I’m doing my best, I really am, to bite my lip as, gradually, realisation dawns that Brexit is not the Promised Land.
As even the most rabid Brexit breathing papers print (brief) stories of some of the consequences of this choice we are told is the will of the people. Not too prominently, mind, they must remain in the shadows of the loud, stomach turning “WE’RE TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK!” belches.
I’m doing my best, I really am, to bite my lip as, people, too proud and stubborn to admit they were deceived, stick their fingers in their ears, and seal around them with silicone.
As they froth at the mouth and spit in your face that you are too weak to understand what it means, that the mighty Great British Lion is shaking its mane and roaring so loud that the whole world can hear “WE’RE TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK!”
I’m doing my best, I really am, to bite my lip as people so rich, incomprehensively so, tell people with nothing it’ll be worth the cost.
As they sit on their mountains of cash in tax havens, unwilling to dip their hands into their own pockets, they shout into their megaphones to the people so dispossessed they were willing to give anything a go, “WE’RE TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK!”
I’m doing my best, I really am, to bite my lip, as I hear more and more people “fed up” of hearing that Britain is unwelcoming.
As they glue together the pages of history books which do not support their narrative, as they deny that since June 26th 2016, more people have been told to “get out” and “go home”, as they tell themselves and each other that all these people are just bitter because “WE’RE TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK!”
I’m doing my best, I really am, to bite my lip… but my lip is bleeding and swollen and it’s becoming impossible to keep biting as I’m told over and over “It’s the will of the People”.
The People who were fed lie after lie, on the side of a bus, on the back of a beermat, in the Sun, in the Telegraph and in the Express, the Daily Mail shouting louder than all the rest, “WE’RE TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK!”
But what is this country they’re talking about?
To the old people who voted to get the days of their youth back, you will wake up tomorrow with the same aches and pains.
To the people who voted to get the lives they see in Miss Marple, or Downton Abbey, you will not have the benefits of editors, lighting teams and cinematographers.
I’m trying to understand what this country that’s been so rudely taken from us is… from what I can understand it has hard borders that everyone wants to get through, but where the poor and displaced and needy are not welcome. It will not tolerate people whose skin is a different colour getting above their station. It does not want to travel and see the world, unless it’s to take possession of anything that takes its fancy. It is not curious and accepting of the faiths of others. It doesn’t want to hear if people are struggling. It does not want to learn to compromise. It does not need, nor, indeed want, the help of others, it’s fine by itself. It’s a country who, in response to the EU’s gracious behaviour at our departure, replies with “we hate you” whilst waving Union Jacks.
This is how it looks to me.
And I hope beyond hope that I am wrong, because if that is it, if that is what 52% of the UK voted for, that is not a country I want back.
That is not my country.
And though I AM doing my best to bite my lip, tonight, at 11pm, it will not be my bruised, bleeding and dangling-by-a-thread lip I will be crying about. I will be crying for the country which welcomed refugees and collaborated with its neighbours, who questioned and learned from the way of life of other nationalities. My country is not is not perfect. It is flawed and it makes mistakes, but it is not small and it is not spiteful.
That is my country.
And I want it back.
My Name is Not Debbie 