If I had followed through on my plan to write a “Brexit diary” chronicling the tragedy that has befallen the UK and civilisation, I would have become pretty exhausted pretty fast. In meteorological terms, a year’s worth of news fell in a week and the showers continue over a fortnight later. We are sodden. The diary would probably look a little like this:

Thursday 23rd June: I hope this weather doesn’t put people off! Nigel Farage is roaring away on the telly about remain voters being “soft” because he’s such a hard boy – he even went to fee-paying schools, so hard, so in touch with everyone. I bet Gordon brown will be the one to save us yet again. Oh, Gibraltar! Oh, Sunderland, you’ve crossed me. I will never visit you. I never was going to anyway.

Friday 24th June: ….. Ohmygodwhatjusthappened?

Queen’s Birthday flags meet the EU flags

And since that exceptional unspooling of everything that has made Britain the country people thought it was; reliable, a safe pair of hands, good in a disaster, that’s all gone out the window. In its place, we’ve seemingly become a shrieking shack of racist bile, of protectionism, of people quite openly saying their lives were shit, so economic meltdown wouldn’t exactly affect them, of a country almost too neatly split along lines of being comfortably off and those unhappy with their lot.

Brett is the result of a surgeon telling the patient to do all that ails him, before the sober realisation that in the end, something’s going to go wrong. As the surgeon’s scalpel cuts into the patient, it turns out the tumour isn’t nearly as small as imagined. The tumour has spread everywhere. The surgeon, not liking the result of his goading, runs and leaves the split-open patient to a whole bunch of devious surgeons who not liking anything approaching hard work, also run away.

There’s something bad on the table, the tumour is a mess and a sticking plaster isn’t going to fix anything. That’s Brexit. And looking around, the patient realises it has to heal itself, cos nobody else is coming to the rescue. 

Parliament Square

Unexpectly, I am sanguine about Brexit. Obviously, it is a gross act of self-sabotage, bought on by a Prime Minister too obsessed with power for his own good. In fact, Prime Minister’s are famous for going mad at some point in their career. It’s around the sixth year of power. Blair took us to war for his sixth year madness. On madness, Cameron said “I’m not saying all prime ministers necessarily definitely go mad or even go mad at the same rate.” Brexit is Cameron’s madness in full throttle; his entire plan was to rescue the economy, and his last roll of the dice led to the most damaging shock to the economy in my life. How much wiped off the world stock market in the first few days after Brexit? That’s £2,000,000,000,000.

Dogs like the EU

There are positives, and they shine out like a diamond in a cow pat. There was the peaceful, almost-joyous March for Europe which I went to on the 2nd July, along with up to 50,000 other people. The rally seemed deadly quiet at the Hyde Park Hilton, but as we slowly weaved our way towards Parliament square, you could sense momentum building up as well as the genuine feeling that we could add something to the national debate. I am not naive enough to think we’d get to Parliament and the vote would be overturned, but the march was offering positive, peaceful protesting that was  something akin to a mass counselling session after the shocking bereavement of the Brexit vote. Perhaps like me, people were getting out and stating their feelings for the first time ever, or at least since the Iraq war. It is the easiest thing to tweet a picture of a protest you are not at, but to get out and march is something different altogether.

It is an act of positivity in a country that has felt like an ugly place to be. Odd then that London positively glistened as we marched towards Parliament, knowing people were launching racist attacks on other because the national mood seemed to give this despicable behaviour a hall pass.

The gorgeous St Jame’s Palace

Being able to traverse London’s roads in a convoy of people gave me a chance to see at close quarters how beautiful the city is. London will always be a wonderful place to walk around and here we were, the 48%, the metropolitan elite, walking down Piccadilly, St Jame’s Street and onto Pall Mall. It makes sense to guide people down the less populated routes of central London on a Saturday, but if people in the country felt ignored and left out, this route is only going to bring back the point that the country is in them-and-us mode.

Central Methodist Hall

But I mentioned positives, and there are more. Austerity is now being talked down as something a bit daft, after Osborne unleashed his budget-apocalypse, we don’t have to worry about Boris Johnson or stabber Gove as Prime Minister’s, there may well be attempts to engage the vast swathes of the populace who feel forgotten and, oh, Nigel Farage might not be on the telly with his scabby populism. We’ll deal with Andrea Leadsom in time – the UK might have voted for self-destruction, but we certainly didn’t vote for her type. 

And above all else, London remains a tolerant, beautiful city full of joy. It might be a bubble, but it’s one I am happy not to pop.

Green Park nap time

London is beautiful even in the apocalypse