... Maybe it's not a case of us leaving Europe but of us not being worthy enough anymore to be part of their club. No one here shares a European outlook of strength through unity. No one here thinks we are just as much the descendants of Plato, Charlemagne, Goethe and Voltaire as we are Boudicca and Brunel. We have bleated and whined and demanded a whole raft of exceptions while sending a cohort of racist harrumphers to institutions they don't believe should exist. We then lament that with such luminaries, things don't work well or that the adults take charge.
And now, we are all happy to let people call Turks as a menace. We let people rail against Poles and Romanians and no one bats an eyelid. The right clap along and the left tells us it's not bigotry it's just the expression of marginalization and a felling of abandonment. No one stands up and calls it out for the vicious prejudice it is. We all saw what happened tho Brown when he called Gillian Duffy a bigot just for making a bigoted comment.
The tragicomic thing of this situation is that, like all supporters of populist demagogues, the people who support them have the most to lose. If we leave they will wave the Union Jack, get pissed and sing football chants. They will celebrate trapping themselves on an island with a bunch of ruthless toffs who will start wholesale asset stripping and disenfranchising free of any constraint. And when they realise that leaving a free trade area does not miraculously make us the "great trading nation" we were when we controlled a quarter of the world by force of arms, then it will be too late.
As for the much derided middle class: Whether Hampstead socialist or Bury St-Edmunds reactionaries it won't be too bad for us. We will find loopholes. Some have second homes abroad that they can make permanent residence. Others have good friends from Erasmus years, gap years, internships or other middle class rites of passage that might be willing to accept a fake civil union so that all parties can get 2 passports.
We will be able to move abroad. Remainers will gloat and Brexiters will wail at what has become of Britain. We will all pretend to be surprised that a lethal mix of xenophobia and self inflicted economic seppuku creates a toxic political environment when only the charlatans survive. We will all say we don't understand what happened when these charlatans keep pushing that hatred button for more support. We will all feign dismay when the first episodes of violence happen...
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