Time for common sense?

As the now near inevitable non-Brexit grinds towards whatever the opposite of a conclusion is, the pundits are having a field day as conspiracy after conspiracy is dreamed up and the succession of leaks, rebuttals, unofficial briefings and official denials muddies the waters beyond any comprehension. Anybody who dares to claim they understand what is going on is quickly challenged and effectively silenced. The rest of us have little option but to sit it out; we really don’t have a clue.

One thing is for certain; whatever the deal or no-deal, the backstop (what the actual fuck is ‘the backstop’, seriously?) the resolution of the hyped-up ‘Irish question’, the future customs arrangements and the unimaginably dull transition period, a post-Brexit Britain will remain a battleground. It is pretty clear now that the UK will not be leaving the EU in any meaningful way but Remainers will get their result in the most unpalatable way imaginable.

It will be like the tug of war for a cherished sale item which results in it being irreparably broken; or the simple favour for a friend which sparks a trans-generational feud. Cutting off a nose to spite a face will seem pale in comparison, for Britain is broken and neither side is prepared to admit that they broke it. I fully expect next year’s favourite Bonfire Night effigy to be Gina Miller, who did so much to stoke the fires and reveal the impotence of a supposed sovereign government. We, the people? There is no such thing.

Britain is fractured into tribal groups and shitstorm doesn’t begin to describe what is coming for decades ahead. One thing is for certain and that is that the Remain campaign, which has employed, by orders of magnitude, far more resources than the humble Leavers ever had at their disposal, will never stop until every last Leaver has died or recanted. And even then it is doubtful anything will be forgotten, let alone forgiven. Just as southern US states refer to their civil war as ‘the recent unpleasantness’ people will remember Theresa May’s non-Brexit with bitter irony and with blood in their mouths.

But there is a way – and that is to leave, just leave, take the hit, sit out the shit and get on with it. ‘It’ being the rebuilding of our country in OUR image, not that of the progressives who have – the world over – brought strife and division in the false name of equality and diversity. I want an unequal society, but not a cruel one. I want there to be gracious winners and losers who recognise that losing is quite normal, but also that winning is within the grasp of those who keep on trying.

The left talk about fairness, well the reality is that life is inherently unfair, but I do want the genuinely unfortunate to be cared for and yes, I believe the state has a major part to play in this provision. Defence, security, law and order, healthcare, education, transport and more should be under the purview of government, but until the government more closely reflects the governed this simply isn’t going to work. Before Parliament can work properly it must be demolished and rebuilt from scratch. And Brexit might just be the wrecking ball with which to do it.

But not by violence, although I think violence is coming, because the stirred beast of the voiceless majority will lash out and the more the current establishment tries to exercise restrictions on the freedom to speak out, the more it tries to render some debates off-limits, the more likely a physical response will arise. The left have much to fear in this regard, but until they recognise that their far-right bogeyman is a demon of their own making, there may be no other way of bringing them to the table than to make it come true.

There is a respectable view that Brexit, like Trump, like Le Pen, like Orban, has come about as a reaction to the sneering condescension of those who believe they know better. There is much evidence that higher levels of education produce deeper levels of indoctrination and confirmation bias. So maybe the time has come to purge the world of governance of its intellectuals and let common sense have a go. And this could start by respecting the vote and letting us leave the EU without a deal and then all mucking in together to make it work. I’m not holding my breath.

Soon be Monday

Say what you like about David Cameron – and I am as guilty as anybody of slagging the man off in recent weeks – but his measured, if delayed, reaction to the glorious news was exactly right. He blamed nobody, threatened nothing and sucked it up to say it was time now to regroup, rebuild and get back to business. He was also honest enough to understand the mood in much of the country and step down gracefully. The time for fighting is over.

What a shame millions of others could only wallow in their cosseted, wished-for misery. The level of whining butt-hurt out there yesterday was off the scale. And as it was already at a cosmic level beforehand, that was fuckwittery from an alternative universe. Having ramped up the fear and hatred over the last few months how dare the sky not fall in? It was as if they were demanding their homes be invaded by jack-booted Stormtroopers to evict their freezing cold babies into the streets and disappointed that no immigrants had been herded into cattle trucks to be deported... via the ‘showers’.

The BBC did its best to help. In every news bulletin it was reported that the economy had tanked, that it had ‘plunged’ over a cliff and the pound was now worth less than a Weimar Republic mark in 1924. Such cataclysmic reporting had its own momentum, like a supertanker trying to change course; when both Sterling and the FTSE bounced back to show relatively modest changes on the day this went almost entirely unreported, so generation snowflake continued to rend garments, gnash teeth and look for somebody to blame.

In the Labour Party the fault was that of Jeremy Corbyn and his fellows lined up to stab him in the front for somehow telepathically causing former Labour core voters to embrace the hate and become racist Faragistas. Nicola Sturgeon lost no time in pointing out that, just as in sports, Scotland hated England so much they would support foreign rule from any other source. And across the world, from luvvies in Los Angeles to irrelevant, forgotten tax exiles in tropical climes berated the people who live in cold, wet Britain for exercising their democratic right.

But most of all it was ‘the old people’ who took the flak. The old people whipped the rug out from under the country’s youth and condemned generations to penury. It was the old people, who fought wars and rebuilt the country and lobbied for workers’ rights that, having taken advantage of all they had gained, now wanted to pull up the rope ladder after them. It was the vicious, nasty, bitter and twisted old people that want to turn Britain into Nazi Germany. No, really. What makes it all the more delicious is that fully 75% of the 18-25 year olds who are whining about the old people denying them their promised future didn’t even bother to turn out and vote... and of those who did vote, a third of them voted for Brexit.

Man up, snowflake!

But the weekend will come and go. The celebration barbecues will be had, or the wakes will be held and there will be some thick heads in the morning. Then, on Monday it will be business as usual, except for one thing. The future is now entirely in your hands. Embrace what is and stop mourning for the illusion that was. And while the rest of Europe is having its own long dark nights of the soul and the inevitable decline of the EU hastens, be glad that we are on the outside, roll up those sleeves and start digging for victory.