📝 Brexit and Star Trek

There is now a new Star Trek series that follows along from the Star Trek of my childhood. Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Jeri Ryan and others are back in a new series. I never thought I’d see the day! At the same time, today is Brexit Day, and I was reminded of something I wrote soon after the referendum itself back in 2016. It seemed appropriate to return to it.

We are a week since the In/Out referendum in which a majority of British voters supported leaving the European Union. I had not read much of the media leading up to that date as I knew which way I was voting and why. Days before the referendum itself I had dialled into the media to see where things were. Suddenly things were not the way I expected them. I knew it was going to be close, but I always assumed that the result was in favour of the “Remain” campaign. How wrong I was! I have lived within the privileged bubble of being born in the late 1980s with Britain’s EU membership a matter without question. It gives me the ability to travel to parts of Europe without messing about with a visa and the opportunity to live and work there, and with the increasingly interconnected continent of Europe on my doorstep. I could get a cheap flight on Friday night and back on Monday morning and be back in time for work. While I was there I was able to meet other Europeans who were also taking advantage of the benefits of the European Union to do the same thing. Perhaps this is why the younger voters felt so disappointed by the result. Something which offered them such potential benefits could be removed by the decision of others. Many of whom were voting for such different reasons as to stick it to then-Prime Minister David Cameron, to vote against the government, to curb immigration, to stop paying money into an organisation that gives us nothing back. There are many reasons people voted to leave, but I didn’t agree with a single one of them, so I guess that makes me opposed to the views of a great many people in the UK. That realisation was an interesting one. In the aftermath of the vote, I was left to work out why I felt as utterly bereft as I did. I felt worse than at any other major voting result in my life. No general election is that bad, as there will be another one in a handful of years. I think there are two different reasons for it. First, it highlights the privilege of being young, educated and well-travelled. The media has made mention of the young intelligentsia who overwhelmingly voted to remain, while others used a vote to complain about a wide variety of issues, few if any were actually related to the EU itself! The difference between the young and the old and the more and less educated is clear. Although, interestingly not as clear as the views on the death penalty. That’s a separate, scarier issue. Anyway, I feel both vindicated I made the correct choice, and then guilty for feeling disappointed in those that voted for the opposite when it appears a select group of media elements pushed hard for this result. Those opinions were clearly based on a logic that I didn’t have. Perhaps they thought they were doing the right thing for themselves and their families and therefore, who am I to say they’re wrong? Are my experiences or the knowledge I had somehow worth more than theirs? The second is that this vote and its resulting apparent licence for violence and bigotry triggered a deep-seated belief that this was a ‘step backwards’ for our journey into creating a ‘better world,’ whatever that is! From a young age, too much science fiction in general and Star Trek episodes, in particular, had taught me the way to a better world is for everyone to work together within large organisations, with the free flow of workers and families. The more people travel and meet each other, the more they can see that as a single species, all of our cultures are very similar, our similarities are far more important than our differences and that we don’t have to fear each other quite so much. And Roddenberry’s initial idea of a society that didn’t have any currency — that people worked for the common good of all — really showed how utopian that society was! This vote showed me how fear and anger overrode any sense of togetherness and common understanding. It showed how a group of small nations that form one country was so easily splintered into voting so differently from each other, with the larger cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester along with Northern Ireland and Scotland all going one way, and the rest of England and Wales going the other. That splintering shows the clear divides that had perhaps always been just under the surface, but it showed me just how far away we are from that global internationalist future I have always dreamed of, to allow humanity to progress further and faster. That future is still available to us, but increasingly under threat. And in my mind has moved further from being within my own lifetime. That makes me disappointed, as I’m impatient to see that future develop in front of my eyes. Perhaps I should set my sights lower.

Reading it back, my feelings have not changed on the matter. The depth of our understanding of the issues around traditional media and who owns it, money and where it resides, taxes paid and unpaid, foreign and social media interference and divisions have only increased. We know where this fight was won and lost.

So I will hold my family more tightly. My lost citizenship will not mean a single lost friendship, and hopefully that international future I grew up dreaming of may still come to pass. Who knows, perhaps my son will see it?