I decided to write a blog whilst waiting for three hours by the gate in front of the speakers stage for the ‘Peoples Vote March’ of which fell on what was dubbed “Super Saturday” for Brexit politics in Parliament. The rally was to demand the people have a final referendum on the EU withdrawal deal for Brexit, with ‘Remain’ as an option on the ballot paper.
The day is Saturday, the date: the 19th of October. Exactly two weeks before Great Britain is planned to crash out of the European Union for good, in the words of current Priminister Boris Johnson in a “do or die” situation. I am currently sat staring at a sea of knees with my butt parked centre stage in front of the ‘Speakers Rally’ stage in the middle of Parliament Square.
I can hear distant low toned chants, the kind that remind me of a football match being watched in a Weatherspoon's, to look and find the source I lean towards the small cluster of Union Jack flags, and sure enough the culprits are the small delegation of UKIP sympathisers: the leavers.
I still feel boggled completely in any attempt to understand what’s happening. I can’t sympathise. I can’t understand. Having never been too sympathetic to British patriotism anyway, I feel there’s little to no reason to segregate ourselves further from others.
I feel perhaps I am humanist, or, as I like to think, an Internationalist, but I should really look into what that specifically means before saying it. I subscribed in my second year of University to ‘The New Internationalist’, (a side effect of my SOAS catalyst politicisation) - and quickly became aware that that’s all I want to hear or read about. I want to hear and read about the news of the entire world, not just the UK, not just Europe, not just the West. I want and need to know about the affairs of the rest of the world, as they are my comrades. Certainly I believe ideally there’d be no borders. I don’t fear migration, I welcome it. I believe a truly multi-cultural environment is the best. I believe any human should be able to move anywhere so that they feel happy and safe and are able to live the life they want to live. We grow up being told we can do whatever we want, we can be who we want to be - but then we decide that’s valid only for ourselves. This doesn’t feel right or natural to me at all. The children growing up in the refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Calais, Yemen - they don’t deserve the chance according to us. I can’t understand people that don’t feel compassion to another human being regardless of their origin, ethnicity, religion. I would prefer to stand with a group of “foreigners” - and fight for equality and basic human rights - rather than stand patriotically with “my people”. What a silly idea. The very fabric of everything I have ever loved originated outside of the UK, away from the British people. Reggae for example. A light hearted example, but a strong example non-the-less. Don’t get me started on the Windrush generation scandal that’s an atrocity on our morals. I can’t stand the idea. detention centres, deportation. How dare we treat human beings in this way. Human beings in our cosy, West, in our EU, in our UK - citizens like me, taken from their homes, their jobs, their family, their friends, after years of living comfortably, welcomed as neighbours - as supposedly equal citizens - to suddenly be revoked of that privilege. For what? By Who? Not for me.
*LIVE ACTION*
…the Leavers are singing again - cameras swamp from every length of the grass to them. It’s sad really, they remind me of the Lee Parkers (a colloquial term from my home town) - not all of them, the ones that stand intimidatingly outside corner shops, spit at the floor, cuss, and laugh at their own heightened delusional realities. The sadness of course is that fundamentally their arguments are often just plain stupid. Not their fault of course - we grew up in an education system that is purposely, institutionally oppressive, designed to keep the working class as uneducated as possible, because God forbid we understood the laws that govern our country and dictate the everyday workings of our lives, our benefits, our education, our health, our human rights.
A failed attempt at starting the chant “What do we want - Brexiiiit, when do we want it…” a hesitant pause in their flow as they struggled to remember perhaps a relevant date…which was swiftly met with a sea of laughs from “remainers”.
Here’s another thing, as I sit here - crowds are eternally turning up, a lot I must say are middle aged and older. I think, ah it’s supposed to be the young that have become politicised. But what one gentleman said to me “I have never cared this much in my life - I have never been to a rally before” - another older man shared the same story. It seems to me that this whole situation isn’t giving anyone a choice. Young or old - we all share a fear - and to quote a number of people who say “I am genuinely depressed”. We all shared what else we could be doing with our time on this Saturday, for me it was more work - for one it was the only day he could visit his grandkids. Yet there we stand - in almost inevitable rain, surrounded by complete strangers, waiting to yell and clap at a small stage of office dressed speakers.
There’s an old man must be in his 60’s/70’s walking around waiting for the speeches, and he has a ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ sticker right in the centre of his forehead - top effort. I have to say, the older generations are really rocking the royal blue EU styled beret’s. Being early in the crowd and perched at the gate infant of the stage, we were at some point handed t-shirts from the ‘Peoples Vote’ campaigners. So I soon found myself wearing this pink top over my coat, and being handed a EU flag from an older lady who had apparently accidentally ordered 22 instead of 2 online. We’ve all seemingly gone mad - objectively - stood on grass, wearing ludicrous clothes, with albuminous stickers on our foreheads. Perhaps revolution requires madness.
Stewards have just laid across the entire width of the parliament square, what I can assume is a huge banner/ poster thing - ready to be rolled over the crowd during the rally - most likely for a prime helicopter shot.
I’m happy with my decision to sit down here at the front. Rally waiting snacks include a Tesco meal deal, and a large Lucazade for the energy and hydration.
*LIVE ACTION*
Two leavers just came straight to the gate I’m leant up next to whilst spitting inaudible words from large smirking faces. They certainly have an aggressive demeanour - I want them to avoid me, they scare me a little - they’re reaching over, laughing at some joke only they are parlay too. After they swing their ams over the gate, laugh and leave - I suddenly fell uncomfortable with my back on the gate, and discreetly decided to peer over - just to check there was no mischief.
They certainly mixed up the current demographic: youngest being myself, then a couple older middle-aged gentleman with cameras, and one with a large boom and a Zoom recording device, who has been intermently speaking, headphones on, into his divide to himself, or calling over others to speak with him - other than him, there’s mostly people I would describe and Nans and Grandads. Again, all - with top effort. So all in all really rather calm, until the leavers come along.
That’s the environment Leavers have created, danger, aggression, discomfort, fear.
Strikes me as an example of the two extremes narrating politics the world over at this time - our version is Brexit.
The tragic and heartbreaking “the rise of the right” - spikes in hate crime, Islamophobia, homophobia, refugees and migration hate.
I read somewhere once that it’s not necessarily a rise in the ideas, but perhaps more that the likes of Boris and Trump are making people who previously felt embarrassed to express hatred - feel that they are now safe to do so.
How can one hate another so? I simply can’t fathom it. Especially when that someone is torn from their home, their lives, in war torn situations, thrown into a life of eternal uncertainty and insecurity - of hell. Violence for sure, hunger, lack of money, home, health. As their home countries are destroyed, in what more often that not is nothing more than a game of chess for dictators who care nothing for the millions of displaced lives. Furthermore we fund the bombs and the wars that destroy entire civilisations: we ensure these millions can’t live with their own basic human rights anymore, then we complain and moan when they ask us for help, in our crystal castles, with all our capitalist money.
Another leaver is marching around belting some kind of “leave means leave situation” - One guy has a fag hanging out of his unshaven mouth, wonky nicotine stained teeth, greasy unkept hair - can of strongbow in hand - of course. His pal has a shafted noise, apparently disjointed from a previous battle of some kind, he also has a star tattooed beneath his eye. I chuckled to myself thinking how it resembles the stars on the EU flag. As they move around the crowd yelling their chants, I was impressed a an elderly group of tackled the chants with blow whistles. It worked immensely, completely drowning out the unwanted sounds - until the two lost interest and left.
Quite paradoxically to the leavers - a man, arms and legs completely outstretched in a star shape, holds a large EU flag, posing in front of big ben, smile from ear to ear, blatantly happy with his new oversized EU flag.
Echo’s everywhere, conversations between strangers communicating and bonding over mutual disdain, shock, disbelief and morning. I hear the recording gent next to me saying he’s just trying to get a feel for the occasion of which he’s live podcasting - so he’s speaking to everyone - regardless of opinion.
Whilst I’m here perhaps this would be a good time for me to put together some important revelations I’ve had just by reading a few articles here and there: and what scares me is the thought that had I not read that specific article - I might no even know these things because our media has never behaved as a unbiased useful source of information. So the majority of what I will right for information is simply taken from informative articles and written in my own words. I think it’s imperative to read the original articles as well, I’ll put them beneath.
The stage behind my back is checking their sound systems: the occasional 20 second blast of the middle of a song comes beckoning through he speakers.
*LIVE ACTION*
Occasionally, a group wearing Union Jack flags as capes shove forward until they reach the gate I’m leaning on, they blurt something, yet again inaudible, they then laugh perhaps considering themselves to have been rather smart or witty. Only to realise most of the older people around them are looking confused unable to decipher what was said. They look disappointed and walk off in search of their comfort pack of pals - power in numbers after all.
BREXIT STUFF I KNOW AND THINK (and can’t believe)
Let’s talk about what I understand to be what is really going one here.
I’ll start by talking about Austerity. I don’t think a lot of us really know what that is or was.
Austerity was something rolled out just before the politicisation of the general public and the young that came from Brexit. Austerity was when David Cameron was in charge, I remember not following, reading the news then. Easier times.
So what was it?
Remember the credit crunch? The financial crisis that was 2007-8, where the UK and many other countries that had been relying on capitalism and big banks loaning and lending etc - many countries fell into recession. What was the UK to do? Well at the time the conservatives were in power and sadly they created an idea where they would bail the big boys in the banks out of their debts by using the money of the everyday people. They called it a punishing ‘Austerity Programme.’ The people must pay.
*LIVE ACTION*
Oh, love it, the gentleman parked up next to me, white British, EU beret on, has just picked up his phone and proceeds his conversation in fluent in Chinese. We love.
…The austerity programme inflicts tuff and tricky cuts to those with the least. The lower public spending money, the welfare cuts, the frozen benefits. Remember? Did you know anyone who lost benefits? My mum did. The council also cut her department, so my mum lost her job of 30 years - as well as her health benefits - of course however her health still needed the benefit, but the government didn’t want to fund that anymore.
I remember being in school, and the funding going, the music department loosing it’s instruments, and in general, our school deteriorated so dramatically, that upon leaving - my year achieved such a terrible set of grades, that the school was forced to close down, firing over half the staff, and was turned into an academy instead. My cousin still lives in the city, he just left school with no GCSE’s.
We all know the turmoil the cuts have caused to our NHS.
So by 2013, public spending money has fallen to levels not seen before for over 10 years previous.
So the generally un-politicised public start to become tired, and frustrated - we start to protest against Cameroon and the government. How could they distract us? Retract the blame from their own decisions and actions of austerity? Shift the focus perhaps?. Boris Johnson had already kick started things when he found he sold more news ‘front pages’ when he stopped reporting on the EU as being basically harmless - and instead reported unfavourably upon it.
So how about we have a EU referendum?
Cameroon decides to take a strong remain stance (although his campaigning efforts resembled a soggy wetwipe), — So in order to punish him, and our austerity government, we the general public should vote against Cameroon and vote to leave the EU. The vote was a protest to years of Austerity. After all, Boris said that if we left the EU, our NHS would receive £350 million more a week…
On the other hand, leave campaigns were paid nicely by extremely high profile donors, of whom were well funded and relentless - and illegal. They played the game of blaming the EU for the austerity that crippled the British working-class. Surely our government wouldn’t lie to us so blatantly would they?
The irony is that the EU funds the poorer parts of the UK. Arts and music itself is funded more from EU sources than home sources.
The Leave campaign was basically a lie - brought by the rich with illegality - bene described as a fraud against democracy. The bus for one? The NHS bus? We all know it - the Brexit Bus they call it now. I can’t get over how we just pretend that didn’t happen. I don’t understand why Boris is aloud to even speak when he has been proved to have lied to the whole country. He should be gone immediately surely - we don’t have liars and manipulators leading our country?
One man next to me chants every so often “Lock him up” - a statement that makes stark and brutal sense to me. Surely we should punish those that do anything illegal. We certainly do to the working class - but what Boris is too important to do his own time.
More than this they hacked us. Hacked our democracy, hacked out medias, our socials, hacked and manipulated malleable minds. I myself was one of these at the time.
I don’t want to get too into it - but here we go - did you watch The Great Hack on Netflix? If not you have to watch it. It’s a whistle blower documentary about how Facebook aloud Cambridge Analytica ( a data mining company basically) to use social media data to post blatant lies to manipulate the impressionable. They quite literally micro-targeted the “physiologically susceptible and impressionable”.
Can you believe? Surely not. They can’t use fake news in a fight for democracy can they? They can’t literally brain wash people who can’t make the decisions for themselves - who don’t have all the information? Fake accounts, on twitter, facebook, fake adverts, fake treats, fake whips for anger and discord - all run from a highly paid Russian troll farm.
Facebook was fined, but who cares, the damage is done. Cambridge Analytica strike again, choosing which dictatorship they shall propagate.
Let us remember also that the referendum was only every advisory.
WHAT’S THAT NOW. The whole thing was only an opinion pole! There is nothing legal or mandatory about the vote - the vote that was characterised by fake news and manipulation, that gained only 2% margin ahead of the rest - wasn’t even mandatory. I can’t believe that - who knew? All of this over something that can have been avoided. The result literally has no legal significance at all. “The people have spoken” my arse.
So why oh fucking why are the politicians pushing so hard for something that
Only won a margin of a measly 2% anyways
A result which was largely based on fake news, lies and manipulation - therefore was undemocratically coerced
That which was promised has been proven to be false and a lie - so the premise of the referendum and thus result is mislead and pointless.
Cooperate Tax avoidance and hedge funds.
That’s why.
What’s that all about? Let me tell you, because I was sick when I discovered the realities at play here.
* LIVE ACTION*
We’ve some leavers nudged their way back into the front of the crowd - a cacophony of sound erupts as the leavers yell and laugh, waving their Stella tinnie and their Union Jack.
Counter noice includes a chorus of whistles, a brilliant fight - really highlights how one side simply want’s to drone out the noise they deem unworthy. Chants from elders pointing and saying “that’s where the dummies are”. In the distant crowd a little, a scuffle kicks off, the two leavers near me quickly push back to their comrades, excited smiles, hoping to swing a punch. Whistles continue to audibly attack, police move into the crowd and eventually a chorus of applause in solidarity - as the bald men who had apparently started the scene is escorted by the police from the area, along with is pals - for apparently “aggravating the situation”.. Left behind are a couple of leavers enlightened to speak their truths. They yell things about a referendum never to be had again, we have spoken, one million people. The return are chants “there’s the dummies are” “Britains changed its mind” and laughing, mocking, general satire. The odd person will try to reasonably debate with the leaver, only to be ignored. The gentleman with the Union Jacks, Stella tinnie and stars tattoo, looks as though the excitement might be fading from his eyes as he sees more and more police moving around - ready to remove the agitators. “the Farage leaver is provoked? “Who’s paying them I wonder” said an older gent - this made me think.
There seems to be two people that want to Britain to leave the EU- the ignorant to the facts, uneducated never previously politicised, and the insanely rich - the influencers and manipulators.
I hear jokes from the OAPS “They think I’m an agitator” “I’ve never been so motivated in all my life” says one older gentleman.
A row of yellow forms as police link arm to arm just behind me, to block I assume the two sides from colliding, or segregating the agitators. What a moment. A line of alumnus yellow bordering of police, amongst a bright blur of blue EU flags, with that stark Union Jack circle in the middle. A cigarette cracked voice from within the Union Jacks is trying to yell their points over the chorus of whistles and boo’s. She’s not getting too far with it, I must say. Good effort tho.
Anyways, back to our points. What’s it all about: Cooperate Tax avoidance and hedge funds.
So let’s talk about Tax avoidance. Something that maybe we wouldn’t even know about or use in our average language had this not all come to light with such serious effects for our country.
The average you and I probably know very little about it as we pay our taxes. The little tax we pay for our little incomes. I remember working full time in Wagamamas and if I took on more hours, I wouldn’t see it because the tax would go up and I’d have to pay more tax - rendering the extra hours financially pointless.
Well anyway, guess what, the richer you get, the less they make you pay. The more capitalist your endeavours it seems, the more avoidance. Britain helps harshly the rich with this.
England is the biggest enabler of corporate tax avoidance. FACT. We have a network of secretive tax-havens territories. We literally have single handedly done more to undermine the world tax system that any other nation on the planet. And yet did you or me see that? Did we pay all our tax? I got a stinker of a council tax bill once - wish I could have avoided tha, and yet England is responsible for one third of the worlds tax avoidance. What? A third.
So what does that equate too? The amount of missing tax per year through England is the same as the total reduction in welfare spending that the Austerity programme cut from our everyday lives - that’s a fat £30 BILLION. So just to confirm - big businesses, with million pound Christmas bonuses - don’t pay their tax, whilst we do. Our government then further punish us by cutting welfare programmes needed by the tax payers. So we pay more for a NHS that get’s underfunded from the other side.
Which brings us to the kicker - in 2016 the EU published plans for a ‘Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive”.
They want to tackle the thriving culture of tax avoidance. The law states that from January 2020, that anyone with an offshore account and investments must fully disclose their information. Thus enabling full scrutiny, hopefully uncovering and shaming the tax avoiders
THIS IS WHY THEY WANT US OUT. Imagine - if the rich elite, the influencers, the governors of this country had to disclose how much money they have avoided paying in tax. How much money they have taken for themselves from the people. How our much our government has allowed to be tricked in taxes,
The 1% that manipulate, that use Cambridge Analytica, that enflame right wing sentiment - the privately educated, the old money, the family manner house, the land and power.
Being in the EU in 2020 means the UK must adopt and enforce the anti-tax law.
Which brings us back to Brexit people. The Brexit that won’t bring £350 million to our NHS, but will see it privatized and inaccessible. The Brexit that creates a hostile environment and insecurity for all non-nationalists. The Brexit that means my Dad has bene stockpiling food from fear of empty shop shelves. My home city is set for disaster with a supposed queue on the M275, our motorway, that would last a permanent one day due to the border checks at our docks.
The most powerful supporters of Brexit - are wealthy business tycoons, - they back a no-deal crash fall out of the EU. They decide we absolutely MUST leave the EU, “do or die” - and they pour their money into the leave campaigns and into backing Boris of whom control this stance.
The conservative euro-skeptics immediately set about portraying the EU as the new enemy of the UK. Before al l this, less that 10% of British people blamed the EU for British issues.
When Theresa May tried to get through a bill for Brexit that said the UK would comply with the new tax-avoidance law in 2020 - she became herald by conservative media as a traitor to the country for suggesting that we should adhere to these laws.
So wow wee - who knew that ay? I wish that has been on the front pages of the news consistently , honestly informing the general public. As apposed to shaming Diane Abbot for drinking and gin and tonic tinnie on the tube. Like “Oh btw, did you know that the rich don’t pay £3 billion in taxes, and we could probably use that for our schools and NHS?”. This is the kind of information I think we all deserve to know, it’s not for a few people to decide who should know.
I never understood the rush “do or die” Boris chants. It’s illogical. Why would we want to rush through something that effects the rest of our long lives, and the lives of future generations? I can happily spend a few years on something Brexit when the result effects us forever. Seems immature to rush through it saying “quick quick, we're bored, we want to move on” - well you bloody started it.
There’s more, but I don’t know enough about these things to write about them here and now:
*LIVE ACTION*
The gentleman podcasting next to me has just featured me as “the girl who was eating an egg sandwich earlier, and is now enjoying Pringles” - to which my reaction was to give him a better view of my crisps …“ah actually she’s munching happily on Hola Hoops”. It came to me, that Pringles are never in crisp packets either…
So what else is there, there’s Market fundamentalism and there’s disaster capitalism… what’s that?… That’s where the rich rich people (I mean, I can’t even imagine) stake huge sums of money, millions, and profit from natural and man made disasters.
So a hedge fund manager bets the GDP will rise or fall - effectively treating the world as a large casino in which to bet on the good and bad situations.
Such as betting the economy of Haiti will fall after it’s hit by nationwide earthquakes. Or bet that the British economy will fall after a no-deal Brexit - nice ay.. One to read is ‘The Shock Doctrine’ on this one. Deregulation of laws in these fields mean that they can bet on anything they like. Freedom to exploit the needy.
Can they ensure they make more money? Sure, when you’re this rich and powerful, influential, you can rig global politics. The billionaires have their influence, they have their money to manipulate (paying facebook to spread fake news for example to the impressionable).
The 2016 referendum provided a perfect opportunity to bet on the effects in Britain. One notable figure 'Odey’ has placed a £300 million bet that a no-deal Brexit will lead to disasters…
To reiterate, the people paying to try and force us out of the EU before January 2020, the people who don’t want to reveal their tax avoidance - are also the ones who have hedge fund betting on how badly it will go for everyone else!! I can’t believe it - it’s stuff of a Disney villains. Of psychopaths.
These people have LITERALLY sponsored Boris Johnson - literally. In real life. They WANT disaster - they want to make millions of the economy clasping for the average family.
Manipulation is key. They own The Sun, The Times, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph - and these are all I see in every shop front. False news. Fake manipulative headlines.
They have appropriated social media for mass manipulation and mass deception. They are using the British people to make millions from misery.
This has been carefully orchestrated by the richest 1% - who suggested the implementation of a crippling austerity program - whilst they personally gain millions through tax avoidance.
So there we go. That’s what your Brexits really all about.
The rich getting richer - whilst the working class, the OAP’s, disabled people, students, young people - every average person - suffer and burn in the elitist game of billions.
But hey other outcome after a no deal or hard Brexit is the possibility that the government can impose military rule to control the resultant civil unrest.
Anyway, I’ll close off now, I need to stretch my legs, the soundcheck are playing music and I want to chat to the people around me.
I’ll round up by saying I’m surrounded my mostly lovely people, exchanging stories, proudly waving the British Flags along side the EU flags. I feel strongly we’re better off connected to the rest of the world.
What strikes me the most is disbelief.
In myself and the situation. That’s what’s gluing us all together I think. I feel outter-body as I look down at the pink shirt for the Peoples Vote I have on, alongside the EU flag a lady passed to me, clutched in my hand, stood waiting for hours side by side with strangers of all ages - backed up by what turned out to be a millions marchers
How did I get here? I’m not even political. How did it get THAT bad - that a Grandpa who’s “never been politically motivated” in his life, and a University music student are equally so fucked off with this something that they come togehter to stand next too each other on a patch of grass on a Saturday. Three years ago I never read the paper, and would have laughed at the idea of watching Priministers Questions - but I’m too scared not too now.
Love and Peace if you read this far - HA!
Remain aware!
