I keep waiting for the residual anger to subside, but over two years later, it hasn't. The moment my thoughts go anywhere near the B word I step potentially onto an escalator towards a self enfeebling frustration. Every week appears to provide more fuel to feed this fire. I'm still hopeful for equanimity on the subject to come, or at the very least apathy. But so far its no show on both counts. The worrying thing is that I fear I'm far from alone in this.
Merely to mention the B word in polite conversation these days makes everyone go stiff and ready to be on the defensive. You never know the lie of the land ahead, there might be 'one of them' someone who holds a different opinion to you, potentially hostile territory anywhere.There seems to be an elephant under the carpet in every room. Its as if The B word is a trigger word releasing pre-programmed responses, turning the minds of previously reasonable people into folk who only speak in slogans, loudly volatile and beligerent.
I've never voted Tory, voted Labpur only twice, Green once, mostly it was LibDem until their foolish Faustian pact with the Tory's. I voted tactically last time, simply to prevent a Tory from getting in. In a fair and fully functioning modern democracy you shouldn't have to do that. I've got used to wasting my vote on a party with no chance of getting represented or under represented in Parliament due to the gerrymandered nature of the majority vote system. I vote, but as the options increasingly narrow, I do so with ever diminishing enthusiasm and increasing frustration. The political response to the Dumb Ref result of ' any majority will do', silenced my voice, creating another democratic deficit withdrawl from my goodwill account.
Dumb Refs are generally bad democracy masquerading as good. Used by governments often split within their own party on an issue, that wants to shift that division, responsibility and any potential blame, external to themselves. To bury it in the 'democracy' of public opinion. Cross your fingers and hope that with effective brainwashing by the media the people will do what you want them to. Ah, the fool Cameron, where are you now? That it made a whole swathe of society feel like their opinion suddenly mattered and be effective for the first time, tells you how broken Parliamentary Democracy has become. Its ironic that they would give Parliament the finger whilst at the same time returning it full sovereignty.
We have also been gifted those divisive terms Remainer's and Leaver's too. Fracturing cohesion, unity, tolerance, understanding, reasonableness and compassion for others and other people's opinions~ giving a voice and platform to the Riff Raff the darker shadowy beasts in society. There's been a lot of mock hand wringing about the Leaver's being left behind and democratic deficits. I can tell you from my point of view, you don't have to be an Leaver to feel left out of the conversation. its happening all the time.
This has been accompanied and fed by the rise and rise of 'the untruth.' People sporting noses as big as Pinocchio's are unquestioningly believed, as they wave national myths and prejudices around like Febreeze. Allowing the Riff Raff to adopt the Dumb Ref as a patriotic cause.
The result was closely hung. The result of the binary Yes/No vote gave politicians democratic legitimacy to do whatever they wanted to do in the first place, and claim they are carrying out the B result. Hoping there will be a dividend for the fortunes of their own party. Seeing that the country is so divided, you could've tried to find where a unifying consensus might lie on the B word, or you could say 'the winner takes it all' and give a V sign to everyone else, whilst elbowing your way towards the TV cameras, like Boris does. All the talk is of 'taking back control' but you have to ask for the benefit of whom. Have the electorate unwittingly become a tool in someone else's agenda? Shadowy, but wealthy individuals who's intentions are likely to be less democratically accountable than the European Commission's
So a small majority is repackaged as 'the will of the people'. The country fracturing further into countless pseudo 'religious' sects of believers over what the B word actually means. Each of them holding aloft 'the truth' - its all so simple, why is it taking so long? Because it is neither simple nor speedy to do. I would have resigned myself to B had I not felt that the bouncers on its door were aggresively preventing me from entering the debate.
Say you are a company with shareholders, and you had a new financial strategy for the company but needed to get the shareholders backing before launching it. Say the result was 52% for the proposal, though a majority, you might consider it an insufficient endorsement to go ahead with your strategy, and go back to the drawing board. With shareholders you are looking for a decisive incontrovertible thumping majority, not any old majority will do. It has to be a majority that will unify and pacify dissenters, not fuel them. The Dumb Ref result wasn't thumping or conclusive and hence failed in its primary objective to resolve the issue for a generation.
Ordinary people, media, government and Parliament mindlessly babble slogans like 'B means B', 'Leave means Leave.' But its all a bit like the Emperor's New Cloths with everyone behaving as if they knew exactly what 'the will of the people' was, and what the B word really meant, whilst leaving nearly half of the country completely out of the conversation. Untruth becomes Truth, further corroding peoples trust and faith in democracy, the media and civil institutions. The Government's way of responding to the Dumb Ref and how its handled the negotiations with the EU, has provided us with a classic example of what Really Bad Democracy looks like. The words arrogant, entitled and self-deluded describing some of its least worst characteristics.
Carrying out the consequences of the B word was always going to be a bit like a heart transplant operation, a good chance of survival if you are patient, clear what you want, plan, prepare well and stay focused. But if you are impatient, unprepared, unclear what you want and lose your focus all the time, so when it all goes tits up you just rip out the old heart and thrust in the new. Something is going to die.
Our Parliamentary representatives are trying to find their way through a maze that has no map. We should not be at all surprised, nor blame them alone for what is really of our collective making. They very accurately reflect us. We are all floundering in a chaotic sea, but not personally wanting to own that chaos. Not one of us feels willing to reach a consensus about a way forward for the country, one that everyone, Remain or Leave, can get behind. We all want our own way to prevail, and democracy simply cannot function in an inflexible scenario. Trenchant divisions repeatedly slit the throat of compromise.
Out of the 17th Century Civil War came the creation of Parliamentary Democracy, beginning when Parliament executed its own King. Let's hope that something regenerative happens to our sense of decency and democracy post B. But at present we are still in an idiotic Civil War between Remainer's and Leaver's. After B happens, it won't be over, because unrealistic promises have been made and there will be a day of reckoning for them all at some point. This could get nasty.
With democratic liberal society reputationally in such a bad state, people may be tempted to grasp for simpler more authoritarian certainties. If so, if you are not white, from another country, or simply different from the perceived norm, beware. Whilst deeply distrustful of Union Jack waving populist patriotism, I do care about the future of the country I was born in. I'm fearful for where all this going to lead, I really hope to be proved categorically wrong, but its looking like where we are heading is not going to be a good place, not a good place at all.
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