On post-referendum regret
I was a Leave voter, and I won. However, since that heady early morning of 24 rd June when David Dimbleby announced that Britain was leaving the European Union, reality has dawned. The £ has fallen sharply; bankers and business groups have despaired and threatened to leave the country; there has been a massive jump in ‘hate crime’; the world and especially our former European partners are horrified at us for having chosen isolation and xenophobia over openness and tolerance. Now we are stuck here with all this uncertainty, not knowing what that ugly word ‘Brexit’ means, while our government is clearly clueless and doesn’t know what it’s doing. It’s a new dawn, a new day – and the new reality we’re living in certainly isn’t comfortable or pleasant. That’s the story anyway. Some of it is true. The new reality does come with discomforts and difficulties, and the fractious nature of our politics on the subject of Brexit is pretty unpleasant. But the idea constantly pres...