In it together, innit?
In it together, innit?
So, we are all in it together. We are in it alright. Innit? In the mire. In the shit. Up the proverbial creek without a paddle. In a rudderless boat, a ship without a captain, led by too many Indians while the chiefs, along with the rats have long deserted the ship. Mixed up metaphors for mixed up thinking. But let’s not forget the chiefs in all of this, please. The glorious Laurel and Hardy double act of Cameron and Osborne, whose ingenious plan to rid our politics of the subterfuge of Farage & Co., to reunite their glorious party and return to the safe haven of two party politics, securing for their chums and class mates the political reins, with accompanying power and wealth, for another five years every five or ten years, for ever and ever, ah men. A plan so cleverly hatched one can almost see the script of Blackadder 5, ‘The Brexit Years’ with Chancellor Baldrick announcing to his eponymous master, ‘I have a cunning plan…’ Come on Ben, write some satire.
But don’t worry. We’re all in it together. Well, we are. Now.
So I wondered, briefly, in what sense we were all in it together.
In the sense, perhaps, of all being in a plane whose engines have failed? No, because in that scenario we would have voluntarily boarded the plane. We’d have made a choice to go somewhere.
Maybe in the sense of having gone to the casino, placed all our money on red, whilst our friends and compatriots went for black, agreeing beforehand that whatever happened the morning after, we would share the spoils. Only, it came up green. We all lost? Closer this time. But no, again. I didn’t ask to go to the casino. I don’t bet against the odds.
So maybe in the sense of being held hostage by terrorists who have now come under attack for their beliefs or crimes? Yes, that would seem to work. A human shield of common sense. We are all going down together. We didn’t ask to be here. We are being held against our will. Attacked in the name of a cause we don’t support by aggressors we don’t affiliate with. That seems about right.
So we are all in it together. Innit? We’re in a bunker. We are bound and gagged. But we are in it together. You can smell the sweat rebounding off the walls, your captors faces still illuminated by the lunacy of their mission. They turn to you, reassuringly bite their lips. We are going to come through this. Don’t you worry. We are in this together. Now.
And anyway. We all had a choice. You had a vote. You had your say. You had your chance. You placed your chips on black and it came up red. Or green. Time to man up. Stand up for sisterhood. Take it on the chin. Hold your head high. Have some self respect. Some dignity. We’re in it together, now.
Well get this.
At some point down the line we will rejoin the European project. Its form may be somewhat different thirty years from now. There may be members and affiliates, dignitaries and signatories, inner circle and outer circle, free trade partners and Politburo chiefs. If not fully in we will be firmly attached. Only things will have changed. We will all have been diminished by the process. Our nation state will have been reduced. Great Britain less great, our kingdom less united. Scotland less and Wales lite. The jack repainted, the blue vanished. William sitting on a smaller throne. Embittered and embattled by a thousand free trade agreements, sore from the wounds of every person’s personal story of a more xenophobic immigration regime, no less subjugated to the powerful monopolies on the other side of the pond, the other side of the channel and the other side of the compass, the bruised ego of empire shaking a stick at the world.
We will be poorer, whether economically or otherwise. Not everything is measurable. Not even common sense.
So please, next time you think of a crude and crass hashtag, next time you reduce your own ideological obsessions to a handful of characters or a snappy sound bite, use a first person, singular pronoun, an I not a we. Innit?