Get Real

It’s just over two weeks to go to the big referendum day and while the Leave and Remain campaigns are going into overdrive, hoping to bring out all the big guns in a final sprint to the finish line, half of the spectators have wandered off unimpressed and the rest are largely splitting into sectarian groups, grumbling about how to handle the result. It’s important, win or lose, to have a strategy to explain, celebrate, declare conspiracy and ultimately to just be able to live with the outcome.

If we vote to remain in the despised EU – even many who will vote to stay are hardly uncritical supporters of the shadowy organisation which has taken over every aspect of our lives - the Brexiteers will never accept the verdict and the struggle for UK independence will go on. If we vote to leave then every single thing that isn’t perfect – every drop of rain on a summer’s day, every change in interest rates, every company that folds, every jihadi that explodes, every disease, plane crash, cancelled TV series, unrisen soufflé, burnt barbecue sausage or losing lottery ticket - will be blamed on Brexit.

Even if we get to become filthy rich outside some will still insist that our wealth could have been filthier still; after all, isn’t that exactly what Osborne’s dodgy dossier suggested? On the other hand if we stay in and things only continue to get more mundane, unexciting, over-controlled  and less prosperous it will be blamed on the disruption caused by the run up to the vote and they will say the markets don’t trust us because we dared to show some teeth. There is a post-result strategy to suit every pessimist in this celebrated land of gloomy stoicism.

If it hasn’t already dawned on you, nobody is going to win except the usual winners; the losers will still always lose no matter how many chances you give them. Given any set of circumstances, those with the ability to exploit those circumstances will profit. Given any set of circumstances most of those at the bottom of the dung heap will resolutely dig themselves deeper. It’s enough to make you believe that the EU project is an ideal and accurate model of all big societies; keep the herd doped up and sluggish and let the elites play at amassing cash – all we need are progressively bigger fences to separate them.

Who’s going to pay for it all? Who always pays in the end? Not the working man at the bottom of the ladder – their tax credits and share of society’s provisions more than equal their meagre tax contributions. Not the very wealthy – from their tax havens all they can see is clear waters and gentle ripples crinkling the shadows of their super-yachts as they lie at anchor under azure skies. No, it’s you and me, the ‘higher rate’ taxpayer, which now conveniently includes people on what would have been comparatively quite average earnings just a few years ago.

ITV audience event went to Farage

Meanwhile the BBC worry about the wearing of crusader outfits at Euro 2016 games in case they upset muslims; it's clear to see some crusades never end and the state broadcaster plays its part in the national pantomime. The demise of the Roman Empire was accompanied by a quelling of the masses with distractions and simple pleasures – bread and circuses - The referendum might just be both the biggest circus and con-trick of all, providing literally decades of distraction while the lever-pullers keep on tugging away. Whichever way you vote on 23^rd June don’t expect the outcome to change your life. In or out, only you can do that.