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Oh my friends and countrymen
Jun. 24th, 2016 06:18 amI 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.
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.
