Vox populi, vox Twitterati

You might have noticed a good deal of flapdoodle going on about last week’s referendum in the UK to enucleate itself from the European Union, the infamously named Brexit. It was in all the papers. And all the newscasts. And all the social media.

It was accompanied by vast amounts of hysteria, promoted by both the Remain and Leave sides. The former predicted an amorphous but nonetheless inevitable Armageddon if the voters opted to leave, and the latter painted an apocalyptic picture of [white] Britons awash in vast millions of benefits-swilling immigrants and idiotic over-regulation from a remote and Wog-infested bureaucracy in Brussels that does nothing except suck up British pounds at a rate even higher than the immigrants, if the electorate voted to stay.

Viewing this at a distance I actually wondered if the politicians on both sides had possibly got some bad beer, and were suffering from ergotism. And let me just point out that, yes, I get it: it's annoying as hell to be told by a committee of Spaniards and Slovenians that your artisanal pickles must be in a brine comprising a certain percentage of salt. Yippee! You've cocked a snook at the Slovenians. But only if you're expecting your sales to be restricted to the UK. If you want to sell your pickles to anyone in the EU, your brine is still going to have to conform to their standards. Plus: tariffs.

At any rate, the voting public chose 52%-48% to exit the EU last Thursday, with leavers heavily in the rural and over-45 crowd and stayers in the urban and millennial set. (The exception to the age bracket would be ex-pats who’ve retired to Spain. They really, really wanted Britain to remain because: retired in Spain. But those who’d lived out of the country for more than 15 years didn’t get a say. They were incensed and didn’t see the irony at all.)

And here's a disheartening statistic: it's estimated that the 18 to 24-year-old set couldn't even be arsed to, you know, vote. They reckon that only 36% of eligible millennials actually cast a ballot. Shame on you. I can't even—men and women through the centuries have fought and died to establish and maintain the principles of democracy and you sit this out? Spaniards and Slovenians who have living memory of dictatorships must just be agog. Shame on you.

The immediate result was a loss in the value of the GB pound and a drop in the markets. (Including the ones my 401(k) is in; thanks, Brits. But what the hell; I'll just take the $12.49 left and drop it in a Mason jar. Don't worry about me.) Prime Minister David Cameron and a bunch of other politicians of both major parties have also tendered their resignations, but I don’t consider that as catastrophic, on account of they’re pols, and their replacements can hardly be any worse, even if they’re no better. Except for Nigel Farage; he’s as bad as you can get. 

Cameron used the metaphor of needing a different captain to move the ship of state forward. Evidently he woke up on Friday and discovered that the ship he'd launched with such high expectations was the Titanic, so of course he wanted to hand off the helm.

It's neither British nor nautical, but here's another image that comes to mind when thinking of Cameron:

As an aside, I never thought I'd hear myself saying this about a banker, but Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, appears to be the only one in British leadership circles to actually have thought concretely about Leave contingencies. If it weren't for him outlining the Bank's plan for safeguarding the economy, the entire world would be swirling the drain. The man definitely earned his bonus for the year.

(A lot of the blame for this situation must be laid at Cameron’s door, because he set up the referendum as a campaign promise a couple of years ago and then found himself painted into the corner of having to actually, you know, call it. He’s now trying to delay moving the process forward, I suppose in hopes that a deus ex machina will appear and fix everything. But the leaders of EU member nations appear to be in agreement on one thing: that sooner is better than later when it comes to easing the turmoil Britain has caused. They’re very politely informing the UK that, since it’s served notice of intent to divorce, it really ought to move its clobber out of the marital house. They’re even holding open the door so it doesn’t hit the British butt on the way out.)

What also happened, rather to my surprise, was a great wave of dismay from a number of people who’d voted to leave, along with a huge spike in Google queries on “What’s the EU?” The sentiments gathered by the media are variants of:

“Wait—what?”

“I never thought my vote would count!”

“Nooo, I was just voting to protest [insert despicable institution name here].”

All of them basically saying that, whatever their intent in ticking the Leave box, they certainly never expected there to be negative consequences, especially the kind of thing that might affect their economic status as individuals or a country.

Additionally, they are oddly pissed off that Scotland, which less than two years ago, held a splitting-up referendum of its own and only chose to remain in the United Kingdom in part because of the membership-in-EU guarantees given them, is now making noises about revisiting the possibility of breaking up the band. Like you couldn’t see that coming? Really?

There has also been an equally surprising surge in demands for a do-over: the folks who are unhappy about the negative consequences (whether they voted to leave or remain) are circulating petitions for a new referendum—same as the one last week, only they just get to vote differently. I don’t know who’s going to ‘splain it to them that democracy doesn’t work that way. (Actually, nothing outside of grade-school sports really works that way, that I can think of.)

Iacta alea est, guys. You chose the door; you have to take whatever prize is behind it. Yes, the referendum was advisory, not a mandate, but how on earth could Parliament override the voice of the people without rightfully being called dictatorial? And anyway, if they'd had a spine they'd never have allowed things to get this far.

Anyhow, the reason I’m even writing about this is because my pal Twitter rose to the occasion, and over the weekend there was a trend on #BrexitIn5Words. I present to you a sampling.

This one references one of the pillars of the Leave campaign: that if the UK pulled out of EU, the money that previously went into the sinkhole in Brussels could instead be invested in the NHS, which is truly in parlous state. (And which, BTW, benefits from immigrants who work in every layer of healthcare from surgeons to hospital cleaners.) On Friday—and I am not making this up—the Leave leaders disavowed having ever tossed around that prospect. Quelle surprise.

I’ll confess that it can be amusing to watch politicians in the same party basically try to cannibalize one another.

A view from our side of the Pond, in case anyone here wants to get complacent and smug.

Pretty much nails it.

Since I don’t watch GoT, I’m not sure what this means, but I’m guessing it’s not complimentary, and not just about unfortunate hair.

Because you knew that sooner or later it was going to be Obama’s fault.

While Darth Putin is a parody account, I’m betting the comment is not far from the truth.

Yeah, pretty much.

And, in the end, no matter how you voted, for whatever reason, or however pissed off you are now, you really have to pull up your socks and make the best of it. If only to get Twitter off your back.

Okay, one more thing. My contribution to #BrexitIn5Words: You're drunk, Britain. Go home.