Careful What You Wish For

Like participants in an especially hedonistic stag party, UK voters awakened today to the challenge of distinguishing reality from the ghastly fever dream that had troubled their sleep. A dawning realisation will be transferred from face to face as people pass one another on the street and look nervously away. By God, it's true, we did that.

That (for those tripping over this very small corner of the internet whilst looking for something else in years to come) is this: the UK voted to leave the EU. Yes, the Little Train That Couldn't, did, and it turns out that Casey Jones was at the engine, going full steam to catastrophe.

When many of us went to bed last night we did so in a markedly different world: Farage had reputedly conceded; David Dimbleby had announced that the pro-EU campaign seemed to have prevailed; and even the pro-Leave talking heads seemed to think that the issue had been settled for the status quo. This consensus, however, was based on the idea that a large turnout would favour Remain: a narrative that was at odds with what many were saying about the demographic of their supporters. If those who vote Remain are the most educated, metropolitan, Guardian-reading members of society, aren't these the people who reliably vote in every election? Who were these other people registering and voting in large numbers? Why was the assumption that people who took too little interest in politics to vote in a General Election were suddenly rallying to the flag of the European Union?

The reality of the matter - that the Leave campaign had prevailed on the basis of a massive turnout - has proven to be a national act of civil disobedience. The vice anglais was well-named: the British people has cast aside its safe word and asking to be whipped a little harder please Miss. We're often told in the political context that turkeys don't vote for Christmas, yet the UK electorate has basted itself, cooked itself to perfection and has a saucière of cranberry sauce balanced on its left wing.

Quite why that is we will probably never know because the votes that swung this referendum are not the votes that we could see (the active, UKIP-voting people of Middle England who could be heard on every radio debate prior to voting day) but the votes that we couldn't: the quiet, unannounced votes that tipped the balance.

But if you're looking around today for someone to blame in the weeks, months, perhaps years to come, it's worth bearing in mind that the referendum only took place due to a cynical piece of manoeuvring from the man who professed to want it least. David Cameron jeopardised (History may say "sacrificed") his entire nation solely to minimise the UKIP vote at the last General Election, promising a referendum that would/could never pass in a bid to cling to power. On the morning after the night before, he proved to be not the result's only - but certainly its most prominent - casualty.

If the poets have tragedies yet to write then let them ponder that.