The Myth of Brexit Regret

Stephen Fry and The Seven Year Sulk

The Independent newspaper, a publication so popular that it was forced out of the actual print market and had to go exclusively online (almost as if it were a one-man band operation like us Substackers), published today an article on a BBC interview encounter with British presenter, alleged ‘intellectual’, author and admirer of young males Stephen Fry. The interview section of interest to the Indie and its dwindling band of readers was the part where Brexit was mentioned.

Fry was asked to reflect on the last few years. For some reason, a man who has mainly paid the bills reading a cue-card on celebrity quiz shows and distinguishing himself as the one in the studio who can hear the name Socrates without thinking ‘Brazilian footballer’ is widely considered in leftist and progressive circles some kind of renowned scholar. The affection and deference in which Fry is held is something to behold, and particularly puzzling since Fry embodies three cardinal sins-he is, after all, male, white and English.

But he also likes to joke rather a bit about how athletic young men set his pulse racing, which gives him frequent flyer miles on the LGBTQ+ gold card of unearned esteem. And he is consumed with a very patrician, very elite disdain for his own countrymen and women, a sort of armor forged in the fires of ten thousand sneers which renders him immune to the thoughts and feelings of ordinary peasants. It’s that bit that makes him so deeply beloved by other progressives, who almost invariably are the most committed, sincere and hypocritically bigoted of EU enthusiasts.

Fry is one of the determined Remainers, who 7 years on from a democratic vote that went against his own prejudices is still seething with horror and resentment at the whole thing. He’s one of those who simply cannot forgive poorer and less privileged British voters for thinking differently to him, voting differently to him, and being different to him.

Which is all rather ironic, since professional camp performers of Fry’s type have long sold themselves whilst splayed out on a buffet table of sweetmeats labelled ‘tolerance’, ‘diversity’, and ‘acceptance of difference’. That, of course, is all to the good when the tolerance you require is towards yourself and people just like you. Fry shows no such inclination to provide it towards anyone else. This particular burly Queen, so avuncular and chuckling when surrounded by like-minded dilettantes and theater types or when gently and wittily playing the role of posh bloke who knows a thing or two, gets positively savage when confronted with that most despicable of things….ordinary Brits and the policies they favor.

For what it’s worth, here’s the Fry-BBC exchange that so delighted the Indie, and that millions of still embittered Remainers take for pearls of the most profound wisdom:

Keusnssberg: “I mean, Stephen, it’s been an extraordinary period-Covid, Brexit, all of those things.”

Fry: “Brexit-we must mention Brexit. The Labour Party is afraid to mention it. It was a catastrophe, and everyone knows it deep in their bones.”

Kuenssberg: “Not everyone would agree with you.”

Fry: “Yes, they do, they know it-of course they do. Certainly the rest of the world does….Aside from that, yes, it’s a clown car crash and you can’t help being amused by it, but unfortunately during that time, so much was taken out of what should be the run of politics.”

Whatever this is, it’s quite clearly not amusement. It’s scorn. It’s hatred. It’s a fury still boiling after 7 years. It’s enormous entitlement-“of course they do” (others are NOT allowed to think differently) and “what should be the run of politics”.

In Fry’s thinking, nobody is allowed to think differently. They just can’t. Of course they can’t. If they do, they are a “clown car crash” that’s “been a disaster”. Fry and people like him decide, poorer and (it’s absolutely certain that he believes this, dumber) people comply, obey, and thank the wise Fry or the wise EU for anything and everything that follows. There’s no democracy in this thinking. It’s pure dictatorial elitism. We instruct, you follow. We educate, you applaud. We decide, you agree.

No wonder a Fry loves the EU. The EU in its patrician aloofness, its disdain for the ruled, it’s absolute certainty in its own brilliance-is Stephen Fry as a collection of buildings and in the body of roughly 30,000 bureaucrats (something which might exhaust even the indefatigable Fry as a physical act).

This stunning arrogance, this complete disregard for us, this obvious contempt and loathing for us and the very idea that we should have a say over the alliances, political systems, and forms of rule imposed on us-that is EXACTLY what we voted against.

We voted against ‘of course’ and we voted against ‘everyone agrees’ and we voted against ‘you are a clown to disagree’. That’s what Brexit was. Brexit was millions of people telling the insufferably smug class to get fucked. It was us, ordinary voters, saying ‘sorry chum, we don’t just exist to obey and we aren’t thankful for all you do’. In fact, we think you do an awful lot of harm.

It’s probable that Fry was dragged out to howl his boring Seven Year Sulk complaints because a new election is rapidly approaching, a Labour Party victory seems imminent, and the Luvvies Who Should Rule Without Demur are scenting a chance to bugger up Brexit and return us again to our abusive EU Daddy. Those that love the old familiar whip are furious that we ever spurned it. They have a near sexual fetish for being dominated by unelected Belgians, and they are very angry still that we don’t share it. I suppose it seems like a prejudice or a bigotry to those who were very keen on the gag in the mouth and the hot Belgian whisper in the ear.

Sexual analogies aside, it really is astonishing that people still think like this. That they still think they are in the right, on the ‘right side of history’ when their entire worldview is little more than a smug authoritarianism that makes 18th century aristocrats look like working class heroes. It’s incredible that they are still so divorced from the people of their own nation, and still so in love with 20,000 page rules documents pertaining to the shape of a cucumber.

It’s simply incredible that absolutely none of their absurd apocalyptic forecasts of what Brexit would do have come to pass, and yet 7 years later they are still singing the same tired songs of self-love and national loathing. It’s amazing that we have been through years where Brexit trade almost instantly recovered from European political decoupling, where 71 new trade deals were obtained, where none of the supply chain and cross border issues warned about happened, but still they seethe and wail.

It’s darkly hilarious after the insane and deliberate economic self-immolation of COVID policies that these people almost all supported, that they reach back to the misty distance of Brexit for an explanation of present troubles.

In all this, in the delusion, in the bitterness, in the elitism, in the arrogance, in the anti-democratic and almost anti-human smugness of it all-Fry and those like him serve an accidentally beneficial role. Because their’s is the authentic voice of illegitimate and unjust rule. It’s a voice we hear from every great transnational body, today. It’s the voice of the legacy media and the college professor. It’s the voice of the TV host and the news anchor. It’s the voice of the WEF, the IMF, the EU. It’s the voice of Trump haters and Brexit deniers. It’s the voice that spoke to us about COVID.

The voice that says, in ten thousand ways, “you are an insignificant worm. It is your place to shut up, and obey.”

In one sense then I’m grateful for that voice. I’m grateful that it hates me still, and I’m grateful for it laughing at, loathing and denying the very idea of me speaking for myself.

It reminds me what Brexit was for, what I was voting for, and why it matters. It matters more precisely because they have not learned what ordinary people told them in the UK and in America in 2016.

We must tell them again, perhaps in a language they will understand.