Usually, I abstain from writing about politics, the main reason for this is that I don’t really feel qualified to offer a rigorous analysis. Mostly, I deal with feelings (an allegation often levelled at women - as if emotions are a shameful, ludicrous and irrelevant notion). And right now, what I’m feeling is concern. No, concern doesn’t cut it - it would be more accurate to say immense unease.
From the jeering triumphalism of the right, to the gloomy comparisons to 1930s Germany on the left, then on to the cynicism and nihilism of (some of) the abstainers, there is scant comfort on social media this week. I’m scrabbling around for something positive to say and I’m struggling.
It’s not so much that we’ve democratically decided to leave the E.U; an organisation which, even the Remain campaigners acknowledged, wasn’t perfect. It is the horribly distasteful symbolism of the thing. The ugly, racist rhetoric that categorised much of the Brexit campaign, was disturbing in the extreme. Comparisons were made to Nazi propaganda - particularly in relation to the misleading “Breaking Point” poster that *Farage posed in front of on the very day that Labour MP, Jo Cox, was murdered for her humanitarian views; allegedly by a man shouting ‘Britain First’ as he attacked.
*Nigel - hideous, smirking, leather driving-glove of a man!
Whoops, I’ve descended into irrational mud slinging and catcalling, I’ve descended to their level.
[Just as I was trying to write this post, I cam across something far more pithy and succinct :
So far, so emotional and visceral, on my part. Because, when the arguments used to ‘leave’ are all emotional and visceral, and Michael Gove says that people are sick of ‘experts’, where else is there to go? I’m hoping, in a horribly petty way, that those very right-wingers who are hopping up and down from one leg to the other, waving their flags and mocking and sneering at those who grieve for democracy and for a kinder, more inclusive world, feel the negative effects of Brexit. I hope their haulage businesses go down the pooper and they feel it where it hurts - in their wallets. But the great irony of course in that is that, when it does come back to bite them, they’ll still blame all the bloody foreigners!
Already one of the great lies of the Brexit campaign has been exposed -
- That the £350 million that we send to the E.U would be spent on the N.H.S:
And here are some more:
So, what can we do now?
Now, I know that not everyone who voted OUT was racist and/or right wing. In fact, a significant number of Labour voters, that I know, voted that way. Nice, decent people. The Labour party needs to address the problem of a disenchanted (we can’t say disenfranchised) working class. Jeremy Corbyn has acknowledged this (and yet he, of all people, is being blamed and scapegoated for the result, much as immigrants are often scapegoated for the problems that the wealthy elite create...). His was one of the more honest voices in the campaign: ‘remain but reform’ was his official line. A proper, left wing Labour party, which is seen as a genuine opposition to the old Etonians who are ruling the country (even as one goes, another Bullingdon club bore, is waiting to take his place) needs to woo back the voters, who have gone over to UKIP. And we, the 48% who did vote to stay in the E.U, need to try and come together and form a formidable opposition. (Maybe some of the Tory 'remainers' might want to think about a shift over to Labour?? Come on, you know we have all the more interesting people on our side - actors, writers, musicians and the like ;) )
#MoreinCommon
(I just need to have another cup of tea first.)
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