Brexit: a long march: Rita Ricketts reflects on the recent British vote in favour of leaving the European Union.

• Author: Ricketts, Rita
• Position: Essay

The centenary of the battle of the Somme fell exactly a week after the momentous EU referendum. Now, where tanks once slunk, trucks march nose to tail between England and Europe. On the banks of the Somme is a vast, and unusually tasteful, service station. Nearing Calais travellers and tradespeople pass by the fields of Flanders, where still 'the poppies blow' 'Between the crosses row on row'. (1) If those who lay in these fields were awakened--like characters in Stanley Spenser's Resurrection paintings--they would recognise their immediate surroundings. Here now are the same flat fields and low-slung, sloping-roofed, buildings, housing landbouwers with their six or eight cows. One such old farmer, catching anyone with the time to listen to his childhood memories (of the Second World War), recounts how enemy soldiers requisitioned the farm's only, and much beloved, carthorse. Pointing out the bullet holes in his milking shed, he remembers the faces of enemy soldiers who crossed the farmyard with bayonets fixed.

Has Britain, in voting to leave the European Union, broken faith with the dead? He has some sympathy for those wanting to ditch EU rules: rules that create unfathomable paperwork and prevent him from moving his cows around as his father did, and his unpasteurised milk has few takers. But turning to his copy of De Standaard, he takes issue with its 17 June editorial: 'Ik hou van Europa, ik hou niet van Europa'. What do they mean by Europe, he asks? As the philosopher John Gray told BBC4 listeners, the European Union is not Europe. Britain is not leaving Europe. It is leaving the European Union.

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Britain's relationship with the institution that calls itself the European Union has always been a love-you-love-you-not affair. Now, it has come to divorce, a decision reached by a majority of 51.9 per cent. The Brexiteers had won, but judging by the adverse reactions, in Britain, Europe and across the world, it might well turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. Britain awoke to a divided nation. Leaders were challenged or ousted, political parties faced fragmentation, families split, the diaspora were fearful for their future, an angry European Union was out for revenge and the world was stunned. Prime Minister David Cameron resigned, passing the chalice to the Pretenders, who for their own nefarious purposes had planned to unseat him. For some, it turned out, the chalice was poison; they were soon to exit centre (political) stage.

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Prime minister still, for a shorter time than he had envisaged, Cameron hastened to Brussels to attend what was to be his last meeting as a member of the European Council. He received no crumbs of comfort from his erstwhile colleagues; they were oblivious to the warnings of elder statesmen, like Henry Kissinger, that punishing the UK would not settle any questions'. (2) Back in Blighty, the then foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, described the result as 'chilling'. Brexit's cheerleader, Boris Johnson, too, was shocked--he had not envisaged a No vote, and repudiated any suggestion that he was anti-European. Remain supporters were already outside No 10, bearing 'I'm not leaving' and 'We are European not British' placards.

Guillotine moment

The sense of bereavement in university cities was palpable. Students protested while their mentors, fearing for course numbers and research funds, were already meeting to devise ways of holding the government to its promise that they would not lose out. (3) Eminent historian Peter Hennessy likened the result to a 'guillotine moment'. (4) Former mandarins, like Robert Armstrong and Robin Buder, professed not to have seen such a disgraceful mess since the 1956 Suez crisis. (5) In the City's towers, young financial analysts milled around, feeling helpless as millions were wiped off quoted company holdings. 'Who would grab London's crown, they wondered?'. (6) They were in fear of their own future as much as the City's. How had Brexit happened, they asked? How had such an unholy alliance managed to storm to victory, without a manifesto or an exit plan; a question reiterated by former mandarin Lord Butler and historian Hennessy. (7)

But while Remainers had blinded the electorate with economic 'science', Brexiteers had kept it simple. They successfully persuaded the, mostly white, working class that they should no longer be governed by remote bureaucrats they had never voted for. (8) Like Squealer and Old Major in Orwell's Animal Farm, the Brexiteers sung of the 'beasts', not of 'England', but of the 'EU'. Their immigration policy was the cause of unemployment, the housing crisis, educational disadvantage and powerlessness. They claimed the votes of the well-to-do in England's shires, promising them that, once out of the European Union, the glory days of Pax Britannica would come again. Demob happy Nigel Farage declared 24 June, the day of the referendum, 'independence day.

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Philosopher Onora O'Neill dismissed the Brexiteers' rhetoric as 'pure fantasy'. But like Peter Hennessy, she also blamed the Remainers. By repeatedly crying fire, they diminished the warnings of serious players; post-Brexit, the IMF is already vindicated: it forecasts that not only will Britain's growth be the slowest of advanced countries but also that world growth will slow. The media, too, argued O'Neill, must take a share of the responsibility. By failing to subject debate to critical account, they reneged on their civic duty. O'Neill also viewed social media as a culprit: 'sound bites distorting in an echo chamber'. (9)

Dangerous malaise

As recriminations flew, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, under attack for his lack-lustre Remain campaign, explained that people had voted for Brexit because they were...