By Anita Graafland
“Is there anything other than edit the newsletter I can do this month?” Now why on earth did I ask?
With our Border Talk feature having pretty much run its course and book reviews on Brexit becoming less and less topical, I was offering to write something, anything that might be of interest to our readers.
“How about you write something on the European elections?” Yeah, right.
So what do I tell you about the rolling elections across the Continent that saw the Dutch vote on 6 June and the French on 9 June? The salient facts will be familiar to the EU family in Britain: how the German right won seats, but Von der Leyen still claimed victory for the European parliament at large; how France’s president Macron was in such a huff about the major losses his party suffered that he immediately called national elections to make a point – and how that hubris is now looking to become his undoing, so much so that the financial markets are actually nervous about France for a change instead of focusing on Germany? How the turnout was the highest in Belgium and the lowest in Lithuania? You’ve all been studying the official data released by the European Union, no doubt.
I guess I’ll do what I do best: stick to what I know. And to the country that I know best – after the UK, of course. The outcome in the Netherlands was pretty bad when compared with the results of the European 2019 elections, but almost a relief after the devastation wrought at the national elections. Months of wrangling to get Geert Wilders’s party take on government responsibility and the newly-minted coalition government would today fall way short of a majority based on these results. Quite a relief.
Meanwhile, I can report some improvement in my own family: after finding out that four of my five children and bonus children hadn’t voted in the national elections (I never heard from the fifth, but suspect the worst), I managed to physically drag one of them to the polling station (we agreed to make it a tradition); the one in the UK had all the papers sorted but the envelope to put the forms in never arrived; the third was all set to vote but ended up giving birth to my fourth grandchild on the day; and the fourth made it very plain last time that he couldn’t be asked. A 25% gain then.
Perhaps the thing I remember most is the horror on my French friend’s face when she realised we conducted exit polls in the Netherlands. That we already pretty much knew what the outcome of the elections was going to be in Holland on the 6th, while she still had to make up her mind as to who to vote for on the 9th. Fortunately, no-one ever reports on the smaller countries when the likes of France, Italy, Spain and Germany come out to play.
Sheffield? Why Sheffield?
Well, that’s where I had the weirdest meeting of the past six months. You probably remember how I had always argued that Britain was going to vote Leave when given a chance, and how my UK friends laughed in my face? Well, the reason is that I’ve been travelling in this country for longer than I care to remember. And that there was never a time when people I met on my travels didn’t mouth off to me about the horrors imposed on them by Brussels. How else were they going vote when given a chance to get rid of these foreign bastards?
“Is that a Dutch name?”
(I blinked: no Briton had ever recognised the origin of my surname.)
“Do you think we were wrong to leave the European Union?”
(Well, seeing as you’re asking…)
“I voted Leave, you know, but I’m not sure I did the right thing. It doesn’t look like it’s getting any better.”
(I don’t quite know what to say.)
“But these days I’m espousing women’s rights, you know.”
(What? My head’s spinning now, how does he jump from Vote Leave to women’s rights in under a second? And what on earth is he on about?)
“Yes, you know, all these trans people making public facilities unsafe for our women.”
(OK, that’s it, I’m not going to respond. I’m not going to say anything. I’m keeping my mouth shut. I won’t tell him. I won’t blister him with the havoc Brexit has wrought in my life. Or tell him about trans people in my own family. I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.)
“I’ll show you your room now. Have a nice stay.”
