Britain Is Doomed Because You Voted the Wrong Way

(Photo of David Cameron by Geoff Caddick / PA Wire/ Photo of Nigel Farage by Chris Bethell)

Britain’s long referendum nightmare – that agonised fever-dream stalked by gruesomely familiar figures – is finally over. The result is in, and I definitely know what it is. This post-vote analysis, coming as soon as it does after the winning side was announced, is the product of a breathless afflatus around seven this morning, fuelled by coffee (we love coffee!) and the incredible urgency of the news: that [DELETE AS APPLICABLE] Britain will remain in the EU / will leave the EU / has had its referendum cancelled at the last minute / had its referendum come to an unprecedented tie / has suffered a military coup / has declared war / has launched all the Trident missiles at once / other.

Sadly, the news is not good. Look outside and you’ll see it, just as I see it now; the keening misery in the air, the sense of defeat pissing down on us with the morning drizzle, the fact that the wrong thing happened, the fact that we had a chance to make this country better, and failed.

If there’s one thing this awful campaign should have taught us all, it’s that we need to have more respect: more respect for each other, more respect for journalists, more respect for politicians and, crucially, especially, more respect for me.

Not likely, though. When the political leaders of the winning side made their speeches earlier, their friendly business leaders in tow, looking tired but gratified, leery grins spreading across the puffed or folded rubber of their utterly grim faces, hard black slits of victory – when they announced how great this result would be for jobs, for justice, for the soul and wellbeing of this great country, how overjoyed they were – you must have felt it too.

That sinking feeling: oh fuck, they’ve won, they’re the only ones who’ve really won. We’ve signed away our future to these creatures, we’ve given them a mandate. Both campaigns tried to tell us that, in voting their way, we would be taking control into our own hands and choosing our own destiny, but in the end all we got was a bunch of distant, snooty politicians. Millions of crossed boxes for a cause people really believed in, and the only result is that this ghastly huddle of toffs will now be in charge forever.

The news from the markets is similarly gloomy. In response to yesterday’s vote, they’re booming with confidence at the unfettered continuation of the vampiric finance capitalism that’s turning us all into paupers / they have crashed, with an unprecedented run on the pound, destroying everyone’s savings and turning us all into paupers. Things are going to get a lot worse for you over the next few years. It isn’t the referendum vote alone that did this, of course; markets are complex and volatile, and any number of pre-existing factors helped bring us to the crisis we’re now suddenly facing. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that this could have been averted, if only the country had voted the other way. We might have had a few more months to fix the problems in our economy, or at least a few more months in which to live, to eat things other than mud and boiled grass, to drink happily with our friends instead of strangling them for pennies, to pretend that everything might somehow be OK.

What was most terrifying about a generally terrifying campaign was its reckless intensification of an already mad and toxic national discourse on migration. The referendum unleashed a poison tide of ethnic resentment and petty nationalism, one that has shown itself to be fully deadly, with terms that seemed calculated to set white British people – and white English people especially – in fury against everyone else. Now that ugly sentiment has been vindicated by a vote to leave / shows no sign of going away, despite a victory for Remain. Before the referendum, support for an exit from the EU was a minority position, but politicians learned that they could drum up support for their cause by stoking tensions and encouraging people to fear and despise each other. The referendum is finally over, but this is not going away. For decades to come, our elected representatives will now be slobbering hatred over doorposts, pouring pints on beggars, doing anything to show themselves to be more callous and more cruel than their opponents.

Just look at Nigel Farage, sickeningly elated in victory / smirking through his defeat; he knows that without once sitting in the Commons, he’s changed the political landscape of this country forever. And today’s extraordinary result just proves it. Britain is different now; it’s a worse and uglier country than it was before. Because we voted wrong, because we made the wrong choice.

@sam_kriss

To see all our articles about the EU Referendum, check out Europe: The Final Countdown.