I hate being right. It’s only been hours since the UK voted, by a very narrow margin to leave the EU, and everything has already gone to shit. In fact, it’s gone so much to shit that I can’t even be particularly happy that the Shinyfaced Pigfucker has finally fucked off.

I am fairly sure that a lot of leave voters did not quite understand what they were voting for. It was sold to them, everything was sold to them, as a bargaining chip. They did not necessarily think that it would actually happen.

Man on BBC News, who voted leave, saying that he is shocked and worried and didn’t think his vote would count – thought we would remain.

— Verity Harding (@verityharding) June 24, 2016

A young man called Adam voted “Leave”. He tells @vicderbyshire on BCC1 he is “shocked that we voted to leave”. He is now “quite worried”

— Donald McRae (@donaldgmcrae) June 24, 2016

Hmm, lady who owns local cafe just now.
“I voted No, was a bit scared. I’d be a Yes now.”

— Alison (@eva_wilt) June 24, 2016

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It happened. They shat the bed and now we all have to lie in it.

I am also unsure as to whether there has ever been an exit strategy. David Cameron has performed the political equivalent of dropping an eggy fart in a room and then swanning on out. It will be up to the Brexit faction to pick up the pieces and try to deliver the Garden of Eden that they promised. And they will not be able to do that, because it was not possible, and it never will be possible, and curbing immigration isn’t exactly going to help when the economy has tanked, businesses have ragequit, nobody will trade with the UK, Scotland secedes, university research collapses and on and on and on.

David Cameron’s successor, whichever godawful dingleberry it is, is likely going to find themselves as the least popular Prime Minister ever. Yes, perhaps even less popular than Shinyfaced Pigfucker Who Absolutely Ruined The Country himself. After all, they will be completely unelected, and utterly failing to deliver on any of the lofty snake oil promised before they took us to the polls. Again, I wish I could gloat over this: if it were a TV show, it would certainly be a gripping plot.

I’m not even convinced that Nigel Farage actually wanted to win this referendum. His strength lies in opposing, and now he’s got what he said he wants, he will become obsolete. He has even reversed on a key campaign promise–an extra £350million a week to the NHS–within minutes of the result coming out.  There was no strategy beyond “leave the EU”, and he has nothing to offer now that the decision is made.

What happened in this referendum was a massive game of Chicken. It was posturing, bravado, a game the right thought they could use to make their position stronger. Among the politicians, their victory could only be in apparent defeat. But the thing about playing Chicken is that sometimes you get run over.

It was treated almost like a game among politicians, and perhaps even many voters. Some, like mass killer Iain Duncan Smith, thought it was “fun”.

IDS clip on BBC news just now: ‘it’s been fun in many ways’ – not really how to describe a campaign period that saw a fascist murder an MP.

— J (@piercepenniless) June 23, 2016

It was a gamble with devastating consequences.

I wish over the next few days, weeks, months, years, I could take comfort in the downfall of the terrible people who engineered this. I wish I could laugh at the regret on the facts of those who were taken in, looking no further than their own sense of xenophobia. I wish I could take a detached sigh as they have nobody left to blame for the absolute mess, with immigration down and the EU no longer something to point at.

I wish I could watch from a distance as the right wing drown in the slurry they created. But I cannot, because these drowning men will drag us all down.

They played a game, and we all lost.

I could make sensible appeals based on fact to vote to remain in the EU: that it will likely destroy an economy already circling the drain. I could counter some of the lies being fed to the populace, like the comical assertion that Turkey are joining the EU soon, or that the EU is somehow responsible for destroying the NHS. I could even point to my friends and family, EU citizens in the UK, and UK citizens working in EU countries, and say that I don’t want life to get harder for them.

But honestly, all of this has been said before, over and over. And it’s not like the Remain campaign has done a job that is in any way competent in making either a case against the right wing rhetoric of shower of bastards in the Leave camp, or stirring up any interest in the EU.

And furthermore, I actually don’t care all that much: I veer between antipathy and apathy to the political process, and this is definitely my feeling towards the EU.

And that’s why I’m voting Remain.

The EU isn’t great. It kind of sits there, a mostly-neutral force which doesn’t do much (despite what the Leave lot would have you believe). It’s nice to be able to travel through Europe without having to faff about with passports, and I like that so many of my pals live in various European cities where they can work freely and I can go and visit them. At the end of the day, that’s about the long and short of my own personal feelings towards the EU: lukewarm.

This all-powerful bureaucracy of the EU is pretty much a myth, and one which was largely engineered by Boris Johnson, who, in his own words was given “a weird sense of power” for doing it. I know that the EU doesn’t really do much, and certainly isn’t responsible for the failings of capitalism, and a government driven by violent ideology.

Nonetheless, I like the things that the EU is blamed for. I like that it makes life harder for those who want to implement xenophobic immigration policy. I like that it makes life harder for those who want to turn every job into a Sports Direct-style sweatshop. I like that it makes life harder for those who want to force everyone in a city to breathe polluted air. I like that it makes life harder for those who want to abuse the marginalised.

Basically, the EU makes life a little harder for some horrible people who want to do horrible things. I don’t even know the extent to which it does or does not actually tie them up, but since they’re blaming the EU for all this I’ll give the EU a bit of credit for it.

A vote to leave is essentially a victory for some terrible people with terrible ideas. There is no left Brexit, and almost all of its prominent supporters aren’t singing any more. There is only empowerment for the right–and potential disaster.

We are balanced on a knife edge, and I am thoroughly unconvinced by the right’s repeated assurances that leaving the EU wouldn’t completely tank the economy, which would have devastating consequences for those like me who are precariously employed. What absolutely will happen–because they’ve promised this and banged on and on about it–would be a crackdown on movement of people, and I don’t want to see any victory for those who dehumanise refugees and immigrants alike.

I don’t want horrible people who treat fellow humans like animals to emerge triumphant.

The Remain campaign has failed miserably in its aims, mostly pandering to the right wing rhetoric of the Leave camp and agreeing with them that human beings are a problem to be solved. One of the few exceptions was Jo Cox, and she’s dead now, probably killed for that.

The Remain camp don’t really deserve to win this referendum, having exhibited a willful incompetence of opposing the far right.

And yet, the far right deserve to win less.

And ultimately, that’s why I’m voting Remain. Out of spite. Out of spite to those who would willingly tank the economy and turn their country into a petty, lonely island, simply because they don’t like the fact that sometimes people have brown skin or speak Polish. Out of spite to those who believe human rights to be a problem, rather than an absolutely necessary protection. Out of spite to exploitative bosses and bigots alike.

Fuck them. Vote Remain.