Brexit or Wrexit?

Yesterday UK voters cast ballots on whether to remain part of the European Union or leave the bloc of 28 countries. By a 52-48 margin, Brexiters won. Which seemed to surprise them. The Brexit leaders, including Boris Johnson, are a bunch of loud-mouthed, extremely privileged bad boys who are better at naming and inflaming problems than proposing anything other than pie-in-the-sky “solutions" (sound familiar?). Like many people in N.I., I was stressed out by the result and am unclear at what drove voters to do something that is totally against their self interest. I did a lot of stress eating today. Scotland and N.I. voted to remain, while the exit vote was driven by economically deprived regions in northern England and Wales.

Everyone is saying this was driven by anti-immigrant feeling (something Nigel Farage of UKIP encouraged). I think it may be more complicated. Globalisation produces winners and losers. Many states in the U.S. are globalisation losers, just like northern England. The winners are a small minority (the 1%) who push trade deals and tax cuts that benefit them but devastate entire communities. I think a lot of people are voting against that. The EU is a massive trading bloc that has played the U.S.’s game: disempower labour, reduce taxes, outsource jobs, then tell everyone we need austerity. School funding, health care funding, infrastructure funding dry up and those left behind, given half the chance, will lash out at the neoliberal agenda. This is a protest vote but many of the voters had no idea of the consequences. Which aren’t clear, but aren’t likely to be pretty. A Twitter user has already coined Regrexit for those who cast a protest ballot but never thought it would pass and are now panicking.

On the positive side... my nephew Meade and his girlfriend Erin O’Brien arrived today from the U.S. I took them on a pub crawl that took in six bars. We had drinks in only three of them. Belfast’s pubs are legend and I think they got it that these are fun places to hang out and enjoy the craic.
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