The extremists were quick to respond. 'We did it! Today is our 'Independence Day', a day that will live forever as the day that we asserted our sovereignty, freedom and democracy'. That is the reaction of Britain First, the gang loyally served by the murderer of MP Jo Cox, and it is clearly a sentiment shared by a mass of the British people. Across Britain and Europe the far right are punching the air with joy. 'Job done' tweets the British National Party. The maverick tories who have used the referendum to launch a power grab from the right are congratulated for their good work by Marine le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in Holland. Meanwhile the civilised world looks on in disbelief.
Why disbelief? Because this was not a difficult debate, finely balanced with strong arguments on both sides. It was OBVIOUS from the facts that Britain is / was much better off as part of the world's strongest trading bloc and had some claim to greatness by being part of something greater than itself. But the large numbers who are fed up after years of global economic stagnation have been convinced by the crudest Trump-modelled propaganda that the source of their suffering lies in Brussels and in the immigration resulting from the free movement of labour in a free market. Invent an enemy to disguise the real one: lesson one. Add to that the Little Englanders of Telegraph-land and the alternative universe conjured up by the Brexit lobby was strong enough to deflect attention from reality for long enough to secure the result now being toasted by Britain First et al.
What will happen now? Nobody knows, of course, and the instigators of this act of national self-harm had to admit they have no plan at all. None of the alternative scenarios, from Norway to Canada, are viable or even attractive for this country. But if you are a Leaver and are reading this, I think you can be certain that you have NOT 'taken back control' from Brussels or anyone else. If anything, you have GIVEN power to Brussels, who can now dictate punitive terms to allow Britain to carry on trading with them and with an eye on deterring fellow travellers. It's a fact, not an opinion, that the UK needs the EU much more than the EU needs the UK. We now have to negotiate with - I repeat - the most powerful trading bloc in the world - which outnumbers us 27-1 and has no reason at all to grant us any special terms. One of the conditions insisted on, incidentally, will be the free movement of EU workers. Migration was always a red herring in this discussion. Leavers have also given control to some very dangerous people on the far right of politics, who have never hidden their contempt for the vulnerable and the provisions created for them by the post-war social welfare consensus. It's a reasonable prediction on the evidence available that time will not be lost in repealing the raft of EU legislation that protects workers from exploitation and provides them with some dignity, with asset-stripping of the NHS to follow swiftly. So, yes, migration may go down a bit, but only because the UK will be such a horrible place to work in. Cheap and easily expendable labour will continue, of course, only it will be provided by the British people themselves, before they are cast off with miserable pensions or no pension at all by masters who have never set foot in the country. Did I say the UK? Scotland's separation is only a matter of time, and while the mechanisms for Northern Ireland are less clear, as beneficiaries of the EU who actually acknowledge that fact, they would clearly be better off separating from their vain and deluded former governors once and for all. Leavers will certainly not see any 'savings' or enjoy the slightest degree of extra control over their country's destiny, now more exposed than ever to the rapacious behaviour of unfettered global capital.
Personal disclosure. The markets have opened and I fully expect the savings I have put aside in stocks and shares ISAs to lose massively in value. The money I have in the bank is already worth far less than it was yesterday. Soon I may well be paying more for my house than it is worth. My Spanish wife, besides being numbed by the arrogance and ingratitude of her adoptive country, is wondering for how much longer the country she has paid taxes to for years will afford her any NHS provision or a state pension. What will anyone's pension even be worth in a few years, anyway? Pension funds depend on share values, which are in meltdown. Across the whole country similar stories will be unfolding. I consider myself a patriot, if that term retains any decent meaning. I love my country, its landscape, its culture, and the humour and gentle spirit of the natural-queue-forming British people. But that culture and spirit have been coarsened beyond recognition by forces that have nothing to do with Brussels or Polish builders or Syrian refugees. On this beautiful morning, it looks like the fractured and shrinking UK will revert to the island that Virgil described, 'et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos': the Britons, cut off by the whole width of the world. Which is what the nation's Brexit-Dignitas dreamers wanted, I suppose. And so we go back to those glorious island days, and take our rightful place among the nations of the earth as an offshore tax haven for oligarchs, a playground for media moguls, the closing-down-sale store of the western world. I hope I am wrong - how could I not hope? - but in the immediate aftershock of the event, and using the best judgement I have, that, Leavers, is the control you have got and the freedom you have voted for.
