The First Three Tragedies
A quick note on the first three tragedies of the British vote to leave the EU. I wrote this on Facebook in the small hours in the wake of the result and it went slightly viral so I thought I would share it here.
Firstly, it was the working classes who voted for us to leave because they were economically disregarded and it is they who will suffer the most in the short term from the dearth of jobs and investment. They have merely swapped one distant and unreachable elite for another one.
Secondly, the younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never know the full extent of the lost opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences we will be denied. Freedom of movement was taken away by our parents, uncles, and grandparents in a parting blow to a generation that was already drowning in the debts of our predecessors.
Thirdly and perhaps most significantly, we now live in a post-factual democracy. When the facts met the myths they were as useless as bullets bouncing off the bodies of aliens in a HG Wells novel. When Michael Gove said ‘the British people are sick of experts’ he was right. But can anybody tell me the last time a prevailing culture of anti-intellectualism has lead to anything other than bigotry.
Oh, and one other thing. It looks as if the UK will now lose Northern Ireland and Scotland, both of which voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU. When the Financial Times endorsed the Conservative party in the 2015 election the headline was “The compelling case for continuity in Britain”.
If you’re interested in my thoughts on what this means for the world in general, you can read my recent essay on the growing popularity of destructive ideas.
Beautifully eulogised
