How was your weekend? I am hoping that you had a good one. But if you didn’t, console yourself that it cannot have been as grim as the leave voters who were walking from Sunderland in the driving rain, the churning wind and the sea spitting in their cliffside faces. To wit:
That is the official photograph sent to me in a press release. That is the best representation the campaign could muster.
About 100 people turned out for the March to Leave, organised by Leave Means Leave, which over the course of two weeks and different “legs” will see disaffected Brexiters on a kinetic protest against their apparent “betrayal”, culminating in a demonstration in Parliament Square on 29 March.
Heading up the march was Nigel Farage, described by an acolyte as a great statesman and fantastic leader. Farage is a man who has seven times failed to be elected to parliament and resigned and then unresigned as leader of a political party numerous times. So you might say that Farage is a great statesman and a fantastic leader in the same way former footballer Richard Dunne, who holds the record for the most own goals ever scored in the Premier League, was a great marksman and a fantastic finisher.
Still, I would say that I have a level of respect for these ardent Brexiters who came out in the worst weather – apparently the beginning stages of Storm Hannah (I offer no apologies) – imagining themselves for all the world as the haggard soldiers in Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum est, but giving off more of a vibe of a Duke of Edinburgh bronze award for seniors. Or dads at Alton Towers stung for £5 ponchos when clouds unexpectedly burst open like a crisp packet. The open-top bus may have also been, I would venture, a mistake.
One 72-year-old participant told the Guardian: “I don’t want my grandchildren being conscripted by an EU army likely led by the Germans.” Aside from the fact any grandchildren will likely be incinerated by climate change, which the European Union, FYI, is at least attempting to legislate to tackle, but never mind. There is also that the entire point of the EU was to guard against further war, a mission it and its predecessor has been successful in for, ooh, almost 70 years. But sure, we’ll all be forced to wear lederhosen and drive only Audis soon enough.
Another participant said: “It’s like walking in the Falklands, following the flag again.” Except it was actually walking to Hartlepool.
Farage, who had turned out on the Saturday, was nowhere to be seen on the Sunday. He has indicated previously that he would not be joining the marchers on their entire anti-pilgrimage. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise given that he, strident anti-elitist that he is, has been known to take a private plane to Strasbourg. Perhaps he had to attend to his finances which, though he described himself as “broke” just last year, have seen a £400,000 boost according to recent company records.
Maybe he felt silly, having been widely mocked on the internet for his favourite banana-yellow corduroy trousers, always making him look like a Minion. A Minion wearing a tweed flat cap. (There were lots of those, actually. Does anybody know the collective noun for flat caps and Barbour jackets?) God knows what stink those hats were giving off by the end of a soaked day. Kate Hoey wore her typical look, which is to say Brian May cosplaying as an aristocrat who can no longer afford the upkeep of his stately pile.
Still, fans were keen that Farage had come out, telling the, um, “masses”: “If politicians think they can walk all over us, we’re going to march back and tell them they can’t.” Forgetting the fact he is literally a sitting MEP.
Brilliant footage captures the precise moment a soggy and furious Farage realises it’s over for him 👋#MarchToLeavepic.twitter.com/tQ98tS0F5m
— dave M ❄️ 🥕 (@davemacladd) March 16, 2019
Difficult really to think how the whole enterprise could tip more into the theatre of the absurd than all detailed above, except that the Brexiters were followed by vans organised by the pro-EU collective Led By Donkeys, adorned with their now customary giant posters of hypocritical Brexiter tweets. (“In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way” – Nigel Farage.)
Really this weekend ramble was the silliest Leave-Remain face-off since Farage and Bob Geldof yelled at each other through megaphones in flotillas on the Thames. Or the actual referendum.
Have I mentioned that the logo for the March to Leave looks so similar to the Tesco Value range design that I initially thought it actually was? Have I mentioned the lifelong Labour voter who “was never political before Brexit”, which rather seems to suggest that voting is not political. Have I mentioned that one attendee, the co-chair of Leave Means Leave Richard Tice, is CEO of an asset management company looking after £500m worth of property? Have I mentioned – oh my god – that people actually paid £50 to struggle against being blown off a cliff wrapped in the St George’s flag?
Initially, I thought one of the funniest takes was the marcher who said: “For every person here, we’ve got a million people marching with us. I can feel that presence.” Except that she is basically … correct. (Though I did appreciate the pictorial contrasts between the estimated 700,000 marchers who showed up for the last Remain march.)
The whole thing ended with Farage in a pub drinking the pint that he has had surgically attached to his hand; a prosthetic and disingenuous man-of-the-people signifier. As I said, I am almost certain your weekend was better.