By James Anderson
Nearly 10 years ago the UK voted to leave the EU. A bewildering time followed that vote for myself and my family. We lived under a cloud of fear, as the cosy future that we had cultivated for ourselves became a political football as the then Tory Party in power tried to come to terms with how on earth they would deal with the instability and decision-making that followed a decision no one really envisaged or strategised for.
My Italian partner almost immediately experienced racism towards her heritage, people were instantly emboldened. It was a shocking time contemplating a different future to that we thought we were going to have. By far the most harrowing and destabilising was the thought that as a mixed UK/ EU family, with three young children, our youngest then just one year old and our eldest only six, that perhaps we would all be separated or, to be more specific, that my partner would be deported. Thankfully, that never happened and ultimately she achieved her settled status relatively easily because I kept lots and lots of historic records. As time moved on, we knew we had to wrestle what control we could of the disaster that was Brexit. My partner was never going to pursue citizenship of a country that she felt like it had immediately disowned her and didn’t really want her, similarly for our children, who are representative of the future of the UK we didn’t really feel that the UK deserved them. For clarity they are Italian/ Irish/ English, so we had a choice of pursuing Italian or Irish citizenship for our children. I myself had been able to draw on my Irish heritage to obtain an Irish passport thanks to my father being born in Belfast.
Well, the above is the backdrop and our recent history, but much has happened since. I wonder how many of us voted Labour in the 2024 general election, perhaps also voted for them as a consequence of tactical voting to oust the Tories, I know that’s what I did, I might have otherwise voted for the Lib Dems or the Green Party if we had a different voting system and I could vote my conscience and beliefs. I wonder, too, how many of us secretly hoped that Keir Starmer still harboured some pro-EU ambition, that maybe everything he was saying about never going back into the EU/the customs union or the single market was something of a front and that he might unpick that for the benefit of us all?
Now, though, we seem to face a different threat, that of Reform UK. It’s hard to believe quite a few things which are happening, that by the way the Labour Party act that this is the same party with a huge majority, that people could vote for Farage having witnessed the disaster of Boris first, lies, populism- Brexit, Covid, are we really voting for someone like that again? Even more extreme? I watch on too and witness a media wholeheartedly embracing, normalising and paving the way for Reform UK to get elected, it seems the majority right-wing press are really throwing their weight and hopes on his election. It’s shocking to witness mainstream media lauding a party with 5 MPs while virtually ignoring the one with 72. There is an unrelenting feeling of breakdown in so much around us whether it’s just the truth being told, or the opposite of lies being espoused, cuts everywhere you look and still further down the rabbit hole with not only Reform UK but the frankly bonkers Conservatives also talking about leaving the ECHR. Another Brexit 2.0 in the lasting damage that will cause.
I survey all of this wreckage and after being so unsettled by everything that’s happened and being in possession of those EU passports I’m thinking the unthinkable, of leaving the UK. Prematurely, of course, as this is all on the basis of Reform UK potentially being voted into government in 2029, god forbid it could be sooner. For many like-minded people you might be thinking what are you waiting for but of course life isn’t that simple. For one, I love my job, I’m an architect, I carved out my own business here and I really enjoy it. I would be in effect retiring at 54 but, more than anything and the reason we didn’t leave as soon as we all got our EU passports, was because of our children. They’re quite happy in their schools with their friends, and leaving in 2029 would be problematic. OK, one might be at university by that time in relative adulthood, but the other would be midway through A levels perhaps and the youngest about to start GCSEs, this would be incredibly detrimental.
These realities had previously gotten me dismissing any notion of this, we were always going to wait until they were at uni or in adulthood before seriously thinking of leaving but now I’m seriously worried about what kind of future they are going to have in the UK? Will the cost of living have laid waste to not just the working classes but the middle classes too, what kinds of jobs and country would we have without the basic necessities of the Human Rights Act enshrined in law? Would we have an NHS? Would we be bankrupt, the bond markets finished us off? The scary thing is that I am an optimist, I always have been, to do what I do for a living, but I see nothing optimistic about our future as a country. If Labour also continues this airbrushing into history of the fallout of Brexit and it seems well and truly on that path then we may as well give up (not that I want CfE to give up!). The Labour Party is already unable to stand up to the lies and hysteria over “small boat crossings”, to point out that it’s a result of Brexit that we visibly see this, to point out that it is NOT an invasion, to point out that our very future as an ageing nation is in fact going to rely on immigration, to point out that, actually, whether people are coming because of oppression, fear or economic desperation, that not only do we need them but we should in fact be grateful for them. We are so far removed from being able to speak the truth it feels terrifying as though I am living in a parallel universe. I wish I was, I wish it was all just a bad dream.
However, there is one thing that Labour could do with its stonking majority, something that would bring about real change and that would be to say goodbye to our antiquated voting system, giving first past the post the boot and embracing proportional representation. That would be so brilliant in chopping Reform UK’s legs off, it surely could never seize power if such a system existed? Maybe then our hysterical media would also have to be more reflective of society as a whole? Who knows, maybe I could actually vote with my conscience and not tactically? Here’s to hope and what’s left of it.
