So.
Where are we now then?
In a bit of a state, I’d say.
Not the great big federalist state we were in before admittedly, but a state nonetheless.
And can you believe that there are people wondering how the hell it happened?
Calling for a second referendum because, ‘it was a bit close, wasn’t it? After all there was only just over one million votes in it.‘
Well I guess you could say that, but the last time I looked one million was perceived to be quite a large number. If you gave me that amount in one pence pieces I would be a bit chuffed to be honest.
But, that aside and ignoring the nasty name calling that’s going on I do feel that we have to ask ourselves the question, ‘what did we expect?‘
No, seriously, I mean it. Because in elections held previously we managed to elect to the European Parliament as our major party of choice a bunch of MEP’s whose sole raison d’etre was to get us out of the place as soon as possible.
There has been an episode of ‘Yes, Minister?‘ doing the rounds on Facebook where Sir Humphrey explains to the hapless Jim Hacker why we should be in Europe so that we can screw it up better from the inside. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up!
I have stated in a previous blog that we wouldn’t scrape UKIP off our shoes with a pointy stick over here, but found it perfectly acceptable for Farage’s mates to represent our interests in Brussels and the farce which was Strasbourg. What did we think they were doing? Did we somehow assume that they were working diligently with our European partners trying to make France and Germany – sorry I mean Europe – a better place?
Surely we weren’t that naive!
But then again, apparently we were. Perhaps those who are a bit narked and calling for a re-run now were a bit slow getting off their arses in 2014 to vote in our preferred Euro M.P.’s then. Just saying!
Let’s face it, whatever we’re whinging and blaming each other about now, we have never been too happy with Johnny Foreigner have we? Even De Gaulle didn’t want us to join as he reckoned we would only screw it up.
And as it turns out he may have been right. From Heath, through to Thatcher and not forgetting Dave we always tried to get our own way didn’t we? Invariably we got screwed and what we were told by our glorious leaders that what was a supposedly good deal turned out to be not exactly biased in our favour.
We were always seeking a veto, weren’t we?
Remember Maastricht? (Incidentally, the French ratified that with a majority of only 51% / 49%)
Remember the ERM?
Remember the French being so concerned about our little spat in the South Atlantic that they supplied Exocet missiles to the Argentinians? Good neighbours, huh! By the way, before we get too animated about our soon to be independent status, just remember that our hopefully new ‘bestest buddies‘ across the pond didn’t want to help us out with that one either!
And our leaders wanted us to believe them on Turkey?
Still it could have been worse – we could have ended up with the euro!
So what next?
Well I don’t pretend to have the answers but I would suggest that now we have voted ‘Nein,‘ we should skidaddle a.s.a.p.
By the way Cameron has bottled that one hasn’t he? Not going to tell our neighbours that we intend to leave as Article 50 demands.
No, he’ll pass that poison chalice to poor old Boris. Oh, don’t panic – it’ll be a bit like Sir Alex passing the mantle to David Moyes at Man U, you just know at the outset his time in the seat of power is already numbered. The poor sod won’t last two minutes. By the way ‘Call Me Dave,‘ I hate to break the bad news but I think our old Euro mates know the score already! They may have caught wind of the fact that we’re trying to sneak out of the back door.
And don’t expect Jessa’s mob to sort it out either. The poor chap does seem to get confused by long words anyway and now has the look of a very startled rabbit in the glare of some enormous headlights as his cabinet disintegrates before his eyes quicker than a self assembly sink unit from B & Q.
UKIP won’t help us. There is now nothing for it to be independent of (except the rest of Great Britain) and the noise you can hear is only the death rattle in Nigel’s throat. The body may twitch for a couple of years but it is now a busted flush.
Get out quick is my advice. And why do I say that? Well I foresee all manner of tabs run up by the profligate state will become due for payment if we do take the generally accepted two years to pack our bags. Yes, once the neighbours we have been propping up the bar with realise that we are about to stagger off home, taking our wallet with us and that they shall have to pay their own round for once, I predict that all hell will break loose. How will Europe fare once the cash cow it has been milking for so long wanders off into its own field?
And as for the Scots!
Well actually I mean the Scots and the Northern Irish, but listening to various commentaries on this situation it has struck me that the Irish situation has somehow been ignored and that the Scots have all our attention. But I digress.
Sturgeon has been rushing about trying to get all her little caviar eggs in one basket.
She wants out.
Paint her face blue and cry, ‘Freedom!’
Can’t knock her for that, she always has and always will – the thing with democracy is that you have to respect the other persons stance.
But I just hope that you north of the border have a lot of loose change rattling around in your sporrans.
The Greeks will no doubt need another bail out of their leaky ship. The Italian and the Irish economy are shaky to say the least. That’s going to add up to a lot of oil. Let’s hope the pump price goes up so you can pay for it.
Although I wouldn’t stress too much about that, Jimmy. The exclusive club you so dearly want to join may yet implode spectacularly.
It is all sadly a bit of a mess.
Better get our act together and sort it out then. We had that chance after the Second World War, but we dithered and fannyed about so much – even at one stage suggesting some sort of a European Alliance – that we left it to the French and Germans to come up with a plan.
That didn’t work out so well, we now find out.
On the other hand we may follow the example of our soon to be ex P.M. and bottle it too, but I doubt the rest of the club would let us.
I think they’re a little bit miffed, don’t you!?
mistybooks 