That Joke Isn’t Funny Any More

Bloody Foreigner - coming here wanting to know what love is

I tried not to write any more blogs about Brexit, really I did.

I’m not one of those people who want to rerun the referendum or stage a military coup to overturn the result (although I do confess to saying that a few times on June 23). I have enough respect left for democracy to accept that the rules of the game whereby if your side loses, you accept the result and move on.

Hell, I even gave serious consideration to voting leave. When I heard the result, I will confess to a little frisson of excitement about what would come next – I’ve always had a soft spot for Schumpeter’s idea of creative destruction.

In fact, I now see – and I hope to god that the Americans take this lesson on board quickly –that more often than not, attempts at creative destruction just result in destruction.

In our case, of anything resembling the kind of liberal political values which have held British society together for the last 70 years and which people like me have taken for granted as defining the sort of country we live in. In the USA’s case, it could be “human life on earth itself” if that fucknugget Trump gets elected president – a proposition which still sounds like something JG Ballard would have not bothered writing a story about on account of it being too far-fetched.

Still, if we are all reduced to radioactive smears on the wall within the year, we would at least not have to witness any more parades of smirking wannabe fascists like this week’s Conservative Party conference.

No, I have gone along with Brexit. I was relatively pleased when Theresa May become prime minister, instead of Boris Johnson or any of the other maniacs left at the wheel of the clown car. I had assumed that the immigrant-baiting we’ve seen over the last couple of months was for show – to please the angry mob with promises of something, sometime, and to scare the European Commission into settling on better terms. That it was just more politician talk that would end up in nothing much.

Until this week. The last straw for me was the idea that businesses should have to report on foreigners they employ doing jobs that could be done by British people, floated by the home secretary, a person called Amber Rudd.

The scales fell from my eyes at that moment. This is really happening. They really want people to be hounded out of their jobs and their homes until they leave the country. People I had assumed were liberal-democratic politicians who would – when it counted – stand up for the values I had assumed we had in common, would genuinely rather see ethnic cleansing on our streets than put their fucking seats at risk.

The country voted, by a narrow margin, to leave the EU. It did not vote for some atavistic, blood and soil, Alf Garnett dreamworld. There must be people who voted leave who do not want what Brexit is turning out to be, who will speak out. Because to my eyes, “Brexit means Brexit” means “Brexit means fascism”.

Do not think for a moment that it couldn’t happen here. The opposition is giving up on parliamentarism in favour of a movement on the streets (and if you look at the form, Black on Red street action tends to work out badly for the lefties when things get serious). Supposedly liberal people are calling for democratic decisions to be voided and while others think that a 52-48 margin means that all discussion of what the leaders put forward is beyond the pale. 

It’s not just the Tories who are contributing to the Weimarisation of this country. We don't realise where we're heading, because we arrogantly believe that it could never happen here - because we're British. 

Are we that stupid and passive and short-sighted that we will sleepwalk into this AGAIN before the last veterans of the Second World War are in their graves?

Apparently, this is my 200th post. Happy anniversary to me.