Brexit and the Policy Police

Now that the dust has settled somewhat, I thought I'd take a few minutes and write about this.

My prophesy for the campaign (see previous post) indeed came true. As soon as one of the "big hitters" for either side opened their gob, I wanted to vote for the other lot. About a week before the big day I found a few of my old policy police cards in a jacket pocket. I thought, "what would the Policy Police do?" And the cards told me....

1. Your friend wasn't so lucky.

This told me that either way there would be losers as well as winners. Either way people I knew would be disadvantaged. The point as not to treat it as a personal thing. It was serious and I had to come to a decision I thought was right in my heart of hearts.

2. And if it all comes crashing down?

In the epilogue to Up Close and Personaliased, Angelus tells the Kid that in that case we pick ourselves up and start again. Having kept sheep for a couple of decades I can recognise the look of dread panic in the eyes of people in work or the media or the stock exchange. With sheep they usually get over it. Or they die. Very occasionally. You just can't keep panic up over the long term. So you pick yourself up and start again.

3. You know what to do.

This was the clincher for me. It was my Martyn Lewis moment. I knew I had to go with my gut instinct. People who know Policy Police know I'm no friend of the State. So the chance of a smaller state trumps the chance of a bigger one. Job done. I knew what to do.

4. Didn't know you had it in you.

It's only afterwards that I've realised the full implication of this. That it was a brave decision. Since, so many people have been having the screaming abdabs and pouring out bile. I now realise I've committed a great faux pas in polite circles. There's a kind of Bateman cartoon in there somewhere. "The man who praised Brexit in the university common room."

At the time I took the card to mean that I had to hold my nose and choose one of the options on the ballot paper. Up until then I had kept alive the 3rd option of drawing a huge cock and balls on the paper. But that wouldn't have been brave. Just silly.

So that's what I did. Voted leave. You can say it's cuz I'm old, or stupid, or a xylophone saxophone thingy. But I regret nothing. And the Policy Police showed the way.