Mick Hartley

Wryly amusing from Ian McEwan:

It’s easy enough these days to wake troubled even before you remember the cause. Then you do. Everything is changed utterly. Or about to be, as soon as your new leader is chosen. The country you live in, the parliamentary democracy that ruled it, for good or bad, has been trumped by a plebiscite of dubious purpose and unacknowledged status. From our agriculture to our science and our universities, from our law to our international relations to our commerce and trade and politics, and who and what we are in the world – all is up for a curious, unequal renegotiation with our European neighbours. How did we get to this? What can you do?…

Meanwhile, the economy is in decline, the pound is drifting towards parity with the dollar, the jobless lines are lengthening. Racists and xenophobes are gripped by an elated sense of entitlement. The cry gets louder for a second referendum. The voices come from the only quarter that matters – the party. Ex-attorney general Dominic Grieve is among the first, then some ex-ministers, then those grandees again. At last, with no loss of face, Prime Minister May reluctantly grants their wish. It’s what, in her heart, she always wanted. And clearly, the public mood has shifted. On hard-pressed council estates leavers are suffering what we’ve learned to call buyers’ remorse. Second time around, remain sweeps the board. We’re back in. In fact, we never left. It was all a bad dream. The summer of contempt will be soon forgotten. Take your shoes off. Go back to bed. When you wake, Boris Johnson will be leader of the Labour party. He was, he says, always well to the left of Tony Blair. What can you do?