointing out objective facts (such as the Pound’s collapse since the beginning of 2016), the Leavers will always have the ultimate come-back: “The country voted to leave”.
Many frogs would relish the opportunity to have a sensible debate about the complex implications of breaking off 45 years of membership and how best to go about leaving the EU. If only we could sit down and talk these things through sensibly.
Except, few Leavers were listening to complexity before the referendum. What hope is there now?
Perhaps you will be one of the new scapegoats.
Sadly, my belief is that the political climate in England and Wales — beyond London and a few other bastions of liberal thought — will only get worse in the coming years.
Faced with lower living standards outside of the EU, and quite possibly as a broken-up UK, new scapegoats will need to be found.
Perhaps, based on your skin colour, religious beliefs, profession or position in society, you will be one of the new scapegoats.
The question, if you are a liberally-minded frog, is when to conclude that enough is enough and move to continental Europe, Ireland or Scotland, or further afield.
Many frogs are tempted to stay put and cling to the hope that after a period of intense heat, the political waters will cool down again. But even if they do cool down one day, is that how you want to live the next 10 or 15 years of your life?
There is also no guarantee that the drawbridge — the freedom for UK nationals to live elsewhere in Europe without restriction — will not have been raised by that point.
If you believe the climate will become intolerable at some point, don’t wait until it’s too late to get out of the boiling water. It’s time to leave England.
