I Have Something To Say

Sometimes I find it difficult to comment on political situation in the UK when in fact I live in Cape Town, South Africa. I don’t really do much here except challenge perceptions of deprivation and privilege in daily conversation. The two barely bump sides in meaningful ways.

Now post-Brexit we can now confirm that experientially the same is true of the UK. It is one of the most divided countries in the Western world and as I look at my Facebook feed there are few declaring for leave and most if not all of the remain crowd are shocked and cynical of the leavers motives. Including myself.

I phoned a national radio station here in Cape Town to voice my dismay. The difference was that I’d been here before. Scotland knew the BBC had a strong biased that supported an external Westminster view, whatever that might be. Scots knew the media weren’t reporting the facts for each side in a balanced way and none of the news reflected what was going on on my social media. Indy Scotland knew it and we were greeted with the same dismay at the result of the vote the morning after the 1^st Scottish referendum. We were sure we had won, we’d been campaigning in one way or another for months and then there was The Vow.

What was The Vow? It was simply a Westminster acknowledgement that they had got the Scottish referendum totally wrong. David Cameron had no idea that 46% of the population of Scotland might actually vote for Scottish Independence and believed that Scotland could be an independent country. So what did all those Westminster MP’s do they flashed the cash across all of those Scottish newspapers that didn’t represent the views of 50% of the country. Made promises, made vows. Low and behold Dave, Nick and Ed changed their mind and dodged their obligations less than five minutes after the referendum result. Scotland had been royally fucked.

Dave not to learn his lesson the first time went in for another try.

The day after Brexit, Britain woke up or maybe liberal middle England woke up to realise that the views of the average Guardian reader was not the all-inclusive apothecary that they thought. If you went to uni few of your friends are builders, plumber or fisherman unless you are a self-proclaimed working class hero. What does that mean anymore? Who’s a miner’s son now? Shipbuilding what’s that? When was the last time you spoke to a dinner lady? Nobody wants to start a conversation with nurse other than to give them a box tissues, a lifetime supply of chocolate and flowers; as we realise what feeble human beings we are and how discordant the country actually is.

So of course what do we do? Blame it on working class racism. When it would be more appropriate to blame it on the facists that are running the country and the fact that we allow them to reside here. I mean who the fuck is Nigel Farage? And yet he gets more coverage in the weekly news than the First Minster of Scotland. So we liberals the first thing we choose to do is undermine democracy itself devalue an individual’s ability to choose correctly. This was not a vote against Europe it was a vote against Westminster and a centralist government that has ignored the periphery for decades.