This morning I woke up feeling sad, disappointed, embarrassed, and with a very bad taste in my mouth. And it wasn’t because I had one too many cañas last night without having enough tea (but that certainly didn’t help matters). I opened up Facebook to see a message from a fellow immigrant asking me, «Are we Spanish now?» and my heart sank. Every sane person’s fears had been realised. Brexit. Secession from the European Union. Streams and streams of statistics and depressed, angry and upset statuses filled my timeline, alongside 1 (one) celebratory statement from someone who quickly got deleted from my friend list. Shortly afterwards I saw that another person had posted a photo of a granny burning the flag of the European Union. So that was nice to see at 7:10 am.
The way I see it there are various camps of people who voted Leave:
1 – Racists. Either closeted or otherwise. They «want to take Britain back.» From whom exactly, I don’t think anyone will -or ever- know.
2 – People who thought they could use this vote to stick 2 fingers up at The Man. «That’ll teach Westminster, yeah!» «Cameron? Fuck him, get a load of this!» Rebellion! etc.
3 – People who «voted for the freedom» of their children and grandchildren while simultaneously blocking them from traveling around Europe as freely as before, possibly without free healthcare while they do so. ¡Adios E111! ¡Hola huge doctor’s bill the next time you jump from the balcony and crack your head on the side of the swimming pool!
4 – Morons
5 – A combination of the above/people who should be declared clinically insane.
You can ramble on about deficits and numbers all you want, but I genuinely think that this all ultimately boils down to xenophobia. And it makes me feel sick. It doesn’t surprise me one bit that almost two thirds of people in South Yorkshire voted Leave. Without wanting to sound «classist» (that’s a whole other argument), there seems to be some sort of correlation between the poorly educated, chavs and people who voted Leave, don’t you think? You only had to look around at the people who advocated a Leave vote, versus those who pleaded with us to Stay, to understand that leaving the EU was a bit of a shitty thing to do. Yeah, that Paul Golding sure seems like a top bloke! And I’m sure all those dickheads at the football games in France voted out too. How embarrassing – running around wearing a St. George’s flag as a cape, kicking a Russian in the head. Who knows, maybe the impending new rules could impede them all from rampaging around foreign cities during the next international event. At least that’s a bit of a depressing silver lining for you. Because as you may or may not know, the Brits have an absolutely charming stereotype throughout Europe and beyond of being perpetually drunk, sunburnt hooligans with shit teeth. I’m sure this recent edition to Britain’s list of faux-pas will do wonders for that. Rule Britannia and all that.
So how has life changed for you all so far? Apart from the pound taking the biggest plummet since 1985 and everyone seemingly engaging in venomous Facebook spats. Perhaps you envisioned it more like this?
Friday’s going to be amazing! I’m going to wake up in my Union Jack jim-jams to the sound of a squadron of Spitfires racing overhead and leaving a trail of hot buttered crumpets behind them.
I’ll run to the corner shop past all the British children who are laughing and squealing with excitement as they make a beautiful statue of the Queen out of happy wriggling bulldog puppies – with two corgis for her eyebrows!
Bunting flutters everywhere and the man from the betting shop steps into the street – “Guess what! England just won the World Cup & The Ashes & The Grand National and here’s the best bit – Boris put a bet on it for everyone! You’re all MILLIONAIRES!!!”
The Red Arrows fly overhead dropping fish and chips as i walk into the corner shop, get my morning paper and go to the counter. “How much please?” I say to the asian lad there. “1 pence, everything in the whole shop now costs just 1p!” he laughs, “leave it on the counter, I’m off back to Pakistan – we all are!”
And he’s right! Outside in the streets jolly old Nigel Farage is leading a huge crowd of happy foreigners – Turks, Poles, Romanians, Syrians – there’s even a few English people with heavy suntans mixed up in there! Nigel’s playing Rule Britannia on a long pipe, rather like the pipe that takes the gas into your oven, and they’re all following and smiling and talking foreign, bless them!
Just then Boris flies overhead in a concorde made of Bank of England gold – “don’t worry!” he laughs “I’ve cut out all the bits the French made!” and with that he crashes into the ground at 1200 miles an hour, along with the economy, the country and all the dozy nostalgic foreigner-fearing fuckwits who fell for his bullshit.
Grow up. Wake up.
IN – Matt Thomas, Facebook.
While listening to a call-in about the situation on Radio Sheffield at work this morning, some bright spark said, «All the people that live here have got no problems whatsoever. We don’t want to get rid of anybody. We’re still gonna carry on with immigration but it’ll be a bit more selective, which is great. And we can keep the numbers down, which is great because it’s only a small island. The other thing is, nobody’s got anything to worry about whatsoever. It’s just numbers what we need to keep down. It’s not a racist country, never has been and never will be. I think our country will be safer […] So my grandchildren have now got a future» … As opposed to not having one if we’d have stayed in one of the biggest, safest, richest, most powerful unions in the world that opens a hell of a lot of doors for many, many people? He goes on to say, «People in this country are not silly, they’re very intelligent, they just proved it.» Yes, the GREAT BRITISH PUBLIC are very CLEVER, OBVIOUSLY!
This is also important…
Wow. This says volumes about #Brexit voters. HT @mikeclay pic.twitter.com/vDO1CX5Y3y
— Weh Yeoh (@wmyeoh) 24 de junio de 2016
The tweet above resonates alarmingly well with a tongue-in-cheek story published yesterday on The Daily Mash – Racist Nan definitely going to bother. So my thanks also go out to all those stubborn old people who have ruined it for the younger generation. I also sincerely hope that the Brexit doesn’t affect students wanting to study abroad in Erasmus programmes in years to come…
Anyway, wicked, well done. You won. I just wanted to vent a little. Enjoy your holiday to Bodrum next month, I suppose. Just stay away from those Turks for God’s sake.
If we’re to be goverened by the likes of Boris who shares views with Nigel Farage and Britain First, I’m glad I’ll be on this side of the wall. I’ll just be walking around with my NIE stuck to one cheek and my work contract on the other in case they come and try to deport me back to bloody Rotherham.
Lucy
lucy@sepiavlc.com
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