FREAKING OUT
Jun. 23rd, 2016 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lokifanSorry, I know all my posts recently have been in the middle of the Venn diagram of ‘politics’ and ‘horribly, horribly depressing’. But guys I am FREAKING OUT about the EU referendum.
Thank God for living in Sardinia because I’ve been able to live in a state of more-or-less denial. Obviously Facebook and the papers have been full of it, but apparently posters in windows and leaflets and everything are ubiquitous right now in the UK.
I am TERRIFIED. I teach English as a foreign language, and when I was working in London, my students asked about it every so often and I assured them it wouldn’t happen. Because we’re not that stupid, and also having City boys and lefty liberals on the same side of the ball doesn’t often happen. So surely we would win?
And we won’t know anything for two hours yet because legally the exit polls stay secret until everyone’s voted, to stop them influencing the process.
If you don’t know much/anything about it I’m happy to give you the rundown, but this post isn’t about me venting all the many reasons, both idealistic and pragmatic, why staying in the EU is the best choice for the UK (and why everything I’ve heard from lefty Leave supporters is frankly ludicrous). It’s just about I AM SO SCARED. For my country and my culture; for Europe more widely; and for myself personally, because the bottom is going to fall out of my entire industry if we leave and I don’t have an exit plan in place yet.
Man. At the last general election I went round to Miss Godfrey and Ginger Nut’s place. It was pretty classy; we watched the BBC coverage rather than the comedian stuff on Channel 4 because Ginger Nut likes David Dimbleby, and we ate olives and drank prosecco.
...Until the polls closed at 10pm, that is, and it became evident that the Tories were almost certainly going to get a majority, at which point we immediately switched to chocolate and gin.
Anyway. Now it’s down to the wire I wish I was at home, so I could’ve voted there (I worry my postal vote didn’t make it, the Italian postal service being sort of infamous) and also could be parked on a friend’s sofa just now preparing to drink myself into unconsciousness.
Which is a British stereotype I am fully prepared to embody right now.
God, you guys. So many workers’ rights are specifically enshrined in EU law but not British law; the Tories have wanted to get rid of the EU Declaration on Human Rights for years and they’d be able to now; British influence abroad would be chopped off at the knees. The UK is being investigated for abuse of disabled people right now; London is far over its EU-set limit on air pollution and will be fined millions, and bad air shortens millions of lives; the Tories have been trying to stop or reduce benefits to recent immigrants, even when they have children, and they want to limit housing benefit to the over-25s whether citizen or not. Life in the UK has got measurably worse for the majority since the Conservatives regained full power and there’s a lot that they’ve been stopped from doing by the EU. It’s not a perfect institution but - well, this is what I said in my Civil War review, actually. Politics is compromise.
Not to mention, if we leave, there’s a decent chance our next Prime Minister will be Boris Johnson.
Thank God for living in Sardinia because I’ve been able to live in a state of more-or-less denial. Obviously Facebook and the papers have been full of it, but apparently posters in windows and leaflets and everything are ubiquitous right now in the UK.
I am TERRIFIED. I teach English as a foreign language, and when I was working in London, my students asked about it every so often and I assured them it wouldn’t happen. Because we’re not that stupid, and also having City boys and lefty liberals on the same side of the ball doesn’t often happen. So surely we would win?
And we won’t know anything for two hours yet because legally the exit polls stay secret until everyone’s voted, to stop them influencing the process.
If you don’t know much/anything about it I’m happy to give you the rundown, but this post isn’t about me venting all the many reasons, both idealistic and pragmatic, why staying in the EU is the best choice for the UK (and why everything I’ve heard from lefty Leave supporters is frankly ludicrous). It’s just about I AM SO SCARED. For my country and my culture; for Europe more widely; and for myself personally, because the bottom is going to fall out of my entire industry if we leave and I don’t have an exit plan in place yet.
Man. At the last general election I went round to Miss Godfrey and Ginger Nut’s place. It was pretty classy; we watched the BBC coverage rather than the comedian stuff on Channel 4 because Ginger Nut likes David Dimbleby, and we ate olives and drank prosecco.
...Until the polls closed at 10pm, that is, and it became evident that the Tories were almost certainly going to get a majority, at which point we immediately switched to chocolate and gin.
Anyway. Now it’s down to the wire I wish I was at home, so I could’ve voted there (I worry my postal vote didn’t make it, the Italian postal service being sort of infamous) and also could be parked on a friend’s sofa just now preparing to drink myself into unconsciousness.
Which is a British stereotype I am fully prepared to embody right now.
God, you guys. So many workers’ rights are specifically enshrined in EU law but not British law; the Tories have wanted to get rid of the EU Declaration on Human Rights for years and they’d be able to now; British influence abroad would be chopped off at the knees. The UK is being investigated for abuse of disabled people right now; London is far over its EU-set limit on air pollution and will be fined millions, and bad air shortens millions of lives; the Tories have been trying to stop or reduce benefits to recent immigrants, even when they have children, and they want to limit housing benefit to the over-25s whether citizen or not. Life in the UK has got measurably worse for the majority since the Conservatives regained full power and there’s a lot that they’ve been stopped from doing by the EU. It’s not a perfect institution but - well, this is what I said in my Civil War review, actually. Politics is compromise.
Not to mention, if we leave, there’s a decent chance our next Prime Minister will be Boris Johnson.
no subject
Date: 2016-06-24 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-27 04:59 pm (UTC)