A Sad Day for Sense and Sensibilities.

So, the votes are cast and the battle is over. The rabid right led by Johnson, Farage, and a few gutter press editors who have been anything but balanced or humane in their presentation of the facts and implications, have bellowed loudly enough to fan the flames of shallow self-interest and xenophobia. Britain is leaving the European Union.

I started writing a long and impassioned post about it, but decided there was no point. What’s done is done and I would only have been largely repeating myself anyway. Suffice it to say that I’m disappointed, angry, and a little ashamed to be British.

Only it wasn’t the British who voted us out, was it? It was the English and Welsh. Every single council in Scotland voted Remain, and the popular vote up there was overwhelmingly in favour of that option. So let’s spare a thought for the Scots. Over the past seven hundred years or so, Scotland has mostly been ruled, or at least dominated, by England, and now they’re being taken kicking and screaming out of a union they didn’t want to leave. And who swung the vote? The bigoted and xenophobic element down south, popularly known as Little Englanders. I find it hard to believe that this result won’t be leapt on by the Nationalist movement in Scotland to force another referendum on Scottish independence. And one little irony attaching to that eventuality is that the Union flag so beloved of the loony right will become redundant because the blue panels will have to go.

And so I’ll leave it at that, apart from adding a little aside: I was at Uttoxeter station this morning, and somebody had hung Union flag bunting across the waiting areas on both platforms. The flags on the eastbound platform were the right way up, but those on the other platform were upside down. It led me to wonder who put it there, and whether their error was due to ignorance or whether it was meant to carry a subtle statement of some kind. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know.

At some point when the dust has settled, I’ll probably have something to say on another question that concerns me: who will replace Cameron as Prime Minister? I’ve been a critic of his ever since he took office for reasons which I’ve given often enough, but he showed hints every now and again that he does have a little heart of sorts. When I look at the two most likely candidates to succeed him, I see no sign of even that. But we’ll see.