Britons today recover from a political bombshell, a vague distant aspect etched on the faces of Remainers and some Brexiteers alike, never quite fading as they proceed through the polite machinations of a just another Friday. Today there was no fire, nor planes charting a new course as they veer around the vertical borders of the common market, yet to the observer one thing is clear - something has changed, and this thing may not be undone.
As the enormity of the situation sets in, Britain must reflect on her status. Yet as currency and foreign investment alike tick into the ether, we cannot afford leisurely introspection. Commentators alight to social media, fast food opinions winding through the networks to be forwarded, appraised, accosted, and forgotten.
A stunned middle rouse from their silence, incredulity reigning. Someone must be blamed, and there are no shortage of targets. The deceitful far right must surely be deposed, their 350 million untruths a week publicly unravelled at the teeth of the media. Tautological slogans, much as we must surely want to “Make Britain British again” wear thin, amid claims of xenophobia being noncommittally dismissed, and swiftly, lest anyone ponder too long at their origin.
The leave campaign celebrate an ethereal success, yet no definition of success appears. Nor was one provided - a marginal result in a referendum which declined to assert a majority, or to be legislatively bound to parliamentary action, leaves dangerous room for interpretation, yet as a consequence manages to leave none at all.
The glaring omission makes one thing clear - there is no plan - for who can plan for what cannot be defined? The stage show props of austerity budgets are shuffled back under coats amid sheepish mutterings of “ah, well, before the vote, you see…”. The idea of success of this referendum was to do not with the outcome, but with its existence. A scrap, thrown far to the right in exchange for a grubby four years, has swiftly been devoured, and the leader finds his four years have, overnight, been devalued to two.
Exposed to his short sell on the exchange rate of democracy to political capital, he has built an unflattering legacy. The leader who failed to lead, and the alumnus who handed the keys to the counterfeit every-men riding a wave of anti-intellectualism, has gambled one time too many and must bear the greatest loss of his era. Not only has the sea between Britain and the world become rougher than ever, but the political dice are cast, and as they tumble to a halt, the shape of the United Kingdom itself now rests on how they lie.