The outrage over a pro-Remainer demonstration at the annual Last Night at the Proms festival last month demonstrates the sensitivity of hard-line Brixiteers to the drumbeat of evidence that leaving the European Union has hurt the United Kingdom, economically, politically, and socially.
Angered at the waving of hundreds of European Union flags, mingling with the usual Union Jacks, they demanded the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which hosts the event, hold an inquiry, even that the EU flag be banned in the UK.
The Last Night of the Proms, usually a jingoistic platform where the audience sings along as the orchestra belts out patriotic numbers like Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia, was very different this year with the blue flags with the yellow stars much in evidence.
The apoplectic reaction of Brixiteers cannot hide hard facts that show their beloved ‘going it alone’ experiment is failing.
Remainers admitted the flag-waving was a stunt “in solidarity with musicians who feel (with countless others) the destructive impact of Britain's recent isolation from Europe”, emphasising how touring groups and orchestras have been affected by the end of free movement within the EU.
What really got up the noses of Brixiteers was the call by the Remainer group that the annual demonstration of “problematic post-colonial anthems” be replaced by “something more enlightened and collaborative” and that the musicians who had to perform on the night might support this.
Following hard on the Proms was an admission by a former senior public servant in the Foreign Office, Simon McDonald, that he had voted to Remain in 2016 and that many of his colleagues were in tears on the morning after the referendum.
Lord McDonald, as he is now, is long retired, but that did not prevent a wave of pro-Brexit vitriol descending on him, claiming he had breached the Civil Service Code requiring him to be impartial.
Speaking during a BBC documentary dealing with problems that have been piling up for the country since 2016, Lord McDonald said “people were in shock”.
“On this occasion, this solitary occasion, I decided to tell my colleagues and therefore let Ministers know that I voted to remain in the European Union,” he said.
Despite all this happening more than seven years ago, the hatchet men in the far right media were out in force.
The Telegraph’s Michael Deacon stopped just short of demanding the tearful Public Servants should be identified and thrown out of their jobs; Michael Fabricant and Peter Bone of GB News maintained, without a shred of evidence, that this proved the Public Service had tried to block Brexit.
The 2016 referendum still casts a long shadow over events in the UK. Despite the best hopes of the Brexit fanatics, people have not learned to accept the ‘new realities’ and are refusing to stay quiet when day after day new segments of the population are realising they have been sold down the river.
While the architect of Brexit, Jacob Rees-Mogg glories in his knighthood and spokesman Nigel Farage engages in endless self-promotion on GB News, ordinary men and women in industries from fishing to financial services are beginning to realise just how much they have lost.
Sadly a weak-as-water Conservative Prime Minister, and a Labour Opposition more interested in winning back a few seats in the North of England than in the good of the country as a whole, will not be coming to their aid.
Remainers will continue to fight on, but for the moment at least, they will be doing it on their own.
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