I wander around in a daze wondering how it came about. I spend much of every day thinking about the beautiful relationship I had, but it was all taken away from me by lies and deceit, not on my part, but by others.
I have known since the 23rd June 2016 that the divorce was going to happen. Along with millions of others, I fought to try to stop this. I even made a film about it. We knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt that this divorce would be disastrous. We tried to tell the truth to counter the lies, but those who brought the divorce about drowned us out. These refused to listen. They said to us that they had won the divorce and we should “get over it”.
We thought that we lived in a democracy with freedom of speech, but we found out that speech was only free for all to hear if it extolled the virtues of the divorce.
Those media outlets which are supposed to represent ALL the people suddenly took a side. But it was the side of the victor, and what nasty spiteful victors they were.
Instead of trying to make amends with us the losers, they just ignored us and often antagonised for no reason other than to anger us.
Those who brought this about thought that the divorce meant that they would get the house, the cars, all the money and who knows what. Now we find that we will all be living in an isolated bedsit with ever-diminishing returns on what assets we have.
I am currently making a film about the Holocaust, which shows where a misguided Nationalism can eventually lead. A once cultured intelligent people committed such acts of depravity that I cannot feature some of these in my film if I ever want it to be seen. Last year my tiny crew of two and I drove to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Czechia, France, Austria and even Ireland. I also went on the train to Italy for my wife’s 70th birthday. Everywhere I went, there was proof, all around, that being a member of the EU had been a plus on so many levels for all those countries. In Venice, I saw over 40 EU flags, even in tiny back alleys worn and battered from many years flying in that city of streets and waterways that was already a wonder of the world back when the citizens of England were still living in wooden huts. In London, I’d be lucky to find 5 EU flags. There must be some adverse effects of being part of that wonderful European experiment, but I could not see them.
I am not stupid; I know that there will be downsides for every country, but my goodness the upsides are so glorious and plentiful.
The most important benefit of membership for me is that we have had (The Troubles apart) 75 years of peace. All those countries that I passed through have at one time or another, for well over 1,000 years, been at war with each other, and the UK was in the thick of it for much of the time. My dad was called up in World War II, and my grandfather fought in the trenches of the so-called “War to End All Wars”. It was the EU and not NATO that has brought this peace about.
For what?
Although POSTCARDS FROM THE 48% did not feature any Leavers (it wasn’t about them), I have spoken to so many. I have a lot of friends who voted Leave. In over four years, I have asked them all to give me one benefit of Leaving. Not some fantasy. An actual truth. Just one. In all that time, the only thing any of them has been able to come up with it, in all seriousness is –
A blue passport.
A blue f*cking passport….that could have been blue at any time we were a member of the European Union.
Now as the weeks, days and minutes go by leading inexorably the divorce of no benefit whatsoever, I spend a part of each day wishing that I really had made more of my time as a citizen of the European Union. Like so much in life, I did not think about it that often. I just assumed the UK would be part of it forever. In many ways, even though I am almost 65, I was too young to really remember the time before the EU, when the UK was the ‘Poor Man of Europe‘. That time it was so bad economically for over ten years that we had to go cap in hand to the IMF for a bailout loan. Is this what we can expect again?
Yes, I know I can still go to the EU in the future, and possibly even work there, but it will not be the same. I will be like a parent following a divorce who sees his children from time to time, but each time he does, he notices that they have grown a little further away. He sees that they are heading for a brighter future without him.
Still, as they sit in that isolated bedsit Mr/ Mrs or Ms Leaver will get much satisfaction, looking at his blue passport…….but we of the 48 per cent won’t.
What do we get?
