I can’t believe four and a half years has passed since the Referendum. I still catch myself thinking there must be some mistake, it can’t really be happening, we can’t really have chosen this. It’s been a rollercoaster. Sleepwalking into disaster, back in 2016, while our so-called politicians pedalled lies to con a nation, the crushing blow of the result, the slowly gathering hope that we could still come back from it, that we could hold a second referendum now that the emperor’s nudity was plain for all to see. Protest after protest, culminating in October 2019 when a million people marched to parliament square to demand a People’s Vote. Then the devastating general election result just a couple of months later — the moment that we/I finally had to accept the unacceptable.
Turns out I’m not very good at accepting stuff. I’ve learned a lot, though. I’ve learned how much power individuals can wield when they have no respect for the truth and no sense of shame. I’ve learned how desperate people were feeling, in the north, in the midlands, in Wales, how neglected they’ve been by Westminster (much more, ironically, than they’ve been by the EU). I’ve learned that when people are that desperate they’ll do pretty much anything just to change something, just to shake things up a bit — that there’s nothing as reckless as a person who feels they have nothing to lose. (Tragically they are the ones who now stand to lose the most.) I’ve learned how much people will dig their heels in once they’ve taken a stance on something, how much self-deception people will practice before they’ll admit they’ve been deceived by another, how much more important feelings are than facts, hearts are than minds. I’ve learned how hard it is to really listen to an opposing viewpoint, and how essential.
I’ve learned to keep hoping and I’ve learned that keeping hope alive opens you up to a lot more disappointment and struggle; it’s hard to imagine a more painful, confusing or prolonged break-up than this one. But even now all I can do is hope. That we’ll come back from this, that we’ll somehow ride out the double recession caused by Brexit and Covid-19 without too many more casualties (in every sense of the word), that we’ll somehow begin to heal the terrible divisions the last few years have wrought on our country. That Scotland will stick around and wait for the rest of the UK to catch up rather than (understandably) ditching us at the next opportunity, that we’ll gradually earn back the good opinion of the world (or at least stop making complete idiots of ourselves). That one day in the not too distant future (in my lifetime, please!) a younger, wiser generation will negotiate a way back to where we belong, back at the heart of the European Union. This time, perhaps, with a lot more humility and a lot less arrogance.
