The Real Zombie Zone…
Ok – it may
just be my odd brain but sometimes two phenomena come along that are like flip
sides of the same reality.
Before the
end of this month, the UK’s unelected Prime Minister Theresa May,
who, as Home Secretary, campaigned for Britain to stay in the EU, can and will
now trigger Article 50. This is the irreversible legal mechanism by which a
member state leaves the EU. It begins a 2-year negotiating process at the end
of which the UK could have an indeterminate something or nothing.
The EU referendum
was an ill-conceived attempt by then Prime Minister David Cameron to control
his own political party. The Leave campaign was easily hijacked by racists and
bigots – UKIP leader Farage and Ex- Lord Mayor of London Boris Johnson (now
foreign minister) to name two. The pissy weakness of the opposition meant that
there was no coherent strategy for positively presenting arguments for
remaining.
Britain has not recovered from the 2008 financial crash
caused by a corrupt banking sector. The fiscal shenanigans of the rich and
powerful left us economically battered. Instead of prosecuting criminal
behaviour and reforming the banking sector – UK tax payers were forced to bail
them out and the media spotlight was deftly turned on Europe and immigrants. Fast
forward a few years and we are launching into a process which will cause more
economic pain and more instability for ordinary people. We are – you could say – like a homeless
person increasing their problems and vulnerabilities by taking extremely harmful unfamiliar
drugs.
Which is
interesting…
Last week,
many UK news outlets started highlighting the widespread and disturbing prevalence
of new synthetic cannabinoids; drugs known as SPICE. One, which is endemic in the fast-growing
homeless communities in our cities, is called Frozen Spice because of the way
it sends users into a catatonic state. A Manchester drug worker has been quoted as
saying that 95% of the homeless community there may be using this
cheap, treacherous and devastatingly addictive drug.
Richer
recreational users turned away from the drug as ‘cheap and nasty’ but it is now
the alternative for people with few alternatives. Some dealers will sell for
whatever the user has in their pockets. In short – Frozen Spice is a
capitalists’ dream and shows that unfettered markets can work - for the pushers!
And just as
Spice users enter a limbo land where they seem neither dead or alive so will
Britain be once it has taken Article 50.
Frozen Spice
is an unknown quantity. Even now scientists are trying to de-construct it to
find out how it messes with the brain to put the user into such a zombie state
where they can struggle to breath and are so defenseless there are stories of
users being ‘mugged’ unopposed while they are under the influence.
Leaving the
EU is an unknown quantity and it is a risk Britain did not have to take at a
time when there are so many major challenges facing Britain and the world. It
is a silly risk, equivalent to taking a new cheap nasty drug. And like the
drug, which may cause anything from seizures to psychosis to paranoia to
breathing problems to death – Article 50 will lead to consequences we cannot
fully know and were silly to chance. Like a homeless person, when you are already
in a mess, if someone offers you a ‘cheap and nasty’ escape, it’s always a bad
idea. And, just as those who concocted this life-denying synthetic marijuana,
worked to ensure its properties were highly lucratively addictive, peddlers of
the referendum deceits, succeeded in getting it into the systems of the
vulnerable and scared. To the extent that a lot of areas in the UK that were
net beneficiaries of EU membership voted hardest to leave.
Many, on the
margins of society who take Frozen Spice and other drugs – are self-medicating
their way out of an uncomfortable reality. Using a cheap temporary stun gun to obliterate the
world around them that has become frightening and confusing.
Similarly,
many people voted for Brexit in the mistaken belief that some of the bad things
that were happening to them and their community could be solved with a quick
fake fix. The big pushers, Farage, Boris Johnson and the other liars, slipped a gullible electorate the heady contradictory, cheap mix of false ideas.
By leaving Europe, they said, we’d solve everything from the problems of
straight bananas to the money that was being sucked away from the good old
brits for wasteful projects. Such as supporting struggling regions and trying to
protect – for example – the European steel industry from Chinese overproduction?
The
big red Brexit battle bus claimed that £millions ‘wasted’ by the EU would go into health service coffers. A lie that was admitted THE DAY
AFTER THE REFERENDUM result. But just like a junkie who has a bad trip – there
is no come back from the dealer.
If you are a
regular reader, you will know I love my analogies. In this case I think it goes
all the way.
Just as the dealer
will mess with the head of the junkie to keep them buying – so the pro Brexit
media and the leave campaigners keep pedaling Brexit shit.
The economy is doing great – look at
the increased exports
– they croon. The reality is that exports are high because the value of the pound
is low. Show me a country anywhere on the planet where shipping out lots of
cheap stuff and having to import expensive stuff works for ordinary people long
term.
At the end
of the day – the dealers win and the junkies lose. We will all be the socially,
politically, economically homeless once Article 50 is triggered.
Now we’re
hooked, regardless of whether we were tricked, did it of our own accord – or
were swept along by those around us. We have to take the shit and hope our
zombie state is temporary and not terminal while the rest of the world moves by
without us.