I am fascinated by the Regrexiters, the inevitable coinage for the people who voted for Brexit as a form of protest and now regret it. (On a separate note, I’m also fascinated by how “-exit” is becoming this generation’s “-gate”, the catch-all suffix denoting political chaos. Already I’ve read about Hexit, Texit and Jexit, referring, respectively, to Holland’s possible departure from the EU, Texas’s secession from the US, and Jeremy Corbyn’s mooted booting as leader of the Labour party. At the rate things are moving, it is entirely possible all of these things will have happened by the time you read this.)
Focusing on the Regrexiters is currently my displacement activity of choice, light relief from stocking my bomb shelter for the apocalyptic wasteland Britain looks set to become, with only zombies and Nigel Farage bellowing, “Sovereignty at last!” roaming the land. Now, as we keep being told, it does no good to turn on one another. Strive for unity, cry the very people whose entire campaign was based on social exclusion for the purpose of enraging the rest of the EU. But on this, and possibly this alone, they are absolutely right. As has become increasingly apparent over the past decade, people no longer argue, they just shout their smug opinions at each other. Given our political parties are too busy tearing themselves apart to bother with things like governing, it will hardly help if we, the pathetic little people who are actually affected by their policies, follow in kind.
But can we make an exception for the Regrexiters? Because I don’t know if I can get through this difficult time without some form of black humour, and jokes about Boris’s hair feel less fun now that he looks like the captain of the Titanic, if the captain knew about the iceberg before he even embarked. Regrexiters are everywhere at the moment, from twentysomethings writing on the Independent website (“Sensible people were going to vote in, and I could have my protest vote”) to sixtysomethings with columns in the Sun. Kelvin MacKenzie, truly whatever the opposite of a national treasure is, wrote: “When I put my cross against Leave I felt a surge as though for the first time in my life my vote did count. I had power. Four days later, I don’t feel quite the same.” The news channels have been awash with people giving quotes that can be summed up by a clip of Macaulay Culkin slapping cologne on to his freshly scraped cheeks in Home Alone, a movie about a goofy blond child who gleefully destroys his family house in order to save it from a possible burglary, a movie that feels increasingly like an analogy for post-referendum Britain. After all, I haven’t even mentioned the biggest Regrexiter in town: Boris Johnson.
Protest voting is quite the thing. Of the 35 MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader, a fair few have admitted they hadn’t actually wanted him, but just to “start a debate” – and you can’t deny he’s done that, mainly about whether he’s the most ineffectual leader Labour has ever had. Margaret Beckett, for one, later described herself as “a moron” for having nominated him.
Over in the US, it feels as if one can hardly swing a bottle of cyanide towards one’s mouth without hitting a liberal proudly announcing they might vote for Donald Trump as a protest against Hillary Clinton. Susan Sarandon, of course, has been one of the more high-profile practitioners of this specialist yoga position, which requires people to stretch so far around their back, they end up smacking themselves in the face. You really have to salute Sarandon, given that she supported Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential race, who ultimately helped give that election to George W Bush. It must have taken effort to learn absolutely nothing from that experience.
What is infuriating about the self-indulgent protest voters for Trump and, in the past, Corbyn, is that these people aren’t the ones who will suffer from his presidency, or from the lack of an effective Labour party. No one is threatening to deport Sarandon (though they should consider it). What is tragic about the Regrexiters is that they, and everyone else, will be affected, and they have realised too late that this election was about more than giving David Cameron and faceless Eurocrats a kicking – it was about them and their future. Maybe protest voting is a sign of how little people feel listened to, so much that they believe their votes don’t count. Maybe they don’t understand the difference between direct voting and first past the post. Maybe it’s simply a form of self-satisfied short-termism. I understand the weariness with cardboard politicians and the cliched slogans. But sometimes those slogans really do ring true, and if there is one to emerge from this referendum it’s this: every vote counts.
