qqueenofhades:

Oh lord almighty.

(Warning: if ranty politics posts are not your thing, or you don’t care about the EU referendum or anything of that nature, I would stop reading now.)

Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin with this shitshow. Let me see if I can make an analogy for you. Let’s say a Republican president called for a vote on whether or not America should leave NATO or the UN or another major international organization it had been part of for most of the post-WWII world, as part of a strategy for vote-grubbing among the far right of his base. There hadn’t been an explicit call for it beforehand, but the right wing made it into one, the president went with it to get votes from the Tea Party faction in Congress, and the campaign immediately became about ugly, dog-whistle politics, nationalism, thinly veiled racism, fear of those Scary Immigrants, and supposedly the “economy.” Democrats and Republicans are split on whether they support it or not. The Republican president and the Democratic Speaker of the House both campaign for Remain, but there is no consensus on how to do it or how to actually educate the public on why this is happening (because as I said, vote-grubbing ploy among the right wing). The Leave campaign plays on the usual scapegoats people turn to when the economy is bad: immigrants, foreigners, people who are Not American (or in this case, Not British). Most scientists, educators, and economists warn that this is a terrible idea. They are dismissed as “just trying to scare us into obeying Big Brother ™.” Nobody thinks it will actually happen.

Then it does.

Now you have the equivalent of the Republican president resigning, the Democratic Speaker of the House facing a no confidence vote, the dollar crashing, Alaska and Texas want to secede (because Scotland and Northern Ireland both voted overwhelmingly for Remain and will probably have new independence referendums, thus likely breaking up the UK) the country is in complete political meltdown, no semblance of a coherent opposition party or actual plan to implement it, the likelihood of the lunatic fringe stepping into the President’s office (ie if George W. Bush resigned just so Trump could take over) and crashing knockdown effects on the entire global economy. (Oh yeah, and a Democratic senator/Labour MP got shot and killed for saying we should stay.) When, once again, this in no way actually needed to happen. David Cameron (UK prime minister who just resigned) essentially gambled the UK’s entire future on courting the right wing (UKIP/Nigel Farage/Boris Johnson), evidently thought the referendum would be a bluff, we’d vote to Remain, and then he could say that he gave it due diligence and they would march in step with him. Except no, Brexit actually passed. So Cameron’s bluff just basically politically blew up the entire country.

Nice going, Dave.

Every astute political commentator has already picked up on this, but the irony is ludicrous that Great Britain colonized most of the world, ran one of the longest-lasting (and most notoriously brutal) imperialist regimes, and now is actively destroying itself over the fear that, gasp, we had 183,000 immigrants come to the country last year. (I am not making that figure up; that is literally the number that caused this panic. One hundred and eighty-three thousand). Karma is a bitch, apparently. And the sad thing is, people treated this like an opinion on the status quo, which sucks, because hey, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, the global economy is a massively and ridiculously rigged carnival shell game designed to benefit the super-rich and systematically and completely defraud those who are already the poorest. Of course people are fed up with that shit. So…. the Brexit campaigners spun it into “let’s blame the immigrants. They’re what’s wrong with the country. And the immigrants are because of the EU. We can’t control our own borders and keep them out. Also, the Poles are taking all your jobs.”

Now, I’m not saying the EU is perfect, or the best way to go about everything it wanted to do. There were justified reasons for wanting a renegotiation or reconsideration of how Britain operated within that system. But we basically want all the perks of being a member (access to the European Economic Area/single market/trade/freedom of movement) with none of the costs. The Leave campaign claimed there would be £350 million extra a week to “fund the National Health Service” that we were supposedly paying to the EU and getting nothing back in return. Wonder of wonders, they’re already admitting that was a total lie and no, there’s not actually that money. It played on people’s worst instincts and forced them into isolationism and economic self-sabotage. It baffles me, literally completely fucking BAFFLES ME, how Brexiters could dismiss warnings of the economic impact of leaving the EU as just scare tactics, when they were the ones running the identity-politics, dog-whistle, “you will die because ISIS will kill you if we don’t get out of the EU” campaign. And yeah. The pound hit a 30-year low overnight. So… clearly no physical costs at all.

Idiots.

Obviously, as an American living in the UK, this is different for me. The one fucking grim bright side is that now hey, my money will be worth more. But if the only benefit is that the economy tanked in re: an international currency, that is BAD. If the European far-right/neo-Nazis and fucking ISIS are applauding the result, maybe that’s a hint this was a BAD GODDAMN IDEA? I still want to stay here when I’m done with my Ph.D. But since the new political movement that the far right nurtured into existence apparently doesn’t take such a great view of immigrants, I don’t know what my chances of that will be now. Common-sense immigration regulations are the LAST thing I expect to actually come of this, even after that was ostensibly what the campaign was about: “regaining control of our borders” (again, because of that super scary 183,000 extra people coming in, and a net migration of something like 300,000 – that is, counting people who moved here and who moved abroad). Once again. This is coming from the longest-running colonial empire on earth.

Irony.

Also, the facts are that older and less educated voters were the ones in favor of Brexit. Younger and college-educated voters were overwhelmingly against it. And yet, we’re the ones that get stuck with it. If I do get to stay here, this is the country that my future children would have. And frankly, it makes me never want to hear another goddamn word about how millennials are a “lazy” and “entitled” generation destroying the world, when the only reason I still have any hope for the future is that everyone my age thinks this is a terrible fucking idea, and that maybe, just maybe we can survive the older generation and, again, their ludicrously rigged carnival barker game of an economy that has only been working for the super-rich, long enough to actually save the world before it goes completely to hell. That’s why people voted for Brexit: they thought they were complaining about the fact that most of the global population is screwed by the current global economy. Instead – surprise!!! – it does absolutely nothing to address that actual issue, and gives rise to a backward politics, not a forward one. It says a depressing lot that I trust the EU leaders who insist they’ll find a positive solution despite this setback, far more than I trust anything from any UK politician of any stripe. It makes a Trump presidency eminently possible, if this is the political instinct that people are operating from, and that scares the shit out of me. And that’s what people are reacting against – a corrupt and self-serving political system – by further enabling the corrupt and self-serving political system that created this mess in the first place.

My best friend in England, someone who has been a wonderful friend to me for a long time, is a Lithuanian immigrant who lives here because of the EU. What the hell happens to her? She gets to stay. Probably. Who knows?

Basically from here, the UK can trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which gives us two years to negotiate an exit from the EU and a new trade agreement. That means two years of economic uncertainty and likely recession. That will be the responsibility of the new Prime Minister – almost certainly someone from the Leave campaign, which as I said was the breeding ground of a lot of right-wing wackos and Nigel Farage (the UK version of Trump). It could still theoretically be blocked in Parliament or by a coalition of Remain MPs from the Tory (Republican) and Labour (Democrat) parties, but this is not very likely and would probably be political suicide since the referendum was by popular vote and anyone opposing it would have a target painted on their back for “going against the will of the people.” And basically, the UK has also lost all shred of ability to complain if (God fucking forbid) Trump then gets elected in November.

I’m going to cross my fingers and hope this somehow fucking works out. Maybe the Leave campaigners are right and Britain can really do better out of this. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope so. But right now, it’s a giant flaming shitshow mess, I’m upset and angry and depressed about what this means for the world and for the country I love and made my adopted homeland, and I don’t know what the hell is going to happen now.

lotstradamus:

the only posts I’m seeing about #Brexit are to the tune of ‘wtf is going on in the UK’ so I thought I’d just quickly summarise the apocalyptic shitshow the country has woken up to: 

1. Britain has voted to leave the European Union
2. France has overtaken the UK as the world’s 5th largest economy
3. the pound has plummeted to a 31-year low
4. the prime minister has resigned
5. the Scottish first minister has promised another referendum on Scottish independence
6. Sinn Féin is making a bid for Irish reunification
7. Spain is going to make a claim for dual sovereignty of Gibraltar
8. a motion of No Confidence has been tabled against the leader of the Labour party
9. pro-Brexit politicians have already taken back their ‘we’d spend the £350m* that goes to the EU every week on the NHS’ bullshit
10. we’re probably gonna end up with Boris fucking Johnson as PM 

IN SHORT we’re about to cut ourselves off from Europe, plunge into a recession and become the United Kingdom of England and Wales. all our young people have been deprived of the right to live and work in 27 countries but at least there’ll be no more brown people coming in!!! haha!!! that showed Johnny Foreigner!!!!! Britain should be British!!!!!! anyway who’s coming for a kebab