Thread: My Mum the Brexit voter.

My mum is a working class single single mum of mixed race children.

We grew up in a council house on a horrid estate

Though she now retrained she was, throughout my life, employed in menial jobs or unemployed. Some times were okayish

Some times were awful. I hold a distinct memory from age 14ish - my old shoes got a huge hole in them. Unable to afford new shoes, I wore my mum's trainers, 1.5 sizes too small. I still get those familiar foot cramps even now, age 29 and a half. I digress. The okay-notokay times

Endured into my uni years. I was lucky to join a year BEFORE the tuition fee rises. My mum commented to me "they don't people like us, our kind, lads like you at uni". That was 2010s. The resentment, in me and her, was already tangible. Cameron the enemy already. This remained so

For a while. My mum was not very political and never voted. From 2010-2016 her only political commentary came came maybe 2 or 3 times a year, in which she believed Cameron-Osborne had some agenda against her as a single working class mum. That resentment and paranoia built.

In 2014/15, she didn't vote. She expressed regret as she felt bad for Ed Miliand. Why? Because in a Q+A session on disability grants (we had a severely disabled cousin, mitochondria syndrome) he used those underrated words - "I Don't Know." But promised he'd revise it as he

So now it really is goodbye, and it hurts. On a storm-filled Sunday, here's a thread (OK ! my 3rd in 8 years !) on why Brexit has affected so many of our lives - yours, I’m sure, if you follow me - and the only one I can really talk about with any expertise – my own /1

I grew up in Britain. It comes out in the mince pies which even now are my go-to at Christmas, my never ending search for the perfect cup of tea and my accent when I speak the French I worked on TV and radio in for 30 yrs, even write books in (but not my diary) /2

There will be a part of me that is forever England. But my England was never the England that has so noisily taken over these last few years, parading Union Jacks so noisily in its alarmingly nasty xenophobic newspapers no other country would tolerate /3

My England was full of Sixties sunlight, the Beatles, Mrs Peel and Carnaby St. It was the 70s, watching glam rock on the telly while eating spam by candlelight during the 3 day week when we really were “the sick man of Europe” /4

It was also being called queer and pansy in the school playground and the little boy who somehow understood that foreign languages were his passport to one day being accepted somewhere else. French irregular verbs and German grammar were my visa “out” /5

Good to hear that the ERG star chamber has approved the Brexit trade deal (or Deal--- as I think it should be called). It "preserves the UK's sovereignty as a matter of law" they say. I wonder what they'd have said if they'd actually read it.

Boris Johnson: "we have pressed ahead with this task, resisting all calls for delay, precisely because creating certainty about our future provides the best chance of beating Covid"

Eh?

I'm pretty sure Brexit preceded pandemic but there we are. I would advise, having read extracts from the speech Johnson is to deliver, that people put away sharp objects, bricks etc if they're going to watch the debate. And there is never an excuse for kicking the cat.

Starmer is now savaging (politely) the PM, pointing out lies and inconsistencies. Given he's already whipped Labour MPs to support the bill, I think he's wasting his breath - the result is already settled, the headlines already written.

I have to say that Johnson is performing well: a fake success allied to complete lack of scrutiny has empowered him. He's flinging lies like a monkey flings its own dung.