I don't recognise those around me. All strangers. In views, opinions, beliefs. Everything. The only unity is in a combined sense of dislocation. We the estranged. The angry collective, sharing a quiddity of not having a voice. Our views not represented. We’re bitter to the core. This applies equally to the high visibility jacket rent-a-mob circling parliament shouting “nazi” at anyone with a differing opinion to me, disenfranchised from democracy, watching the country crumble from a sofa, shaking my head before retreating to Netflix.
January is drawing to a close and in just two months Brexit will be enacted. The UK will leave its relationship with the EU and as it stands there will be no deal to replace it. The economy is predicted to take a significant downturn. All supply chains will be broken. Kent will become a lorry park. But at least we’ll have control of our borders. And a reawakening war in Northern Ireland too.
The main political parties are adrift, locked into their Westminster power plays. With both of the main parties committed to leaving the EU there is no representation for those who voted to remain. The parliamentary stalemate plays into the hands of the far right and their desired no deal.
I am transfixed by this slow motion car crash, rubbernecking through newspaper articles, interviews and debates. The grim pantomime of the the BBC programme Question Time is for me must see television in which I can seethe at every word spoken. My youtube feed is all opinions, spoken or shouted from all sides. I’m trying to understand everyone's perspectives. The value proposition of a no deal brexit and why the likes of Jacob Rees Mogg favour it. Why parliamentary sovereignty is valued by so many. What the tenets of UK democracy are. There are traces of insight but despite my investment I’m lost to what the far right are really looking to achieve and remain suspicious of a drive to the bottom, a destruction of individuals rights all under the auspices of “we need to tighten our belts now that we’ve delivered what you voted for”. A destruction of the union is advantageous, shifting political opinion to middle England. Planet Daily Mail. Outrage at change. Promoting the myths of our past. The 1000 year Tory reich. What role can the left play in balancing this debate? Little. The far left, revelling in their control of Labour dream of power and their own fantasies that it’s 1920. Dogmatic indifference to opinion, blind to their unelectability they offer no alternative.
I don't want my country back. I'm ashamed of it. The people I pass by in the street. The hate inside. Nationalism. Isolation. Fear. This is England, 2019. It's probably always been us at our core. I can't identify with it or align. My brother, independent of all of this has left the country earlier this month. Maybe this country isn't worth fighting for. Just fleeing from.
