Brexit Blues
My closet compadres know I’m not one for extreme public sentiment. Neither am I a fan of broadcasting personal political soundbites on social sites. Some sacred subjects are best left for the dinner table with a few too many bottles of red and real live people.
But recent events this week have left me so speechless, I can’t let this one pass without minor reference and recognition of the British public’s vote to leave the EU. My American buddies keep giving me sympathetic looks and shaking their heads. I’ve experienced virtual hugs caught via fleeting glances as they lower their lids to the ground.
What the FOOKING HELL has happened? When did the UK become a nation that fostered parochialism and xenophobia over common sense and free movement? This is not the United Kingdom I know and love. This is not the view of our wonderful friends and family we have back home.
Or so I thought.
As fragmented conversations emerge from the mists of the Brexit aftermath, it seems a handful of people in my close community voted OUT. I honestly have no idea why.
The strange thing for me has been experiencing this from a distance. I left the UK just a few weeks ago, caught brief moments of the IN and OUT campaigns, never thinking for one moment, OUT would Trump it.
I can say though, that I’m as guilty as the next person for leaving matters of European citizenship to the masses. We were in such turmoil when we left to cross the Atlantic, we didn’t arrange to vote by proxy. BAD. Ironically, only days have passed here in California since we raised our eyes to the roof, silently sneering at the whole Trump pantomime. But we had no idea Little England was soon to follow suit. The joke is now on both of us.
So some of us (well, 48%) are feeling battered and bruised. But I have to say, I’m an eternal optimist. We can turn this around, surely? And could it be, that once all the dust settles, negotiations for Brexit might not actually be that severe? Tim Oliver, a Fellow at the London School of Economics IDEAS foreign policy think-tank puts it like this: “The EU is a bit like the Hotel California in the Eagles song — you can check out anytime, but you can never really leave”. Nobody knows yet what a British exit from the EU really means. Oliver suggests more limited opt-outs “could leave pillars of European integration, such as free movement of labour, untouched”.
And perhaps too, this is a right royal kick up the backside for us all to become truly interested, engaged and informed on what is actually going on. It’s clear the EU desperately needs to modernise. Telegraph columnist, Roger Bootle, states that “We are where we are because of the astounding arrogance and incompetence of the European political elite”. Like Oliver, he also makes careful cases for different states of withdrawal. I’d better order his book, so I can drop intelligent sounding quotes all over the place at those homely dinner parties we never have.
As we exhale slowly from the events of the last week — my husband and I consider what on earth to do in the midst of a democratic crisis? The only option is a bag of popcorn, Kettle crisps and a bottle of red in bed. And Deadpool— the most juvenile of humour. Any Hollywood blockbuster highlighting the comfort of crocs in socks is worth a shot in my book. And we laughed so hard our sides hurt.
So I live in hope that we’ll wake up back in Blighty when we return, with a stinking hangover; wiping our brow and musing on what a close shave it was, pouring another glass of red for breakfast and cracking on with our day.
