''This is what you wanted''

The whole 'Brexit' affair has sickened me to the core ever since hearing the gut-wrenching news on the morning of 24th June, 2016 that the architects of this disastrous act of economic self-sabotage had managed to manipulate their way to a 51.9% 'majority'. Ever since then I have tried my best to come to terms with what is happening as it negatively affects the UK music business on an almost terminal scale. But here we are, four and a half years later, in the grim reality of the situation, and I still can't believe it.

As I am linked to thousands of people from the continent via social media, I've seen comments on Brexit-related threads, videos or articles, sour comments aimed towards UK nationals from people in mainland Europe who feel that the people of the UK, as a nation, are anti-European and that Brexit is what we wanted.

It is not.

Please bear in mind that only 26.5% of the UK population voted to leave the EU, and it has since been exposed that Cambridge Analytica played a part in getting that figure.

Then factor into that percentage the fact that the majority were exposed to some huge lies sold by people in power who had a vested interest in leaving the EU, lies such as insinuations of £350m a week to the NHS or promises of an improved fishing industry.

Also, Google recorded that the second most searched phrase in the UK on the morning of the referendum result was 'What is the EU'... so what fraction of that 26.5% voted to leave the EU having a grasp of what the EU was, and our role within it.? How many of them had a clue what it meant to be a 'Third Country'?

So in light of those last two points, how aware of the fact that they were being lied to or politically mature enough to make this huge decision was the average voter? Draw your own conclusions. I know what mine are.

It is now January 2021. The NHS is not £350m million a week better off (Nigel Farage admitted on daytime television the day after the referendum result that we would not be sending that figure to the NHS at all). The fishing industry is on its arse due to rotting fish caused by the inevitable border delays caused by having left the EU, leaving Brexit-voters within the industry regretful of their vote and feeling lied to. And a month ago Boris Johnson threatened to deploy Navy gunboats against French fishermen. Gunboats. Really? That's where we got to? Is that what 'we' wanted?

Please, to all of my friends around the world, and especially in mainland Europe, we need to heal. Look at how physically and psychologically united we were just 5 years ago, and then look at us now. Not just in relations between the UK and the continent, but also within the UK, where the campaigning for and against Brexit has created a huge schism.

If the subversive manipulation of Cambridge Analytica and the lies of the 'Brexit Bus' were not in the equation four and a half years ago, then the majority would have voted remain and we would not stand here today, further apart.

But once again, the psychopathic puppeteers have manipulated their way to their goals, and we, the people should not be divided psychologically or spiritually any further. Now is the time to educate ourselves politically. Tomorrow we educate our children. And all the while, we should put our leaders under further scrutiny. If we do, they might just find it harder to divide us next time.

And, again, to my friends on the continent... no, this isn't what 'we' wanted.

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Update: 30th January. I have updated this article from its original version published on 28th January in order to have more room to flesh out my various points, and to remove some complicated points that I had naively tried to distil into a mere sentence.