The Brexit Chronicles

So Long, Farewell.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu. Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu... - So Long, Farewell, from The Sound of Music.

Published on January 31st, 2020. 06.30.

A lone sentinel spitfire, Merlin engine snarling faintly, patrols in lazy circles high above the White cliffs of Dover. Vera Lynn's 'They'll always be an England' plays proudly from a digital wireless. Our Finest Hour is again at hand, for on this Brexit Day; some three years, seven months, nine days, three prime ministers and two general elections (not forgetting the Euro-elections we shouldn't have held, but were forced to due to as a consequence of the interminable Brexit delays) as well as 308 days late due to three missed departure dates after the historic referendum result; at long last, the United Kingdom is officially due to leave the European Union.

It's been a long and difficult time coming; in fact there were moments when it seemed quite possible the result of the plebiscite might have been contemptuously set aside by the political establishment. The UK's uncodified constitution as well as its parliamentary procedures were stretched and contorted to near breaking point; the law itself dragged into disrepute. In addition, the reputations of the government, opposition parties, Westminster as a whole, and politics in general sank to a new low. For a nerve-wracking while it seemed there was a real possibility the issue wouldn't be settled in the Commons chamber or in the courts, but violently out on the streets, but at the last moment the social tension building as a result of the greatest constitutional crisis since the House of Lords reform of 1911 was dissipated by the realisation among all concerned that things could not go on this way. A grudgingly admitted general election - the real People's Vote - was held, the people spoke decisively, and as a result we find ourselves - at last! - here.

As the hour of our departure from the bloc we joined forty-seven years and one month ago draws on, this should be a time of contemplative reflection. My considered opinion is that this should never have reached the stage it did. When it became clear in the early 1990s the direction the EU was taking, at that point we as a people should have said That's Enough; and if our concerns weren't heeded there should have been a referendum as to what future course we should take; perhaps a looser but more workable association than an Ever Closer Union might have been arrived at as a result. Some of you may think our current membership status was that idealised compromise, though clearly, as events have demonstrated, it obviously wasn't. If the issue had been addressed earlier, rather than being allowed to fester, how much of the unpleasantness of recent years might have been averted? But that isn't the way our country works, as many citizens have learned to their disgust, and those of us who already knew the truth had the fact glaringly exposed still further. Looking back it still seems incredible to me that the question of whether to leave or remain in the EU reached the point where people were killed and threatened with death; that friendships; relationships; even marriages were strained or foundered over the issue of Brexit; that we became so bitterly, binarily divided into Leavers or Remainer camps, yet this is what happened.

Time counts inexorably onward to the official moment of departure at 23.00, a moment both anticipated and dreaded in equal measure; of laser clocks projected onto public buildings (but Big Ben won't Bong the hour regardless of any Bung as the famous clock is in the midst of a restoration project) along with the issuing of an oft postponed and recast 50p commemorative coin. Some people may brave the unseasonably mild January weather to attend celebratory open-air Brexit gatherings, but I won't be one of them as I don't think this should be a time for triumphalist gloating. Instead I'll just stay home and mark the fleeting instant quietly with some continental lager. It is expected the lights will stay on; there shouldn't be the howling in the streets of an immediate zombie Brexipocalypse breaking loose, but we won't be out of the woods just yet as the UK-EU Trade Agreement - if there is to be one - must be concluded by year's end or this island nation will be navigating waters even more uncharted than we expect.

So was it all worth it in the end? Yes, it was. For once we'd made that decision there was no other way things could have gone without tearing the country even further apart than we have, and if the will of the people had been thwarted by the Remain at any cost elite the result would surely have been a second English Civil War. We have at least avoided that, and preserved the illusion our country is a democracy for a while longer. As we enter the final yards of our Brexit marathon we'll stagger stone-legged across the metaphorical finish line mentally as well as physically exhausted, tearfully emotional, and ready to collapse. But there won't be any volunteers waiting to throw foil blankets around us or hand out congratulatory finishers' medals and T-shirts; for instead of this being an end, it marks the start of a far longer endurance event; at once we'll have to set off on another gruelling effort; this time into an unknowable future of our own creation.

So. So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye... Goodbye.