So three and a half years after Britain's night of madness, it seems the most prolonged shooting of oneself in the foot has finally come to fruition. I'll be honest, I thought sense would prevail but here we are.
Brexit.
The UK no longer in the EU.
No longer a medium fish in a reasonable sized pond but a tiny fish in a massive one. Our empire is long gone, our bargaining power is reduced significantly from what is was, our economy is reliant on financial services and tourism, we don't make anything which is of value to other countries and we are no longer competitive as a repository for science and engineering funding (especially at the higher education level).
Make no mistake people, we hold NO aces here. Zero. Hell, we are playing Top Trumps while the rest of the world is on No Limit Hold 'Em.
As you can probably guess from my narrative, I voted to Remain. The industry I work in, the type of career I have and the lifestyle I want for me and my family are better suited in the EU. I appreciate for other people that isn't the case, and I respect those views. It's also true that a lot of people voted one way or the other based solely on a misunderstanding of what that voted entailed (and NEITHER side helped in that regard) or in some cases just on rank obvious racism. As I said, everyone is entitled to an opinion.
But there is no scenario, not one, that leaves me better outside of the European Union.
Do I think the EU works as it is? No, not really. The original idea of a trade organisation works wonders but try pulling together so many disparate languages, ideologies and beliefs into a single political system and you are asking for trouble. So I can see why, to some people, bailing out and going alone is the right answer. Maybe it might become the right answer.
Unfortunately, to become the right answer you need strong, decisive people at the wheel of a runaway train like this. Do we have those? You must be kidding me?! I wouldn't trust a single one of them to act in the best intentions of the UK as a whole.
We come back to the inherent problem again - that Brexit might work fine if a bunch of idiots weren't left in charge of it. Douglas Adams' famous phrase from The Hitchhikers Guide comes in here,
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job".
And at the end of the day, that is the worry. All the scaremongering from both sides, the predictions of apocalyptic doomsday scenarios etc. is just that - predicting. No-one for sure knows how this will go. I personally based my decisions on what looked like a logic set of extrapolations.
But humans are capable of beating the odds. We can bend the laws of probability. We have this seemingly unquenchable ability to achieve things that no-one could have foreseen, things that fly in the face of all logic and seemingly overrule the laws of the universe. We are capable of staggering, breathtaking achievements.
That is the task facing us now. And it is going to take everyone. All petty arguments must be left at the door. We are where we are. Where we are going is what matters next. And every single person MUST try to be a part of the solution. Everyone has got to pull in the same direction, one which benefits Britain (and the world). The world is suffering enough, and there is enough hostility and mistrust as it is.
Whatever your thoughts, whatever your beliefs - now is the time for us to unite, and drive towards a common goal. It might not be the goal you were searching for, but if you remember to have your say and pull your weight, it might turn out to be the goal you needed all along.
Till tomorrow, Tom
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