It's not EU, it's me in Brexistential Breakdowns

(it was either that or “Brave N-EU World”)

This is still a really weird thing to come to terms with, though I suppose it’s not exactly the sort of thing it’s easy to come to terms with in the first place. For such a simple question, it reveals a staggering amount about the state of the UK today; it’s complex, overwhelming, and so hideously depressing that I’m not even sure I actually want to face up to it at all, let alone know where to begin with it. But face up to it I have to, because it’s A Thing That Has Happened now, it needs at least acknowledging even if I can’t come to terms with it just yet, and I suppose a decent enough place to start is with a list of Things That Have Also Actually Happened in the previous 24 hours.

Referendum took place on Thursday, polls closed at ten (except in a few cases thanks to weather conditions disrupting proceedings), counting continued through the night with the major news sources - BBC, Sky and ITV - calling it a win for leave at about half four. Throughout the night the pound had been falling on the international markets as the Leave campaign began to build up a lead, but after the result was called it utterly shit itself and ended up bottoming out at a level it hadn’t hit since 1985, a level lower than the lowest point of the 2008 global financial crisis. It ended up wiping £120 BILLION off the value of the FTSE 100 (the trading group of the UK’s 100 biggest companies), an amount that would’ve paid for our EU membership for about fourteen years, causing credit agency S&P to drop our AAA rating, and prompting Moody’s to downgrade us to “Negative”.

The rest of the UK then woke up, with about 48% of the population capable of uttering nothing more than primal howls of anguish and terror, and several of the other 52% of the population rubbing their eyes and going “oh shit, I think I may have made a mistake”, such as this knobhead here, these tossers, and the entire county of Cornwall.

Whilst they dealt with that realisation the same way you deal with the flashbacks that come with a heavy hangover, David Cameron was writing his resignation speech and Nigel Farage had entered a state of permanent orgasm, a feeling he intensified by appearing on TV to totally deny we’d now be getting an extra £350 Million a week to spend on the NHS. This, of course, came after he claimed that victory had been achieved “without a single bullet being fired“, a week and a day since the assassination of Jo Cox - whose memorial earlier in the week, by the way, pro-Brexiters decided to fly a banner-carrying plane over, because someone in this country hated the economic union of 28 27 European states so much that they thought it was an acceptable thing to do.

As Cameron was putting the finishing touches to his political eulogy and coming to terms with the fact that he’s royally fucked this one up, Nicola Sturgeon - First Minister of Scotland, leader of the Scottish National Party (who, unlike other groups with “National Party” in their names, aren’t actually a far right group) and selfie-connoisseur par excellence - pointed out that whilst England may have voted overwhelmingly to Leave, Scotland had in fact voted overwhelmingly to Remain. And she had a good point…

Literally every council area in Scotland voted to remain. And even though it’s in political union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland is still a sovereign state with representation at the EU, which means that Scotland is currently looking at being withdrawn from the EU against its will. In response, Nicola Sturgeon announced that a second referendum for Scottish Independence was now “highly likely”, which would raise the number of international political unions that had been utterly fucked under Cameron’s watch to two.

Then Martin McGuinness - deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and a member of Sinn Fein, Northern Ireland’s largest nationalist party (who, like their Scottish cousins, aren’t actually that nationalist) - pushed that number up to three. You see, Norn Iron’s a bit of a… complicated matter, but basically it’s technically the only part of the UK that actually shares a border with another EU country, namely the Republic of Ireland, and leaving the EU changes relationships between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Irish politics is on the same level as the Middle-East conflict in terms of complexity, and there is a long history of sectarian violence in the region but things have been improving massively over the last few decades and a lot of that is because both countries were EU members, a stability put at risk by the England-dominated Leave result. Not helping matters much was that, like in the land of shortbread and Irn Bru, Northern Ireland had voted to Remain in the EU; granted by a shorter margin than Scotland, but a majority nonetheless.

Whilst the UK took the first steps to tearing itself apart, similar fears were being voiced across the continent itself, and with fairly good cause. Nationalist and far-right groups across Europe hailed the results with celebration and good cheer, as you rightly would if your politics were driven by fear, ignorance and division. You don’t need me to explain to you why the leader of France’s Front National supporting our decision to leave should reflect very fucking badly indeed upon us as a nation, but sadly Boris Johnson’s probably quite chuffed that she called him “very brave”, and probably thinks he’s the inspiration behind her decision to call for a similar referendum in France. Same with Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom, a man the UK had previously banned from entering the country, who sent congratulations to Farage. Hell, even the Greek extremely fucking far right group Golden Dawn were full of praise for us - this further empowerment of far-right sentiment across the continent should be a shame that rests forever upon our heads, but fuck knows it won’t bother any of the people who actually got us here.

Speaking of, stubby-fingered shaved-orangutan Donald “My twitter has become so powerful” Trump happened to stop by. He was in town for the opening of his refurbished golf course, which happens to be located in Scotland. Whilst there, he said the Brexit result was “a great thing”, noting “they took their country back”. Whilst the entirely fucking Remain Scotland were talking about an independence referendum so they could continue to remain in the EU. He was also greeted by a Mariachi band called Juan Direction, because the day just wasn’t surreal enough (see also: the Twitter feeds of Lindsay Lohan and Roseanne Barr. Seriously, the referendum’s been really fucking weird at times.)

In amongst this maelstrom of a world economy that was being dragged down by the suicide-plummet of the Sterling, a kingdom that was arguing amongst itself like acrimonious divorcees in a mediation room, and a strained continent full of countries struggling to deal with issues like healthcare and employment and security after years of global financial instability and a massive refugee crisis that further empowered a latent undercurrent of barely-concealed xenophobia and far-right political belief in a combination that has absolutely no historical precedent that we may have been able to learn a few lessons from whatsoever, David Cameron stepped out to face the press outside of 10 Downing Street, and gave his three month’s notice. In his best Pontius Pilate, Call-Me-Dave washes his hands of any responsibility for the ensuing debacle; aware that history is now going to be looking at him as the man who (along with putting his penis into a dead pig’s mouth) ended the more than 300 years of The Union and unwilling, in that knowledge, to be the one who enacts Article 50 and ultimately withdraws the UK from the EU.

Naturally, this was then followed by calls for Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, to also resign. Because the UK. You know what? Fucking great job there Ann Coffey, thanks a fucking bunch, because for one brief little moment I held this wonderful source of solace in my hands as Stockport - your constituency, where I live - had been one of the few places in the UK to vote Remain, and I felt really fucking proud of that.

I actually felt proud of Stockport. And you went and shit all over that feeling by co-signing that fucking submission of no confidence, at a point when it’s more essential than ever to be united as a party because the Tories are about to start an undignified mass-squabble over who gets to sit in the big boy’s chair every Wednesday at PMQs. Have we not gotten over this shit already? Jezza won, he leads the Labour party now, and the working class, the disenfranchised, the poor, the sick, the disabled, y’know all those people whose lives are about to be utterly fucked with because half the country are short-sighted cunts who didn’t think their vote to leave would be taken seriously? They need party unity from the Labour party, the party lead by the man elected in a fucking landslide last year, and shit-for-brains stunts like this help fucking nobody have faith in the only other party that’s got anything resembling a remote chance of being elected in 2020. You Blairites need to stop this shit, and also fuck off and die, preferably quickly.

Also in the “fuck off and die, quickly” category: the elderly. You see, it turns out that the older you get, the more likely you are to support Leave, and also the more likely you are to actually vote in the referendum. So generations to come have now had their futures collectively fucking ruined by the people who’ve benefited the longest from our EU membership, the same people who won’t have to live as long with the consequences of their self-interest and outdated nationalism. I’m 32. The life expectancy for my age group is 89. I now have 57 years ahead of me, and those 57 years have now changed irrevocably for me because our membership of the EU - and all the wonderful benefits and advantages it brought - has been thrown away by a demographic that will likely all be dead before I’m even halfway through what’s left of my natural life. And that utterly fucks me off, to the point where I would use the phrase “fuck off and die, quickly,” and actually mean it.

But anyway, by this point in the day it was probably eleven in the morning, and I’d been up all night watching the results roll in, so I basically just gave up and went to bed. It was too much and I was too high tired to deal with it all, and to be honest I’m still not sober enough sure I’m anywhere closer to coming to terms with what the future now looks like. There’s a bunch of things that are weighing on me about this, but they’re probably best saved for another entry; this one’ll do well enough as a record of the events that happened on Friday the 24th of June, the day on which the rest of the world watched aghast as an economically stable first world nation destroyed itself in an eruption of frenzied spite and nationalist demagoguery for no discernible reason other than half the ageing population don’t like the skin pigment of the people who sit behind the counter in the corner shop.

I’m off to go watch Logan’s Run, and cry.

Last updated June 27, 2016