POSTCARD FROM POLAND – BREXIT, BLOODY BREXIT

It’s happened.

Having written about Writer’s Block in my last post, I find myself – on a glorious Lower Silesian spring morning – staring down the barrel of a totally wasted writing day.

So I’m going to take my own advice and blog.

Okay … what are we going to talk about?

I assume that, like me, you are all fed up with Brexit? Uh-huh?

What was it Churchill said? “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” I’m thinking Johnson and Farage here, amongst a host of others.

But Churchill also said: “If you are going through hell, keep going,” and in fairness to Teresa May, this is precisely what she is doing. I feel slightly sorry for her. For sure, there are problems of her own making (red lines etc.,) but she is in a job where no one will ever say “thanks,” or “well done,” and she has had the tenacity to continue to attempt to sort this mess out. She is trying her best, I believe, to be part of the solution and not, as many commentators say, to be part of the problem.

But the real culprit of this sorry saga is “Call Me Dave,” and where is he now?

According to The Guardian, in a feature article published in January, he is “bored shitless,” but has knocked out over four hundred thousand words of his memoir, for which he will receive around eight hundred thousand quid. And this he is doing in his luxury gypsy wagon-styled cabin in the garden of his Cotswold retreat.

“Anger at Cameron,” says The Guardian article, “has been widespread since the referendum, as underlined by the response to actor Danny Dyer’s dismissal of him last summer as a ‘twat’ who had scuttled off to Europe ‘with his trotters up.’”

I have already written a blog in which he topped the chart as the Worst Prime Minister in British Political History:  and so, as Jacinda Ardern said of the (alleged) Mosque mass murderer: let’s not refer to him any further.

And what about the rest of it? Well, the DUP, led by Arlene Foster – a very pleasant and reasonable woman who I once met in an official capacity when she was in charge of the DOE (this was back in the days when it was possible to make policy decisions in Northern Ireland) currently hold more power in Europe that Adolf Hitler ever dreamed about.

Northern Ireland voted by a large majority (44.2% to leave, 55.8% to remain) to stay, but Ian Paisley (Junior) of the DUP says that this does not reflect the views of the people of Northern Ireland because the vote went along sectarian lines.

Hello? Really?

Surely, although many EU countries have Roman Catholicism as the dominant religion, this doesn’t make any sense. What he’s saying is that it’s like voting for dogs if you’re a cat.

Okay … let’s put this to the test, Mr Paisley. The Good Friday Agreement stipulates that if referenda/referendums (the jury’s out on the correct form of the plural word) held on both sides of the Irish border were to indicate a preference for a united Ireland – which would mean Northern Ireland leaving the UK – this would come to pass. So let’s try it, huh?

Is this going to happen? Heck no, but it could, and perhaps it should.

And the reason I bring this up is because I really do not know what we should call these islands, the propagators and protagonists in this whole sorry mess.

Britain is not great any more, so the name GB has disappeared, apart from on number plates (and what’s going to happen to those after Brexit?) Okay, that’s the least of our worries.

So … it’s the UK now, of course, isn’t it? Well … yes, that’s what it’s referred to, but it’s about as united as John Wayne Bobbit’s penis was with his body after his wife had got to work on it with a kitchen knife.

Scotland are threatening to leave, Northern Ireland would possibly opt to join with the Republic of Ireland and break the Union with England, if given the chance to do so. Although it’s less clear whether the vote would go that way in the Republic. And that leaves Wales. Now I’m sorry to say this – and I apologise if you’re Welsh – but Wales doesn’t count. For all their anti-English rhetoric and sentiment, they are have always held on to England’s coattails and always will do, and no amount of burning holiday cottages down is going to change that; they have neither the funding nor the economic base to support themselves.

I live, as you probably know, in Poland and Spain. And I recently spent some time in Italy (that’s a story for the next time I have Writers’ Block). So what do “Europeans” think about Brexit?

You know what? They don’t give a damn. Students looking for holiday jobs in English speaking areas will go to the Republic of Ireland instead of England, and students wishing to study at British universities (I think we can refer to them thus) will still do so despite the increased costs because they come from wealthy families who see this as a good investment.

Europeans simply share the view that the Brits – in the absence of anything better to do with their aggression (like another World War) want to leave the EU – let’s not call it Europe, because Europe is a geographical concept that it is physically impossible to leave – because they hate foreigners … and wrongly think that Brexit will mean that they will take back control of their own borders.

Let me finish by examining this notion: immigration figures from the EU last year were the lowest they have been since 2007, christening what has been called a “Brexitus.” Yet net migration figures overall continue to rise. Well, Brexit’s really going to help us put a stop to this, isn’t it? And who’s going to empty all those hospital bedpans, or wash our cars now there are no Eastern European to do it?

You could say that the only way the looming prospect of a “No Deal” Brexit is going to effect me is that, with this political uncertainty/mess, I have decided to cancel my order for a new Porsche, rather than face paying a ten per cent tariff. I’ve gone for a demonstrator instead.

But in all honesty, I really do despair.

If this is democracy, then somewhere and somehow this model of how we govern ourselves has taken a wrong turn and ended up in the wilderness. And it’s getting worse on a daily basis.

Well, that’s sorted out the Writer’s Block, anyway.