A Diary of Despair? And hope.

Friday

11 am

Under lowering skies pregnant with the growls of trapped airliners London snarls. Tomorrow millions will take to the streets. Today two million signatures beg for repeal.

London has always been a small island of rationality. My beloved cosmopolitan home where here on the tube with me, nations of the world. Smiles in Spanish. Mobile games in Serbo Croat. Minds in Arabic. Here is Africa, Arabia, Europe, the Caribbean represented in calm conformity to good taste and good manners. And that’s how I like it.

Meanwhile in the Outlands two tribes face each other, armed to the teeth. Brexiters vs Remainers. And in the media both above the line and Social, the hoarse barking is reaching a crescendo and it so feels like open warfare is imminent. The Second Civil War. Cavaliers versus Roundheads. Which is which?

Two smiling Police Enforcement Officers have just slid onto the train.  They look like bearded hipsters in stab vests. Yellow hi-viz, bulging with pockets of Perhapses. Perhaps I may need this, or even that.

Today I will attend Court 76 at the Royal Courts of Justice, where bewigged duffers will decide whether Heathrow Expansion goes ahead. Tomorrow I will march with millions for the right to a People’s Vote, a referendum which is our best chance to avoid disaster and probable Civil War.

The Royal Courts of Justice

Saturday Morning

11am

Preparing for the March. The walking stick is in the backpack for when the knee goes again. The Green Party rosette adheres tenaciously to the lapel of my too-warm overcoat.

Yesterday I sat and listened to the droning voice of sweet reason in Court 76 and the soporific stifle of the legalists started to get to me. Eyelids drooped. Finally, thank goodness, recess was declared until 2pm.

Filled by Pret, I’d had enough, but at Temple Station Maggie had just arrived. Maggie is a beautiful woman in her …ties, whose invasion by arthritis hasn’t dented her determination and optimism. She is undaunted. Like the mulberry trees in the yard of the Middle Temple Gardens, she has that promise of giving forth sweetness. “Where are you going?” I stupidly asked. “The High Court”.

Ok, that meant I had to go back. I didn’t mind. Maggie is great company.

(We detoured to Two Temple Place, a Victorian Neo- Gothic Jacobean pastiche, all oaken and panelled and stained glass, where an exhibition of Ruskin confirmed what a pompous fart he was. I’d have loved him.)

Two Temple Place. You couldn’t live there.

Why I would love Ruskin, the old fart.

The arguments have been made. The conclusions concluded. The judges will decide. My broken country! Will they overfly

Sanity?

Midday

On the tube again, headed for the March. Me and a million, begging for another chance. Just one more chance please gawd.  Stop it! Stop putting up this wall. Stop the Civil War!

Hyde Park Corner.

Swept up by the Million, a mass of humans suffused with that unique camaraderie which always accompanies vast gatherings with the same opinions. The crowd is an army: flags, banners, placards, posters. The Crowd is a beast with many feet. The Crowd is a laughing, storming, chatting farting, chewing, up-and downing mass of relative strangers related by their common cause: Stop  Brexit. Using the plea for a Second Referendum as a hoped-for mechanism to do that.

A million people.

First the speeches. O Jeeez the speeches. Rant after Socialist rant. “Hey listen to me, because I agree with you about Brexit, you must agree with me about Socialism! Also, more sane voices. Lammy, Lucas. Others. I didn’t hear them very well. Too busy kissing dogs and patting babies. I did hear the interrupting chants: March! March! March! Enough talk! We want to march!

Eventually we set off like a long noodle in very thick soup.

Through the West End from Hyde Park to Parliament Square. Where there will be no storming of Westminster. No barricades or beheadings, no martyrs or mayhem. Whatsoever. This is polite, well-mannered, ever-so respectful of good manners. One right-wing commentator called it a “ grey-headed march of Waitrose habitués”. But these are people from all classes, all politics, Left and Right and Centre. Screeching Socialists rubbing grins with Chiswick Chappies and their Chapettes. With their doggies and children and snackies. Plenty of grey hairs, true. Which was a trifle surprising, considering the stats which show that many over 55s voted for Brexit. Proud of you, fellow oldsters.

Oldies make a point

Oldies make another point

So nothing will happen. The Government will ignore the million., They will even ignore the more than 5 million who voted for the cancellation of Article 50. Because they are voting, in Parliament, for their jobs. If they go against the apparent “ill of the people”, particularly in Brexit constituencies, they will not be voted in, come the next election. Which could be any time.

The fact that latest polls show a Remain lead, at about 55%, has made no waves whatsoever in the House.

No-one knows what is going to happen next. I don’t think I am going to like it. Or my millions of fellow travellers either.