I’d like to say I know what’s going on in the country, but I don’t. I’d like to say I feel secure, but I don’t. I’d like to say I’m feeling positive but I’m not!
The remarkable events of the last week have turned everything topsy turvy and the lunatics appear to be running amok through the corridors of Westminster.
I didn’t react immediately to the narrow referendum win in favour of Brexit because I couldn’t: I was in shock!
It felt like the identity that has cloaked me for most of my life had been stolen. Someone described the feeling as being close to grieving a loved one. It was a fair description.
I have always regarded myself as English, part of a United Kingdom and a player in the everyday life of the European Union. The best of all worlds. Within a few hours of the result being announced all that had disappeared – seemingly for good.
I have always believed in tolerance, acceptance of others and a trust in fair play but, just as suddenly, those beliefs appeared to have been stolen too.
Within hours of Friday morning’s result, our prime minister had announced he was standing down, the figureheads of the Brexit movement (those who should have been promoting calm) had gone into hiding, opposition MPs were resigning on mass and baying for the blood of the leader of their party and Scotland and Ireland were calling for independence. The financial markets were rising and falling faster than an elevator in The Shard and the EU was saying ‘good riddance we are not going to let you leave without pain’
It was the equivalent of a coup in a so called third world country. The only thing missing was the arrival of the military – although I am sure it was placed on standby.
A week has now passed and little has changed. There is still no definitive vision of the future. We still don’t have leadership. We still don’t know what will happen.
If irony can be found, it seems that as a country, we are floating metaphorically on an uncharted sea with only a vague sense of direction and no-one’s hand on the tiller.
We are, therefore, in the same situation as the boatloads of ‘immigrants’ that so many people feared – and ruthlessly exploited – as their reason to vote in favour of Brexit!
We can only hope we will have a calm passage, a safe landfall and that the natives prove themselves to be far more secure and tolerant than we have proved to be to each other!