I’ve got a rule, I don’t try and talk to middle class or #PeoplesVoters about why working class people in the post industrial areas, and the poorest communities voted Brexit anymore. Its frustrating, it wastes my time, and theirs, and they cannot or will not comprehend anything other than
‘But Brexit will be so damaging for THEM’
They cant see how patronising that it, they cant see how elitist that sounds, and they don’t ever consider that living as a working class person in Britain has totally different outcomes to their own.
Its like trying to describe the FUCK IT BUTTON to the middle class, the comfortably off, to those that have a life plan, that pretty much goes to plan. I’m not saying that those people don’t have stresses in their lives, but their stresses are not generational, institutional or structural. Which is when the FUCK IT BUTTON gets pressed.
The Fuck It Button, is not about going out and letting off steam, or being a bit hedonistic, having a good night out, because everyone does that. The Fuck It Button is a class response to institutional oppression, to looking out into a void, where you are for ever skint, can never pay your bills on time, under constant scrutiny from the State, or employers. Being given the never-ending run around by the benefits agency, the impossible bureaucratic traps that have been set up so you purposefully fail keeping you in what feels like a miserable stasis forever.
There is an anti-dote to this stasis of misery and that is pressing the Fuck it Button, the act of being fully aware of your lack of control in your own life, knowing that you are in the shit, but also knowing that this situation isn’t your own fault, that you aren’t fully to blame, and that life is deeply unfair for some of us. You also know that there is little you can do about this, like being overdrawn on your bank account and getting charged money you haven’t got, you phone the bank and it’s the third time this year ‘sorry’, you know its going to happen again next month and the month after, it’s the tax you pay for being low paid, for not having assets, or savings, for being unable to save for that rainy day, because it’s a rainy day every fucking day for you.
So you press it Fuck it Button, you ignore those heavy responsibilities, you spend money you haven’t got, you take the weight from off your shoulders, you take risks, because you need to not look out into the void for the next few minitues/ hours/ or days. You are fully aware that pressing the Fuck it button, comes with massive risks, relationships have been lost, money has been spent, arrests have been made, but the Fuck It Button is needed in the same way as the valve on the pressure cooker is needed.
Some people voted Brexit as part of that Fuck It Button, being ignored for decades, knowing that the political system is totally rigged against them, they vote they lose, they don’t vote they lose, they think about voting they lose, they always lose. They are fearful for their children they have deep seated fears about looking into that void, but even worse that their children end up looking into the same void. The EU referendum came along, and there you are a chance, a way, to politically press that Fuck IT Button,
its risky but Fuck It, its worth the ride.