Today was momentous. Because today is the day we didn’t leave Europe. Not only did we fail to depart, but our conscious uncoupling is yet further delayed after the PM’s latest defeat looks set to leave democracy clinging on in utter disharmony for the foreseeable.
But for ordinary punters like me (who didn’t want to wave adieu to our European cousins in the first place), what to do? Plan for doomsday or simply wing it? For a while there, I just couldn’t decide what approach might be best when it comes to Brexit. But that was then. These days, even on the momentous ones, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to give a damn. Like everyone else, I’m fatigued, fed up and scunnered with politics. I’ve been defeated by democracy.
It’s gotta be bad when even I, a long-term current affairs addict and policy dweeb, just cannot be arsed. All of those Brexit guides appearing in my inbox to prepare my business for either orderly exit or Armageddon remain firmly unopened. Bowler hats and bunnets off to those businesses who simply have to wade through the ever-shifting quicksands – even Vasco da Gama would have been scuppered trying to navigate his way through these stormy seas. ‘Course, it’s not just me who’s suffering from death by Brexit – only this week, the British Chambers of Commerce told the Government to get its bloody finger out. Actually, is there anyone who thinks this is all cushtie? Thought not.
But this is not all about business, it’s personal. You see, as an ex BBC person, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool policy dweeb. In fact, I was always like that, even before broadcasting. I was that teenager, the rare one who watched Question Time every week. As a student I could always be found (hangover and all) nose-deep in a broadsheet on a Sunday. And as an adult I’ve always just loved the circus of current affairs. So as someone with lifelong interest in how decisions are made and who’s making them, someone who’s kept a beady eye on the news and the ways we are governed, someone with an ear to the ground and a nose for a story, I’m really, really pissed off that our current incumbents have effectively destroyed my interest in what’s going on. Seriously Westminster, you lot have proved beyond any last remaining vestiges of doubt, that you simply huvnae a clue. If you can’t keep someone like me on side, then frankly my dears, you’re doomed.
I’d love to be offering a wee ray of sunshine here by suggesting that every Euro cloud has a silver lining. I’d love to think that these ravine-like divisions can be bridged and that our archaic democratic processes will get their long overdue shake-up to settle into something fresh, new and exciting. But naw. Even the emergence today of a freshly minted political party, Change UK, does heehaw to get this auld heart beating a little bit faster.
Meantime, the light at the end of the tunnel is not even a glimmer. Even if there was a faint glow in the distance my guess is that it would quickly start looking like Eurostar ploughing off of its high speed rails into the abyss.
