Well that, in a sense, is that. As you read this piece you will either be preparing for the party of your lives or hiding in your metaphorical beds hoping it will all just be a bad dream and you will be free of the torment when you wake up. Yes – Friday night is Brexit night to purloin a phrase. Big Ben won’t bong despite being bunged a few bob but Brexit we will. Sort of. There’s going to be the ‘transition’ period in which we’ll still have to abide by The Rules whilst the civil servants clash heads on where to put the commas and full stops into what ever document they are agonising over. But Brexit got done so that’s good, we guess. The future relationship will look like whatever fudge can be cooked up by the partisan media and even if it looks a bit shit the turd will be polished to resemble a precious stone. Diamonds are, after all, just bits of coal that have been trodden on really hard. We’ve got lots of bargaining chips to take into this high stakes poker game – we live on an island (islands) so there’s lots of sea that has fish in it. Every fucker wants those slippery water breathers so we can use that. And…erm…I’m sure that there are lots of other things that Johnny Foreigner wants from us. Cars maybe. Yeah – cars. Despite the fact that our car industry is entirely foreign owned and the steering wheels are on completely on the wrong side those Euro Johnnies will be desperate for ‘our’ cars. Oh yeah and our bankers. Every body loves a good financial service and our Barclays-Bankers are up there with the best what with their LIBOR and being implicated in the worst financial crash since The Great Depression (that would be ‘Labour’s Mess’ for those of you with short memories). We can use that – at least until they all move to Paris. So we are basically sorted. Cool.
We are fully on board with the way things are going and completely at ease with how it all panned out. We have, lest we forget, taken back control and are masters of our own destiny. Nice. Maybe, perhaps and at a push we should now look a little bit inwards and consider our own internal politics and really give people what they voted for. So, y’know, better representation, putting people first, the ordinary man/woman, holding the establishment to account…
(Sorry – I dozed off for a moment whilst typing that. I’m back with you now)
As per last weeks Pick of the Political Pops we are still energized by the concept of democracy. We here in The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are very proud of our constitutional structure. It’s fabulous that the various parts of that the nation have their own representations and thrilling that they are represented democratically. I mean there are assemblies for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. That’s a good thing. Very good. And England? Weeeeeeell…who cares? Even the English don’t care. As long as we can speak the language and celebrate St. Patrick’s Day given that our grandmother’s cousin once owned an Irish setter that gives us access to all sorts of other cultures.
Am I bitter? No of course not. It’s fine that England doesn’t have its own assembly/parliament. Am I a nationalist? No of course not. English Nationalism is akin to right wing bigotry. Is there a problem here? No of course not. We have now taken back control and my views will be fully represented by my kinsmen and women. Probably. The idea mooted by the late, great Tony Benn that a federal United Kingdom would be the only fair way to go is clearly nonsense and the ‘West Lothian’ question raised by the late, great Tan Dalyell is but a footnote in history. In these times of great democracy it’s important to forget these things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJKMG4O9zwE
