I'll continue with my ignorant and naïve characterisation of the major players later, but for now I think it's worth mapping out what's happened with Brexit so far and where I think it's going to go next.
So on Thursday night my wife went to bed and I stayed up to watch the count. I was a little anxious, true, but I never believed that Britain would ever choose anything other than to remain in the EU. The polls had swung heavily towards remain, the financial markets and currencies looked confident, and those often reliable oracles, the bookies, had the odds stacked way in favour of staying in. Then the Gibraltar vote came in, 96% remain, 4% leave, and I was in high spirits. The anxiety that had been plaguing me in unpleasant little waves for the last few weeks was all just nerves. This was going to go the way of the Scottish independence referendum.
A couple more regions reported their counts and it looked rosy, but then came Sunderland. Oh dear. Well, perhaps this was just statistical noise. We had to expect that some areas would defy predictions, but there was no reason to suspect that the aberration would be reflected throughout the evening. Oh, but it was.
As the counts came in, the number of leave votes grew ever higher. Now and again, a London borough would tip the results back in favour of remain, but by about 3:30 a.m. we had a pretty good, if galling, idea of where things were going. Heavily depressed, I went to bed. My one hope was that the majority of London hadn't yet declared and that things may well be back on the straight and narrow by the morning. I fell into a fitful sleep where dreams of giant David Dimblebies wielding razor sharp swingometers descended on me with the vote to leave ringing in my ears, while Jeremy Vine cackled mischievously as he watched the demise of logic and reason.
Sweating, I awoke at around 6:30 and realised the dreams were just that. I turned to my phone, unlocked it and clicked straight onto the BBC News website.
Fuck.
Fuck fuckity bollocking fuck.
Now, you may resent my use of profanity here, but let me assure you this is considerably tamer than what spilled out of my mouth early on the morning of the 24th. My wife, turned over as she woke and asked what I was whining about, so I told her.
"Fuck" she said.
"Fuck fuckity bollocking fuck." or at least words to that effect.
The rest of the day was spend not-so-quietly fuming and, as my long suffering friends will attest, hurling my anger at the dispassionate wall of Facebook.
But then, things began to change.
The first piece of news was that our old friend Nigel Garage was telling us that he couldn't guarantee that there was going to be an extra £350,000,000 per week to spend on the NHS and that he thought it had been a mistake[source].
Well were we surprised? Of course we bloody weren't. The slimy little newty-faced snotgoblin had come out with precisely what we expected. He, of course, stated that he'd never mentioned that number. He had [source]. Of course, Nigel Garage wasn't part of the official leave campaign, so does it matter whether he ever made that claim? Oh, Vote Leave also made that promise. Don't believe me? Look here, oh and here, on their website where they said "If we Vote Leave on 23 June, we can not just reduce the pressure on the NHS, but can stop sending £350m to the EU every week and instead spend it on our priorities. £350m is enough to build a brand new, fully staffed hospital every week.". But have they now backtracked on the promise as well? I believe they have [source]. Oh dear.
Now I'm not the kind of person that believes that the breaking of a single promise should tarnish the entire campaign. This is politics. No campaign ever seems to go without at least one or two little (£350 million) fibs, so surely the other promises made during the campaign are all being kept. After all, a lot of people voted on the basis of statements made to them by the campaigners, as well they should.
Of course, one of the most contentious issues brought about during the debate was that of immigration. Something along the lines of 333,000 immigrants, whether refugees or economic migrants, came to the UK last year. Slightly less than half of these migrants were from the EU [source], so leaving the EU is unlikely to bring the numbers down any more than that, presumably somewhat less. But to misunderstand this isn't the fault of the British voter. Many of them are scared of the number of migrants coming to this country. So surely, when the leave campaign say that a vote for Brexit will significantly reduce the number [source -That's the same web page as the £350 million pledge, by the way] of immigrants, you'd expect, post-referendum, for them to stick by that idea. Oh dear, they've reneged on that promise as well [source].
Well, alright, sometimes fibs get out, but third time's a charm, eh? One of the other major claims by Vote Leave was the idea that we'd be able to reclaim our 'sovereignty'. Now I use inverted commas here because I think the idea of a pile of besuited wankers in Westminster making our laws is very much the same as them being made in Brussels, or wherever else, for that matter. However, I understand people's national pride is at stake, so is it possible that the leave campaign never made this promise? No, it's not. They definitely made it [source]. And are they going to stick to it? Once again, it appears not, with the pro-Brexit Express newspaper saying that we'll require a Norway style trading arrangement with the EU [source]. Now that doesn't seem too bad, does it? Except of course that, as it says in the article, those countries are required to accept free movement of people in order to secure such a deal, so we're back to immigration. But this is about sovereignty, not immigration, so are there any ramifications here? Oh yes, oh yes there are. Norway and the other countries with similar arrangements are also required to implement a number of yes, you guessed it, EU laws [source].
So it seems that the politicians on the Leave side were just bags of hot air, but that doesn't mean the ever faithful British press would have been so stupid as to publicise promises which couldn't be kept? Pah! See anything the Express or Sun wrote before the referendum. Kindly though, the tabloid press has, since the event, been helpfully informing their readers about the negative impacts of Brexit [source]. Yes, that link is to The Independent, but there's a link in there to the original article. I just thought you'd like the additional chance to read some of the Sun newspaper's readers' reactions to the 'news'.
Okay, so we've pretty well torn up any idea that the leave campaigns promises were anything other than complete heffalump testicles, but what about the remain campaign? Weren't they just ladening us with fear and scaremongering?
Well, yes, they were. The thing about scaremongering though, is that just because it's designed to instil dread, that doesn't mean it's not true.
How did the pound cope on the day after the referendum? It crashed to a 31 year low [source].
What about the stock markets? Bollocksed [source].
House builders? Dropping faster than teenager's balls [source].
How about Britain's reliable and long standing global credit rating? Err...down 2 levels by Standard & Poors, Fitch and Moody's too [source].
All kinds of other financial skullfuckery going on too. You can find that out for yourselves by looking at any reputable news source, anywhere in the world.
So after all the lies, the deceit and the economic downturn, how are the voters feeling about their new found independence? Err....not great. The Daily Mail (yes, that one) conducted a survey which led it to believe that 1.1 million leave voters now regret their decision [source].
Oh, and some good news, the Prime Minister's resigned, triggering a Tory leadership race and a possible general election [source], but don't be too excited, as that probably means he'll be replaced by Boris 'I didn't really expect anyone to actually go and vote to leave' Johnson.
So how would I sum up the aftermath of the EU Referendum? Four words:
Fuck fuckity bollocking fuck.
Tomorrow, if I haven't moved to Gibraltar, I'll tackle the future. Should be simple enough.
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