Brexit Day Was My Day of Mourning

I considered wearing black today.

Today was the end of a really horrid “first month of the decade.” (I think that may be inaccurate, but frankly – I don’t care).

2020 so far has not been nice. I don’t need to really list all the unpleasantness, although some have already done so. It started for me personally late last year, with the unexpected passing of a friend who was very dear to us. It hasn’t got any better.

The clownish Nigel Farage (foreground) of the Brexit Party and his band waved flags at the European Parliament – an undignified and embarrassing goodbye. “We have proved that the British are too big to bully, thank goodness,” he boasted. How delightfully Trump-like.

And now, the icing on the cake, January 31 and it is (or was) Brexit Day in the UK. A few days ago, the sight of Nigel Farage and his team of merry men and women waving flags at the European Parliament made me gag. I am glad they cut his microphone off.

I have to agree with President Barack Obama, who said back in April, 2016:

The UK is going to be in the back of the queue

Maybe that’s where the UK belongs. Boris and Co. will, at some point, be eating humble pie. I’m convinced of it.

In June, 2016 I wrote an article about Brexit, and talked about it a bit on radio and television programs. I focused on a couple of points: the divisions – the cracks that had opened as a result of the referendum, across the country; the concept of the “faceless bureaucrats” of the European Union; the failure of leadership in the UK, with everyone hedging their bets and shoring up their own personal little political domains; the ignorance, racism and xenophobia that fueled many of the “Leave” voters (let’s not pretend it was something more noble); and relatively recent hard times. Oh, those foreigners/Muslims/black people/Europeans are stealing our jobs!

Since then, nothing/nothing has changed. It has been more of the same, only worse. The Brexiteers screaming “Get Brexit done!” and Theresa May holding hands with Donald Trump. Although Scotland and Northern Ireland voted unequivocally to remain, they don’t matter much to the privileged man from Eton.  

So BJ, the priggish right-winger who currently rules the UK, spouted a lot of meaningless stuff about uniting the country, and how great it was that it was all over. Now, a change has come and it’s all going to be wonderful, he added. I have got news for you, Boris. It’s only just begun. And Britain is just as divided as ever.

I have to agree with a column I read in the UK Guardian some time last year. The fascists are now given a beautiful platform, offered to them by the UK media, and they are relishing it. The lines have been blurred between the “traditional” conservatism of yesteryear and populism and extremism. Mr. Farage much prefers populism over what he calls “globalism.” It’s oh, so much more fun!

I have a sense that almost all the disgusting things (including Brexit) that happened this month are actually ongoing. That’s the worst part of it all. Boris may pretend it’s all nicely done and dusted, but no.

The only finite unpleasant thing that happened this month was the earthquake a few days ago. But who’s to say that the tectonic plate that rocked us might decide to rock us some more?

I think there will be plenty of aftershocks.

2020 has been off kilter, so far. Can it right itself?

Brexiteers burning the EU flag and yes, that is a black Brexiteer. What jolly fun populism is!