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Although the last couple of days have been a bit more hopeful, one of the things that has struck me about my reaction to the whole #Brexit process is how personally vulnerable and precarious it has made me feel. And this has taught me something... [Thread]
Part of what it means to be middle class, male, white(ish in my case) and educated in the UK, is to feel that, while you may be horrified by what a government might do, ultimately you will be all right. As a leftist, I've been disgusted by most governments in my lifetime BUT..
...this was mainly because it was horrible to witness what they were doing to others, not to me. Now though, since no-deal Brexit became the goal of most of the Leave movement, I've felt a personal vulnerability I've never felt before...
...In the last few months, I've been watching horrified as a significant proportion of the political class have attempted to pursue a course of action that will harm me. I'm middle class, but not rich, and I'm dependant to a degree on funding that is sensitive to economic cycle..
...What this has intense sense of vulnerability has given me is a humbling realisation that this is how a big chunk of the UK population have always lived. That sense of precariousness, of being the plaything of people more powerful than them, is normative in much of the world.
...Perhaps this is preparation for climate catastrophe: All but a tiny minority will suffer like they have not suffered before. Many of us who were cushioned from life's vicissitudes will experience the precariousness that swathes of the world always felt...
What I hope is that this humbling process will lead to new forms of solidarity and empathy; that our common predicament will allow us to address its root causes together. Yet it is just as likely to lead to ever more desparate attempts to find a lifeboat for one's own kind
...And here's the rub: the possibility that those of us who are middle class and terrified of no-deal could make common cause with those who have always been precarious is stymied by the fact that significant sections of the precariat are also no-dealers...
...So maybe they represent the real future: Political projects that will ensure our common suffering, rather than alleviating it. But I hope I am wrong. [Ends]
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