Remaining Thoughts of a Remainer

Back in the 60s, Roger McGough wrote a poem titled "Why Patriots are a Bit Nuts in the Head". It begins with these lines:

"Patriots are a bit nuts in the head

because they wear
red white and blue tinted spectacles
(red for blood,
white for glory
and blue ... for a boy)"

The scenes of nationalistic celebration seen as the clocks chimed at 11 o' clock last night to mark our exodus from the EU reminded me of this poem and caused me to endorse its sentiment. I didn't stay up to watch the gloatfest of Farage and his acolytes in Parliament Square. I went to bed feeling sad, and woke to more of the same. Not for the first time, I have found myself wondering: "How did we get into this mess?". Not for the first time, I thought about David Cameron's fateful decision to hold that stupid referendum in 2016. It brought him personal disaster, losing his post as PM after the referendum and earning opprobrium from most Remainers - best expressed most famously by Danny Dyer. My only observation is that Cameron did not have to call the referendum, and I often wonder what life would be like for us now, had it not taken place.

Nigel Farage and other Brexiteer pundits delight in ridiculing what they describe as "Project Fear" - i.e. the warnings of the dire consequences of Brexit. That paragon of compassion, Ian Duncan Smith, is one example. In The Telegraph in 2018, he thundered:

" Hardly a day goes by without another scare story about the UK failing to get medical isotopes, facing a shortage of medicines, or British aircraft not being allowed to land in the EU"

IDS didn't mention that the Leave campaign had its own "Project Fear" - mostly about EU migrants. The rise in hate crime after the Referendum was not a scare story - it happened (and is growing). It's not a scare story that many EU nationals in the UK are worried about their status - they are.The two violent deaths that happened after the referendum campaign began - Jo Cox, M.P, and Duncan Keating - were not a scare story - they happened. The deep divisions in UK society, between families and friends, within workplaces and political parties, were not part of a scare story either - they happened. The Independent commented on this issue:

"More than one in 20 Britons (6 per cent) say they have fallen out with or stopped speaking to a family member and almost one in 12 (8 per cent) with a friend because of rows over Brexit, according to a new survey".

To me, the consequences of the Brexit fiasco are already disastrous, and I see no reason not to expect things to get worse. I can only shake my head in bewilderment at the way IDS, Farage, Johnson, et al, ignore these factors - perhaps they just regard hate, death and division as collateral damage.

One Brexiteer who I find especially irritating is the oleaginous Mark Francois, M.P. seen above. He is the darling of the Daily Express and delights in rubbing into Remainers that we have lost. I watched as much as I could endure of his performance on Channel Five's Jeremy Vine Show yesterday. In a heated exchange with Remainer Femi Oluwole, he said:

"They (the public) told us to leave and that's what we're going to do. It's called democracy"

Showing my age here, I can attest that when a politician like Mr Francois talks about democracy, the will of the people, etc, he means when the result of a vote is acceptable to him. We can only wonder what Mr Francois, IDS and Nigel Farage, etc, would have been up to now, had the referendum vote gone against them. What they really mean by quoting the results of the referendum and the election is this: "You lost, we won - now shut up!". We Remainers owe it to ourselves not to shut up, but to continue scrutinising the consequences of Brexit. 

For the results of the Referendum and election are not a victory for democracy - they are a victory for the populist Right. The extreme right are already growing in confidence, and we can expect increased activity of all kinds from them, now we have left the EU.

Other particularly nauseating items that Brexiteers constantly call for are "unity ", "healing wounds" and "stretching out their arms" to people who disagree with them - such as myself and all Remainers. Speaking for myself, I shall rebuff all such approaches. The thought of being in a hug with Farage, Francois, IDS or Anne Widdecombe is sickening to me - but that's just my opinion. No, the Brexit divisions have gone too deep to be healed, and will continue in one form or another. The majority of younger voters voted Remain and, perhaps at some time in the future, will reopen the debate about EU membership.

As for fellow Remainers, I can understand why you may be downcast at the present time, but I see a light shining towards us, and it comes all the way from Switzerland. 

I actually opposed (no-one noticed) the EU Referendum because referendums are not always progressive or beneficial to humanity. The prime example of this is shown in Switzerland, where they have a number of referendums every year. Until 1971, all-male referendum voters denied women the vote. Then:

"On 7 February 1971, 65.7% of male voters across the nation agreed women should be allowed to vote in federal elections, 78 years after New Zealand (the 1st), 53 years after Germany, 27 years after France and 26 after Italy. That same day, the four cantons of Aargau, Fribourg, Schaffhausen and Zug fell into line, giving women there the vote at a cantonal level." (Swissfact)

This vote had gone against the women of Switzerland numerous times before. I have no doubt that an unctuous Swiss equivalent of Mark Francois, after each defeat, taunted them by saying:
"Calm down, dears! That's democracy.  The (male) people have spoken, you lost, get over it!".

To their immense credit, Swiss women did not give up, but kept on fighting. Some of these redoubtable ladies, now grannies, can be seen in the picture below. I find them inspirational, and don't intend to give up criticising Brexit, Farage, and the far right. As Ziglar said: "If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost".

Some inspirational ladies of Switzerland, who campaigned for the right to vote.