I will not go gentle into that good night of Brexit

I am paraphrasing this Dylan Thomas poem that has a first verse as follows:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Brexit is 6 days away and although I am no longer angry and disgusted at this act of spiteful, fake patriotic suicide, I am still not resigned to it. Brexiters want people like me to accept it, embrace it and look forward to the future. I am still not hearing what that future will be or how good it will be for all of us. Some assessments of the Brexiters have claimed that the working classes felt so betrayed by the establishment and so left behind by the progress made since 1973 that they rejected it all, liberated themselves from the shackles of EU control. I am sure that some people who voted to leave the EU had a true understanding of its mechanisms and benefits, but I know that many didn't. I grew up in a very working class, left behind area, an area that hit rock bottom in the mid-1980s and was saved by EU money and by companies moving there to have access the EU markets.  The local population voted for Brexit in greater numbers than almost anywhere in the UK, they've spat at the multinational firms who they work for. I hope few of these firms relocate and downsize but I would not be surprised if they do and I will not shed a tear for the Brexiters who will now be liberated from employment as well as EU 'oppression'. Maybe they can take comfort in their new blue passports (made in Poland by a French company) if any of them can afford a new passport when claiming Universal Credit.  I used to be proud of being British and was always kind of proud of being from the North East, I felt my upbringing their had made me curious about the world, keen to learn as much as I can, meet people and be kind, tolerant and embrace the new and strange. I don't know why I didn't realise that my hometown and its xenophobia and intolerance had created me, it has pushed me the opposite way. 

Brexit is not something to applaud, it needs no fireworks,  they can ring as many church bells as they want, it will not unite people, hate doesn't bring people together. Having a job and security is more important the intangible patriotism and blue passports.  My job is in finance/pensions and is, for now, safe from the Brexit chaos, I don't work in a company reliant on access to the EU markets. I don't trust our politicians to negotiate with the EU in good faith, the rich Brexiters have feathered their nests and are safe and secure, they've escaped the scrutiny of their taxes and London may increase its share of money laundering and other dodgy money but I doubt the Brexit loving provinces will gain much, I don't see car workers being retrained as nurses, radiographers, dentist etc. May the children of Brexiters will have a rethink about career options and I hope their economic outlook is better than that of their grandparents in the 1980s.  I hope those children will ask their parents why they were deprived of access to 27 countries in which they could have lived and worked if only they'd tried to (as I did, and many millions of others have). 

I actually wrote about it 1 year ago and my disdain for it all hasn't diminished.

I realise this is a rant but I despise the kind of patriotism that sets one country or people against another, I hate the lies, the false promises and the accusations of treason for those of us who wanted to retain the right to live and work in the EU.  People who hate foreigners and fall for the lies of politicians tend to target other people who aren't like them, gays, disabled, Muslims etc.  Brexit may end that, I doubt it, I feel it will get a lot worse when there are no Polish plumbers to blame. And on this, the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, we know what happens when a country thinks it is better than everyone else, and tells people that they are better than the foreigners etc. Perhaps we don't need to be scared, but we need to be very cautious.

January 26, 2020