‘They say it would be wine and roses… If England were for Englishmen again’ (Something About England ,The Clash)

The scenes from the European Parliament said it all in one way. Farage being a jackass, he and his cronies waving their Union Jacks. An Irish woman getting slightly impatient and tetchy with the jackassery. And then the Europeans, linking arms and asking:

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

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And never brought to mind?” And somewhere in the middle of all this, other UK MEPs crying, upset that it was all over.

And surprisingly, despite Farage’s attempts to make a farce of it, as he tries to make a farce of everything, it was moving. You realised that we became so caught up in the detail of Brexit over the past few years, so caught up in the theatre and the back and forth and the messing and the rancour, that we almost forgot that it would come to this – that they would leave.

Maybe it was that we never believed it would actually happen. Or maybe we deluded ourselves as to what, at its heart, it was actually about. And maybe we forgot, too, that we would miss them. Because maybe, somewhere in the past few years, we forgot how much we like them.

The Europeans, somewhere along the line, might have forgotten, too, that they loved the Brits. Somewhere along the line a narrative took hold that Britain was this ugly place, a place that rejected and ridiculed its European neighbours, a place that wished to turn in on itself, to switch to the wrong side of history in our globalised world – a country choosing isolation and selfishness. But last Wednesday that was all forgotten, and Europe said a sincere and sad goodbye, and many European leaders expressed the wish that this might not be the end, that Britain might be back.

There was a general acceptance, too, that while the EU is determined not to be weakened by this, the European Community will be a poorer place without the UK in it. And for us, more than for any other country in Europe, it will be a lonelier place.

Sure, our European neighbours have stood by us these past few years, and they have embraced us as part of their family, and they essentially took our side against the UK, and we have ties of trade and politics with them. But the truth is, Europe are not family to us, not the way the Brits are.

Sure, our Britain, the Britain we loved, is not the Britain of Nigel Farage, of the worst excesses of the Daily Telegraph, maybe not even of Boris Johnson’s Tory party. But we know there is a whole other Britain there, one that we are inextricably linked with, through blood, trade, emigration, language, literature, church, cricket, Peppa Pig, Paul Smith, Marks & Spencer, Shakespeare, Fawlty Towers, Lady Di, Liverpool FC, Man United, David Bowie, David Beckham, Elton John… the list goes on.

What’s your Britain? Mine is one where I came of age as punk was just giving way to post-punk and new wave. It is the compulsive dark poetry of Joy Division giving way to the melancholy disco of New Order which would beget the Happy Mondays and the rave scene, all against the mythical backdrop of the post-industrial imagery of Manchester. It’s the West London of Damon Albarn. It’s the electronic music made by the children of Sheffield steel workers, the multicultural sounds of Bristol, the guitar music of Manchester and Liverpool, much of it made by second-generation Irish.

Indeed the heart of three of the great British bands of the past 50 years – The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Primal Scream – can be traced back to one row of houses in Athy. My Britain stretches from the Manic Street Preachers’ anthems of the valleys of Wales to Primal Scream’s roots in Glasgow.

My Britain is eyes out on stalks at Camden Market, seeing that there were still punks and that goths dressed like that in the daytime too, chasing alternative girls in the Camden Palace, genial brickies and foremen who took an innocent young Paddy under their wings on the building sites, who minded me so I got back to college in one piece after the summer while they faced into the damp cold winter and a lifetime of it. They might have called you “Pat” but it was with indulgent affection mostly. And women in the canteen who’d been there for years and who made sure you got plenty of food when you went in for your full Irish and a pint of milk at break time. Their accents were that weird hybrid that wasn’t Limerick or Luton but something unique that came from having spent longer in the latter than they did in the former.

My England was watching the peacocks on the King’s Road, then going down to Carnaby Street to try and imagine what it was like when London really swung. From beer gardens in Cambridge to wine bars in Ealing via the Archway Tavern, I never felt out of place there. You weren’t quite at home but you were at the neighbour’s house. You fit in.

My England was alternative comedy, The Young Ones, it seemed radical then, and even funny, and they hated Thatcher, as we had been reared to do. Top of the Pops, The Tube, TGI Friday, The Word, Yoof TV, This is England, even Noel Edmonds. Reading Irvine Welsh, Absolute Beginners, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning. Movies like Trainspotting, High Fidelity, The Wicker Man, anything with Michael Caine, Withnail and I, Performance, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

It is part of the texture of our lives, it is wrapped up in the DNA of who we are. And the saddest part is that, in recent years, we had actually started to move on from the unfortunate parts of our shared history. The bonds of blood and friendship had won out. They sent their leader, the Queen, to meet our leader, a fishmonger in Cork, and friendship was rekindled. The friendship that has always existed in private for ordinary decent people was mirrored in the pubic sphere.

And then came Brexit, and rancour and Brit-bashing – and condescension became the norm in Ireland, as we were confronted with the worst of British.

But now, as we contemplate that they will no longer be part of our European family, a status which had done so much to heal and equalise our friendship with them, we find the horror of the past few years melting away, albeit maybe only temporarily. And it’s terribly sad. We feel sad for ourselves and sad for them. And we wish it could have been different.

And the worst, you suspect, is yet to come.

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