The day-to-day of Brexit is well written up elsewhere. Maybe one day I’ll put a timeline up here. As a matter of record. After it’s all happened and we’re out, or in, and staying whichever way. But for now…
I’m on the march for a People’s Vote. It’s 19th October 2019.
I’ve not marched before. Hazel and I returned from Amsterdam 11pm on the 18th. 11am on Saturday 19th I’m on a train to Paddington. I walk across Hyde Park, and join the march at Hyde Park Corner. Some walkers resting. Banners and placards likewise. Looking down Park Lane: full of marchers as far as the eye can see. Looking east, along Piccadilly, likewise. A million? Maybe.
I head down to join them. Shuffling along. The pace reminds me of the last ½ mile of the London marathon, when you’re struggling along Constitution Hill, toward the Mall. Would we were so close to an ending. There may yet/will certainly be more political marathons before any level of sanity is achieved. As one placard has it: ‘I’m not leaving.’ Or as Steve Winwood sang, ‘keep on running’. Or another placard: ‘If you leave me now, you take away the biggest part of me…’ I hum that all the way back to the tube.
A batch of Labour cabinet members give short speeches. Keir Starmer the stand-out for clarity and apparent commitment. LibDems old and new. Ed Davey more punchy that usual. Jo Swinson gets her message across well. And others. David Lammy brilliant. Likewise Jess Phillips. The biggest cheers at the end for Dominic Grieve and Hilary Benn, fresh from the Commons debate, and the vote by 322 to 306 to withhold final approval for Johnson’s Brexit deal until the relevant legislation has been passed. And finally big cheers for the old warrior hero, Michael Heseltine. Hezza as lucid and passionate as ever.
More placards. ’Stop the coup.’ Yes, in a way, that’s what we’re facing. ‘Let us be heard.’ Not easy with so much of the press in Tory hands.
My favourite slogan before, and still my favourite: ‘If a democracy can’t change its mind it ceases to be a democracy.’
The marchers are a wonderful, worthy, uncomplicated bunch of ordinary folk. All ages, some serious, others chatting, having fun. A trumpet here, a rallying cry there. A single line of ‘Ode to joy’. Sudden unexplained surges of noise. Helicopters occasionally drowning everything out.
Talking of drowning. Rain starts on the Mall, continues as we head down toward the Cenotaph. Briefly heavy. But we walk on regardless. Then big blue skies and dazzling sun. A big screen helps me keep up with the speeches. The crowd thins a little and I finally make it to Parliament Square.
A few placards are rather more direct: ‘Eurocrats not Brexit crap.’ Not quite sure we should be lauding Eurocrats, if we want to persuade waverers. ‘Bramm orth Bretmes,’ apparently (do I believe it?) a Cornish curse meaning ‘a fart to Brexit’.
Maybe my favourite: ‘Brexit is as shit as this sign.’ (On makeshift cardboard.)
Other favourites: ‘I’ve seen smarter cabinets at IKEA.’ Right on. ‘Only tectonic activity can take us out of Europe’. A simple geographical fact.
Yes, we are serious, but we have fun. Shouts of ‘Shame on you’ as Andrea Leadsom leaves the Commons, so I read. She reports she felt threatened. This is as I experience it a very unthreatening event. But the press of course pick up on her comments.
Blue berets with yellow stars around the edge are popular. A teddy bear atop a wooden pole. A labrador with a rag doll Boris in its mouth. ‘Honk if you want to remain.’ Not so easy on roads from which cars are excluded. A goose with a Euro flag in its beak: yes, I like that. Some kind of vehicle moves slowly through the crowd, with a Boris mock-up in front, and a bigger puppet-master Dominic Cummings behind.
‘Hastings loves Europe since 1066.’ Really? But I support the sentiment.
And finally, ‘Plant molecular biologists against Brexit.’ As I would expect.
If I’d carried a placard … putting attempts at clever thoughts aside, I’d go with ‘keep on running’, or ‘I’m not leaving’. Keep it simple. Conserve energy.
We are in it for the long term.
zenpolitics.me 