The majority of parents with children suffering from rare fatal genetic diseases looked on aghast at last week’s political events, as a bunch of nasty, and frankly pathetic, politicians sought little more than power and personal advancement.
Though some, zealots such as Gove, Farrage and Duncan Smith, actually believe in their infantile vision of an independent Britain outside of Europe running its own affairs like never before, others, like Johnson, do not. He saw the zealots for what they are – little men, ignorant of history, clinging to a fantastical view of what Great Britain might be – yet hoped they would nevertheless provide him with a path to power and glory. He, Boris, would take the throne, reign in the fanatics who got him there, then give the people a more palatable Brexit light.
I am angry, very angry, and write this after listening to a Roald Dahl interview on BBC Radio Four, the writer insisting that sometimes we must cry out, speak the truth and confront the bullshit we are spun. In the spirit of Roald Dahl, a heavyweight boxing champion before he became a writer, I would love to get Gove, Farrage, Johnson and Duncan Smith in the ring, and systematically beat the lies they spun throughout the campaign out of them.
I’m unclear whom I’m more angry with: Gove for his Machiavellian cunning, Farrage for his populist idiocy, Johnson for his rampant blonde but dumb ambition, or Duncan Smith for his bare-faced cheek, claiming to care for the vulnerable while simultaneously subjecting them to abject penury for six years.
But what I’m most angry about is the consequences of their actions, which will never lead to something more important than saving the lives of sick children. In one foul swoop, the Brexiteers have jeopardised the future of rare disease medical research – reducing its funding, destroying the spirit of collaboration between many European countries, and delaying vital work that will save young lives. Instead they have consigned a nation’s energy, for decades to come, to “being in charge of its own affairs again”, whatever the hell this means, as if it were not before. Brussels never ruled us, you bloody fools, it enabled us.
Murdoch and Dacre, and many of their fanatical and small-minded columnists, bang the drum for an independent Britain because it plays to their ill-informed readers, helping them sell more newspapers and feeding them the lie of a perfect Britain, a great utopia that will somehow manifest in our separation from Europe. Grow up, wise up. We must make our own happiness, which can never be found in constructs such as nationhood, the promise of every totalitarian regime. We would do far better to spend our time on things that matter: friends, family, people. Human beings make the world great, not nations.
Gove, Farage, Johnson, Duncan Smith, Murdoch, Dacre and other Brexiteers… I will not forget the consequences of your actions, my sons will not forget, other sick children will not forget, and their parents will not forget. I hope you realise in time what you have done.