Among all the many imponderables there is one, highly noticeable
effect of the Brexit vote and that is the clear division between those who
voted to leave and those who voted to remain. On the one side is a band of
bright, positive individuals, eager to greet the future and straining at the
bit to get on with the job. On the other side is a Borg-like hive of naysaying
malcontents, parroting their leaders and claiming to know what lies ahead. And their
collective vision is a nightmare.
But there is good news for all. The future is simultaneously
unknowable, exciting, filled with opportunity and ‘what you make it’. We learn
from past mistakes – arguably this is the main reason the slim majority voted
to leave – and try and avoid them. Humans are decision makers, using knowledge
and experience to make every fuck up a new and different fuck up. Sometimes,
despite ourselves, we might actually get it right. Leavers are not rushing to
hurl themselves blindly off a cliff edge; they are looking for new ways to fly.
Into every life a little rain must fall. In the past we
have experienced world wars, the sudden decline of massive industries, natural
disasters and plain bad luck. People have bet the farm and lost. They have entered
into disastrous marriages and ended up broken, yet they mend in time. Some
people will lose out after we leave; those people should be planning to
minimise their losses. Some people will gain and they should be planning to
maximise their gains.
But for most people, the world will simply keep on
turning. You will still be able to do the things you do now. Your pay
packet will never quite be enough to pay for all you crave. Interest rates will
rise and fall, pension plans will ebb and flow and just when you are back in
the black your car/house/kidneys may fail. Some people will deal with calamity
by calmly picking themselves up and getting back on their feet. Others will go
to pieces. At the moment I think we are getting a clear idea about which group is
which.
If I was an employer, looking to add to my workforce –
and one day statistics may bear this out – how you voted might be of great
interest to me. Remainers seem to be relentless pessimists, very happy to point
to every negative thing as being directly caused by their Brexit bête noire;
how might this indicate how they will cope should my business one day be in trouble?
On the other hand, Brexiteers seem to be happy souls, full of drive and keen to
make a success of it, whatever happens. Just a thought.
So, when you next see a Remainer blasting all Leavers as
poorly educated, small-minded, xenophobic, regressive troglodytes, you may want to
bear the following in mind. Such Remainers are ignorant wreckers,
oblivious to any ‘facts’ which detract from their doomsday narrative and eager
to cling to any evidence, no matter how flimsy, or how contrived, that everything
will end badly. The derided Leavers, in contrast, are ready for the challenge,
up for the fight and will do their very best to make a success out of it. As we
face ‘the end of the world as we know it’ whose company would you prefer to keep?
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