Oh my friends and countrymen

[nineveh_uk]

I know that in terms of immediate personal threat, the despair that I feel right now is as nothing compared to that of my EU friends and colleagues, and indeed my friends and colleagues from beyond the EU who have been shown the foul xenophobia and racism of the UK, for make no mistake whatever other reasons might be spackled over the top this is sheer vile nationalism, but my sense of betrayal by my country and its politicians is absolute.

This need never have happened. This is a choice made not just by yesterday's voters, but by our political class. It is a choice that comes with an immediate cause, David Cameron's attempt to stave off UKIP at the last election, but it is a longer-term choice that comes from blaming every political ill on a nebulous European demon while systematically failing to address real grievances and driving people to think that the political establishment didn't give a shit for them. This last is sadly true, the terrible thing is that decades of misinformation mean people have targeted the wrong political establishment. If I believed in hell, I'd say Cameron, Gove, Farage, Johnson et al should burn in it. Add in Jeremy Corbyn, too, for an atrocious inability to do any sort of convincing Remain campaign. Unfortunately they're all going to be all right. It's the rest of us who will get hell.

On an immediate economic level I'm all right. My holiday spending will be curtailed*, but my employment protection is strong. If house prices crash, I will even benefit. But the place that I hoped I lived, and for someone who grew up under Thatcherism it was always only a hope, never a belief, is utterly gone.

*I feel incredibly fucking stupid for not thinking last night "book your European holiday now, anywhere at all". I know that this is trivial, but it adds to the surreal element of the morning's feelings.

Comments

[white_hart]

I could have written every word of this. If I hadn't been rendered inarticulate by exhaustion and despair, anyway.

[nineveh_uk]

As I put it to LH this morning when she popped in to see if we were all still alive, my current state is resigned despair.

[gramarye1971]

Earlier tonight, I said on other social media that I had the same sick feeling in my heart this evening that I had while watching the November 2004 US election results from my flat in London -- the sense that I couldn't believe what I was seeing, that people could be so short-sighted and narrow-minded to vote for empty promises and outright lies. There's nothing I can add to what you've said so well here, except my own sorrow and sympathy and rage.

[nineveh_uk]

the sense that I couldn't believe what I was seeing, that people could be so short-sighted and narrow-minded to vote for empty promises and outright lies

That is very much it. And many of the lies are so completely transparent. It is wilful ignorance, xenophobia, and the desire to give someone a good kicking - the latter perhaps understandable if only they weren't actually kicking themselves in the head.

Thank you for the sympathy.

[snorkackcatcher]

But the place that I hoped I lived, and for someone who grew up under Thatcherism it was always only a hope, never a belief, is utterly gone.

This.

[antisoppist]

Friend on phone at 6.30 this morning: Is this worse than Thatcher?
Me: Yes.

[nineveh_uk]

It's been horribly nature red in tooth and claw, really.

[pensnest]

I'm beyond disappointed with my fellow Bri- no, my fellow *English*. The Scots and Northern Irish have more sense.

I completely share your anger at our politicians. I can't even articulate how furious I feel.

[nineveh_uk]

Rural English and small towns at that (though still not everywhere). While some English cities (Birmingham!) went for Leave, a lot went for Remain.

[fallingtowers]

I'm so, so sorry. I've also been close to crying all morning. I'm just so scared of what this means for all of Europe, economically and politically. While I have never been the biggest fan of the EU in its cumbersome, intransparent, and bureaucratic reality, I'm an ardent believer in its original vision, and I'm currently seeing that vision go to hell, not only in the UK.

[nineveh_uk]

I'm sorry that we've decided that what Europe needs is a big dose of aggressive right-wing nationalism and to lead by example because other places weren't being extreme enough. The far-right parties elsewhere must be delighted. What happened to solidarity and trying to make things better for everyone, not just the rich and the complacent?

[espresso_addict]

...it is a longer-term choice that comes from blaming every political ill on a nebulous European demon while systematically failing to address real grievances and driving people to think that the political establishment didn't give a shit for them.

Oh god, this.

[nineveh_uk]

40 years of blaming the EU for everything and guess what? Quite a lot of people don't like the EU.

[grondfic.livejournal.com]

THIS!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Your icon is horribly appropriate.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I agree. I'm ashamed of my country this morning. Even my six-year-old kid can understand that being alone is not a clever strategy. I can only conclude that people get thicker and nastier as they get older.

Would try and provide words of comfort, but I can't.

If there is another Scottish referendum, I'm out. This isn't my country any more.

(sympathise about the holiday. We were an agreed mortgage short of buying a lovely flat.)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I'm really sorry about the flat. Is this going to completely do for it, or might it still go ahead if things settle down?

[snorkackcatcher]

It is my country, dammit, and always has had some good and some bad strands. One way of looking at this is that it was a choice between traditional English pragmatism and traditional English xenophobia. Like you, I'm ashamed that option 2 was picked.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I feel as if the lights have gone out in Europe for the second time.

I am so sorry.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Nigel Farage said that the UK had got its independence without a single shot being fired. Well, he's technically correct in that I believe three shots were fired in the assassination of an MP.

It's awful, aggressive nationalism that is only not overtly fascism because fascists are nasty foreigners.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

This need never have happened.

That's the worst part of it all. I'm wondering if since WWI there has been such an act of intergenerational theft in Britain...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Apparently the fate of nations and continents is less important than spats between a bunch of old school kids.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. (Also sorry that you have to put up with Donald Trump being an idiot.)

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

This. On both thoughts.

[elmey.livejournal.com]

This is so disappointing, and such awful repercussions for you, as well as the rest of us. It's doubled the resolve of a lot of us here to do everything we can to keep Trump out of office, a lot of the impetus behind his votes is the same. (At least he's helping us with the gabble coming from him today).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Yes, it feels very much part of a global phenomenon, a horrible combination of disenfranchisement and wilful folly. There are free TV channels here that have presented the facts to anyone willing to watch the news.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

We're still in shock. It wasn't unexpected, but it turns out that expecting something and having it actually happen are emotionally two quite different things.

Does this mean Oxford's EU students now have to start paying overseas fees?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The moment I read the headline at 6 this morning was not a good moment. I feel I'm partly in resigned despair and partly still in horrified disbelief.

Who knows? Not the current bunch, and certainly not in 2016-17 for new starters then, but we've literally no idea beyond the fact that we'll almost certainly lose a big chunk of EU research funding. I was at a meeting this afternoon of dazed and despondent people at which emergency plans were talked about and they basically boiled down to "tell panicking people they don't have to leave (yet), but we really haven't a clue what is going to happen."

Rather annoyingly, I have learned today that I could have had Irish citizenship because Dad is definitely entitled to it through his grandfather, but he'd have had to register it before my birth for me to inherit and I suspect that he wasn't aware of it, either. C'est la vie!

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. As someone from beyond the EU who has lived in the EU since age 5, the last few months have been vile both for the overt vile nationalism, xenophobia and racism, and for the desire of the highminded folks voting for the thin veneer of spackled-over reasons like "democracy" or "control" to hold their nose and make common cause with people who think the way to appeal to hearts and minds is to recycle Nazi propaganda posters, and who are now calling for respectful debate and congratulating themselves on the democratic process. Well, damn them and damn the xenophobic horse they rode in on. I have never been so angry in my life.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. It really is horrible. It's basically populist fascism, and the only reason that it isn't joined up with the continental popular fascism currently in vogue (although, it turns out, not quite as successful) is that "fascism" as a concept is too associated with foreignness. The leadership knows that it is legitimising the rise in hate crime we have seen in recent days (plus one assassination), but my impression is increasingly that it sees that as a bonus. It isn't Godwinning to say that this is how Nazism gets a grip.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Good piece in the Guardian pointing out that thanks to Cameron's not triggering Article 50 before he resigned, Johnson is f*cked:

"If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over - Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession ... broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished. Boris Johnson knows all of this. When he acts like the dumb blond it is just that: an act."

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Possibly the one intelligent thing that Cameron has done over this! Johnson surely didn't want this outcome - he'd have been much better off with a 45% Leave that would leave Cameron weakened BJ to keep griping from the sidelines and make a bid for leadership. The prospect of being the person who presses the nuclear button (oh dear God, and I meant that metaphorically when I wrote it...) or picking him as that person is much less appealing.

We can but hope...