Goodbye EU.. we exit with a sense of fear and failure
“GOODBYE EU, Goodbye Scotland, Goodbye Dave, Goodbye Tomorrow, Hello Little England, Hello Boris, Hello Fear, Hello Yesterday.”
Apart from the sentiment about Boris and Scotland being wrong – for now at least – Rob Sheffield, who penned these lines, had just about everything else right.
Sheffield, brother of Samantha Cameron, posted his angry little poem online after the Brexit result was declared, capturing the betrayal his clan must have felt as their chieftain, our prime minister, fell on June 24.
Of course, the bitterness was displaced because David Cameron himself bears the greatest responsibility for getting us where we are now.
From his decision in 2013 to concede an in-out referendum to the Eurosceptic fringe of the Conservative party, the film has rattled through the projector spool until, inevitably, the reel ran out. We are left facing a glaring light on a white wall, the European movie is over.
The delivery of the plain envelope to Brussels on Wednesday was the most important act in European history since some brave individual raised a pickaxe against the concrete of the Berlin Wall.
One was a moment of national reunification, the other wilful destruction that divides Britain from Europe and maybe eventually from itself.
These historic bookends – Berlin and Brexit – define my generation as the shadow of World War and entry into the European Economic Community set terms for the one before.
What’s next is plainly unknown but comes with fear and a sense of failure.
That’s a lot of shared history we have flushed away, along with the security, liberal values and trade advantages that May said she wants to reinvent in Britain.
Some still cannot quite believe it has come to pass. But as Theresa May, a Remainer herself, said – there is no turning back.
In parts of Scotland emotions may be mixed. Britain’s historic diminishment may be to the advantage of independence with the hope a referendum can be a bridge back into the European family.
But most practical people realise that is for the birds. Scotland, as part of the UK, is leaving the European Union. On Wednesday our boat sailed too and not enough crew are willing get into a Sturgeon lifeboat paddling uncertainly for a continental shore.
The National Centre of Social Research Study published yesterday shows most Scots want Brexit to result in stronger curbs on immigration and do not see any need for Scotland to be given a different deal.
That reflects the instinct of most voters, more concerned with getting the kids ready for school than in constitutional debates.
The family we remain most bound to, whether we remain politically attached or not, is the British one, our island history determines that.
We can only hope we will remain tied to the European Union too in a new, looser relationship, but it will not be the same. Goodbye Europe, miss you already.