europe

Devastated

by
Tower Bridge

I’m writing this on the morning that a majority of British voters chose to leave the EU. Having stated my position as ‘remain’ and voted that way (as did Christine), I’m devastated to say the least, and terrified of what happens next.

It’s worth bearing in mind that I’m writing this having been awake since 3am, five days into a six day working week.

I’m feeling similar thoughts to 2011, when we as a country rejected a change to our voting system. I backed the change to AV, but a majority preferred to stick with the existing first-past-the-post system. But at least that was maintaining a ‘status quo’ – with the EU referendum, I fear the choices were ‘the same’ and ‘worse’, and not ‘the same’ and ‘better’.

And it’s bringing back memories of 2015, when the Conservatives unexpectedly won a majority in the General Election, and 2004, when George W Bush was re-elected as President of the USA.

What will take place over the coming days, weeks and months remains to be seen. The referendum result is not legally binding, and so the government and/or Parliament could choose to ignore it. I think one of the two following scenarios will play out.

Scenario 1: We leave the EU

The key thing to watch out for is invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. This is like giving notice on your job – it tells the rest of the EU nations that we will leave, and gives us two years to sort things out. At the end of that two year period, we will cease to be an EU member state, unless we can get every other EU member state to agree to stop the process, or grant us an extension.

I don’t expect Article 50 to be invoked straight-away, because two years isn’t very long to unpick all of the legislation linked to Europe and implement new trade deals with every other country in the world. I’ve heard that those leading the leave campaign want to wait until 2018, with the aim of completing the Article 50 process by 2020, when the next general election is due to take place.

Whilst I think we will lose out by leaving the EU, I expect any changes to be slow – although the biggest ever fall in the value of the pound may imply that things are about to get very hairy very quickly (and probably wipe out any savings from leaving the EU). In any case, I expect many of those who voted to leave will be disappointed that leaving the EU won’t bring about the massive changes that they expect. A major claim by Vote Leave was that the £350 million that we spend each week on EU membership (which is actually much less thanks to a rebate) could be spent on the NHS, but within hours of the result Nigel Farage has said that’s unlikely.

My big worry is therefore that ‘leave’ voters will feel massively let down and disenfranchised by the whole thing – leaving the EU won’t have been the panacea promised, and their trust in the political system will disappear.

A majority of Scottish and Northern Irish voters chose to remain, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a second referendum on Scottish independence in the coming years. I was neutral on the previous referendum, but I’d be very understanding if Scotland voted to go independent to re-join the EU as a new member state. As for Northern Ireland, I fear that the years of calm since the Troubles subsided could be over, especially as the Republic of Ireland remains an EU member state.

Scenario 2: The referendum result is ignored

Because the referendum isn’t legally binding, the government and/or Parliament may choose to ignore it, and not invoke Article 50. Whether this happens now, or in a couple of years when people realise what a mess we’ve got ourselves into, remains to be seen. I would naturally prefer this to happen, seeing as how 16 million British voters wanted to remain in the EU, but it is also not without caveats.

Those who voted leave will, understandably, be annoyed, and will feel massively let down and disenfranchised by the whole thing. I know, I’m repeating myself, but I genuinely think a lot of good, honest people, were convinced to vote leave on the basis of lies and false promises. But what makes this worse than the scenario above, is that these voters will struggle to find any political parties to turn to. After all, out of the 7 major British parties – Conservatives, Labour, Scottish National Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Green Party and UK Independence Party – only the latter officially supported leaving with minorities of the largest two. Of course, that assumes that this won’t result in parties splitting apart – and neither Labour or the Conservatives are particularly united at the moment.

The big issue is that no-one knows what’ll happen

What scares me most about the whole thing is all of the uncertainty. Staying in the EU would have, for the most part, been business as usual. But by voting to leave, we’ve opened a massive Pandora’s Box, and who knows what we’ll find.

I really hope that my worst fears are not realised. If they are, then at least I’ll be able to tell my daughter that I voted for what I thought was the right thing. And I apologise now if, in the coming months and years, I keep saying ‘I told you so’.

I’m voting Remain

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Tomorrow, the electorate of the United Kingdom goes to the polls for a referendum, where we’ll be asked whether we want to vote to remain a European Union member state, or leave.

I’m voting ‘Remain’, and this has always been my intention. I think we have far too much to lose by leaving, and precious little to gain. But I’m also voting for various friends and colleagues of mine, who are EU nationals living here in the UK, and who would face a potentially uncertain future if we leave.

I could spend hours going through exactly why I’m voting the way I am and why a vote to leave would be potentially catastrophic, but ultimately it comes down to ensuring that people who matter to me have a future in this country.

If you’re undecided about how you’ll vote, I’d suggest sticking with the status quo, and choosing Remain. If we leave the EU, then we may never be able to return. If we stay and things get worse, then another referendum could be called. The EU is not perfect, but I hope that by staying, we can influence it, rather than grumbling from the sidelines.

The polls are open from 7am until 10pm tomorrow – make sure you use your vote.

Eurovision Eve

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Tomorrow night is the annual Eurovision Song Contest, a pan-European music competition where each of the nations of Europe can put forward a musician or band and hope to win the chance to host the following year’s contest. Last year’s winning act, Emmelie de Forest, was from Denmark, so this year’s competition will be broadcast from Copenhagen.

In Britain the main focus is always the ‘final’ on the Saturday night, but there have been two semi-finals this week. They’re broadcast here on under-threat TV channel BBC Three, and I bet a lot of Brits don’t even know about them. I think this because the semi-finals don’t matter to us Brits –  Britain is one of the largest contributors to the European Broadcast Union, the producers of Eurovision, and it means that British acts automatically qualify for the final. This is along with those acts from France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Consequently the semi-finals are not a big deal here, and are mostly watched by those more fanatical about Eurovision.

For most of the past few years, we’ve been to Eurovision parties, where we watch the final as a group, usually with ample amounts of alcohol. This started sometime around 2007, when one of our friends was an international student from Canada – we tried to convince her that Eurovision was a major cultural event. I think she believed us right up until the show started, when she realised it was just a massive camp-fest. Which it is, but that’s one reason why I like it so much. Another other big reason is getting to laugh at the various novelty acts that invariably make it through to the finals, and then get increasingly frustrated at the end when none of our European neighbours decide to vote for the UK entry. And there’s the commentary provided by Graham Norton throughout the night.

This year, we’re hosting a Eurovision party ourselves for the first time. Not a big one, and most of the people who are coming are the same ones that we watch Eurovision with every year. It’s probably the last chance we’ll have to host a Eurovision party in our current flat, as hopefully by this time next year we’ll have bought a new house.

The UK never does particularly well in Eurovision and we’ve not won since the 1990s, but we still enter every year. Despite putting up reasonably well-known acts, such as Blue, Engelbert Humperdinck and Bonnie Tyler, we haven’t placed inside the top 10 since 2009.

In the past there has been a public vote to choose the act that we sent to Eurovision – usually called A Song for Europe – but since 2011 the decision has been made by the BBC. This year’s act is ‘Molly’ with her song ‘Children of the Universe‘ – it’s not really my kind of song but hopefully it’ll do well. Molly, incidentally, is not using her full name of ‘Molly Smitten-Downes’ in the competition.

Political events often affect the results, and it will be interesting to see what effect the recent issues in the Crimea have on Ukraine and Russia’s rankings. It may also reflect Britain’s historically poor performance, as the rest of the Europe hates us apparently. The current rise of the UK Independence Party may indicate that the feeling is mutual. I wonder what UKIP’s policy is on Eurovision?