Everyone in London seems to be fuming all the time — although, to be fair, fuming has become the default setting of our time. Historically, it’s the sexually repressed, swivel-eyed Daily Mail reader who fumes hardest, but ever since last June 23, when the glorious chaotic dawn of Brexit was revealed, liberals have been fuming up a storm with all the parasexual frustration of fat-fingered One Direction fans tweeting hatred about the paternity of Cheryl’s baby. Tempering, tantruming and thweatening to thwceam till they’re sick, it’s hard not to feel that what’s making them the most angry isn’t the alleged racism of Brexiteers or the alleged financial ruin waiting just around the corner. No, the reason the Remnants hate us so much is because after lifetimes of flattering themselves that they’re progressive, adventurous and daring, they now stand revealed as a veritable mothers’ meeting of doom-mongering, curtain-twitching, tut-tutting stick-in-the-muds. The pathetic petulance which has come from the Remnants in the face of our victory stems from the fact that many of those who prided themselves on being rebels were, actually, just a differently styled part of the status quo-embracing establishment all along. And it is for robbing them of their illusions about themselves that we Brexiteers will not
be forgiven.
I’m especially enjoying the havoc which Brexit has wrought on families and friends. Isn’t disagreeing with people, and forming new alliances, one of the most enjoyable parts of the big scary ride we call life? If you want to avoid conflict, go and live in a cupboard. A charming lady braves the rail chaos to lunch with me; not only pretty and clever, she has been thrown out of her north London book group for liking on Facebook a pro-Brexit Spectator piece by me! I gaze at her with something like adoration. She thinks it would make a brilliant play. Am I interested in co-writing? ‘Waiter, the champagne menu, please!’
This is an extract from Julie Burchill’s diary, which appears in this week’s Spectator
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