With ancient red tiling and whitewashed brick walls, perched beside a trout pond, amid rolling green hills, the Red Lion pub, you would think, as you loll in its beer garden, could not be any more English. Then, around the corner, comes a white double-decker bus with “Brexit” across it, and 80 sweaty hikers in blue “Leave Means Leave” T-shirts, various bits of union jack tat, and a lotta flags.
The few local drinkers looked up a little aghast, as the first part of the march hove into view. What the bloody hell is going on, one saw them thinking. Well-heeled villagers lingering over a Pimms. Then: Well, they are pro-Brexit. Bit bloody ostentatious! as a ruddy-faced northern chap lurched into the low-ceilinged bar.
“Four pints of lager please!”
At the wooden tables, you could hear the slight shudder. The long Brexit march had reached Little Missenden.
It’s Thursday, the day before the UK should by rights be leaving the EU. To coincide with that now non-event, a hardy group of protesters started a march from Sunderland in the north, headed for London. The march was organised by Leave Means Leave, formed after the “leave” referendum result, and run by business leader types. Nigel Farage, he himself, was the figurehead for the march, but the first days did not go according to plan.
Spring had not yet arrived in the north, and the march struggled through rain and mud. Farage, clad in the haute bourgeoisie’s country squire look of mustard, olive and grey, stared out at the camera like Toad of Toad Hall. He disappeared on day two, claiming ancient ankle injuries. The march struggled on down the country, as, in London, Brexit unravelled entirely, and the government with it. Nige did not re-appear; numbers dwindled to 40 hardy souls, and the media vanished.
In a final confusion, it became clear that the march couldn’t keep up the allotted pace of 20kms a day, and so jumped ahead by coach every morning. Today, it was coming from Buckinghamshire, the top of the south, to Little Missenden in the Chilterns. This is just north of Amersham, the end of the fabled Metropolitan line, and Metroland, the last stretch of London’s commuter belt.
I’d joined them in Great Missenden, about an hour before the end, stewards running ahead — with “Steward” T-shirts — clearing the streets for what was really a rather assertive nature ramble. They got a few hoots from car horns, the odd cheer from the village Costa coffee shop, but they were a little disconsolate:
“Where you from?”said a white-haired woman, using walking poles, who I could barely keep up with.
“Australia.”
“Australia! We’ve got Canadians here, Danes, Japan. Everyone but the BBC.”
“They were here at the start,” I said.
“Why aren’t they here now?”
“Probably cos it’s not news your still going.”
She blew me a very British raspberry and strode on.
Bad move. I didn’t really want to antagonise these people. Leave Means Leave is pure right-wing “animal spirits” Brexitism, but I’m not going to sneer at anyone undertaking small-number protests, and I’m agnostic about Brexit myself. Besides, the next couple of people I interviewed were thoroughly rational, even wonkish, talking about the EU’s collective tariff rules, which apparently restrains the innate genius of the British lion.
What they couldn’t tell me was what Brexit Day One would really mean to them, in any concrete terms. It was always “sovereignty”, “democracy” and petered out from there. This has been the problem throughout: the sense got, again and again, that Brexit is a liberation without content, a liberation that consists entirely of feeling liberated.
Then, towards the end, as we trailed out towards the hills, and hedges and birdsong — and I felt my full Englishness, some melange of Anglican hymns, Bakewell tarts, the Beano — rise to the surface. And I found Barbara.
“Bananas.”
Barbara was a local property owner, self-described former journalist, in a sturdy rural tan leather outfit, which looked like she’d skinned another local property owner to clad herself, Boudicca of the Home Counties.
“Bananas?”
“Bananas. There’s an EU ruling about bananas…”
“Oh bananas!” I said. ‘The straight bananas thing! Hasn’t that been discredited, a story made up by a Brussels journo, one, er, Boris Johnson…?”
And on we went.
I looked around. This was very well, but I really needed to talk to someone who didn’t sound like they’d stepped out of a Joanna Trollope novel. Where were they?
“Oi! Want a lift to the end?”
There was a black minivan end-stopping the march. Walker frames in the back. Large men in football shirts. The halt and the fat. My people.
“Auuuuustralia,” said Danny, after hoiking me aboard. “We’ll be able to trade with Australia when we come out. Much talk of Brexit there?”
“Not really.”
His face fell a little.
“Why not?”
“Well, y’know China, we’re fairly relaxed.”
“You’re relaxed about a lot you Aussies,” he humphed.
This, it appeared, when we all hit the pub, was a theme. My Australianness teased out some remnant theme, underpinning the exit narrative. The Canadians got it, too. They were more polite — I’m not sure there is a Canadian equivalent to “ya great galah” — but equally bemused at how easily the old imperial narrative tumbled out. As the Pimms and ales flowed, the marchers became unguarded. The polls — suggesting Remainers were now in a majority — were a sham, done by the elites. Possible shortages? A beat-up by the elites. Politicians. All disappointing.
“I used to love Jacob [Rees-Mogg]. Now how can you love Jacob?”
“Boris. What’s he doing?”, “Boris is Boris”, ‘That’s no excuse”, “Still, Govey [Michael Gove, potential Leaver PM candidate, who denounced Boris], he’s dead to me. He shouldn’t have done that to Boris.”
And on and on.
Pub-talk of true believers of left and right, how, this time, we almost got it this time. “Nigel stiffed us again,” said a Worzel Gummidge type in the beer garden, of the absent Farage.
The wheezing afternoon bus arrived. Tomorrow these types will walk the final few kilometres (from Chelsea to parliament) just before the house rejects Theresa May’s bill for a third time, bringing crash-out, a referendum, a general election ever closer. Head for the hills, just not the Chilterns.
Both sides of the proposition are fervent…but lacking a clear picture of what they actually want.
We need you back here in Oz pronto, Rundle. A trio of the Qld citizenry has turned seriously rogue.
The Canadian analogue of ‘ya great galah’ is ‘I’m sorry?’
Perhaps Bab’s mention of bananas was a reference to being able to buy them for a fair price, eg from Australia, instead of being forced to buy the wooden little things from one of the French department (definitely NOT colonies, perish the thought!) in Caribbean. That might have been the sort of thing a less complacent/confused journo. might have pursued had he not just been after a silly old bastards tale.
The EU (read France & German) are terrified of Brexit because of the incentive it will provide for their own restive populations and several of the less.. err, democratik countries on the, current, periphery to get the hell off the badly listing Bad Ship Boondoggle.
With Britain gone, it’ll be on the German taxpayers to continue to fund the mendicant states, first & foremost la belle duplicable France, which has never been other than the largest net recipient of every lurk & perk available.
What a conspiracy theory Brexit is a delusional belief that Britain will be better off outside the union As if any individual nation state have any power against the US With the exception of China. United the Europeans will stand divided they will fall But delusional Brexiteers don’t even see themselves as Europeans let alone grasp the concept of the severe disadvantage of not belonging to the EU Being a vassal sycophant of the US is the Brexiters preferred option Interesting how Murdoch, the US citizen is one of the ultra elite pushing this entire debacle
No, AR, read the story. It was the entirely false tale of banana standardisation. Bananas are cheaper in the UK than in Australia
Bullshit … which tastes better than the rubbish on sale here.
Hilarious, thank you Guy!
People who can’t figure out how far they can walk in a day make big plans for everyone else.
Wonderfully evocative account. In the Ukraine an actor aspires to leadership , while the UK has Boris.
The Banana war was indeed not about shape but about competing visions of Europe ever since the early 1950s, namely an open, capitalist common market vs a protected, closed bloc . Germany wanted cheap US owned , huge and tasteless bananas, while France wanted its overseas ‘part of France and not colonies at all’ small, sweet but expensive tropical fruit favoured, with tariffs or quotas suggested against the US giant. Also there were French accusations of slave labour and pesticide contamination in the South American, US owned mega plantations with their mega bananas.
In this context I remind readers of the equally enjoyable intra- EC/EU Sausage War. This had the Reinheitsgebot German foodie purists defending their pure meat sausages against the British rubbish snags that were full of bread and preservatives. Verboten to import the Brit sausages! These were to be called something else rather unappetising instead of sausages, Brussels suggested. I think the truce was finally signed when the Brits agreed to serve up their inferior product only to their own yokels.