Guest post - Walter Kemp Bruce
Thoughts from the post-Brexit queue at Berlin's Brandenberg Airport
Walter wrote this on arriving back in Berlin yesterday.
I’m convinced there’s a conspiracy at Brandenburg Airport. It has my full support.
I’ve decided the airport staff in Berlin like to exacerbate the nightmare of Brexit for each poor soul passing through the gates of entry to Europe.
Let’s be clear early on. I hate Brexit. It is a tragedy. It saddens me. Life has been made worse by its foolishness. Back to this later.
So, onwards; why do I think there’s a conspiracy? I don’t have any evidence — this isn’t even conjecture of a high quality — it’s just a reflection of my easily frustrated Scottishness, standing at the gates for an hour, as I most recently did on my way back to the city I call home.
Let me paint the scene: a queue for miles, Kilometers even, scandalising the right hand side of the long airport corridor; An array of E-gates, looking mournfully empty and useless. Meanwhile, a mean-pouting staff member prowls the crowd: “EU Passport? European Community passport? What is this? No. Go please back! Anyone else?” Suddenly, an elegantly-tanned Portuguese lady steps out from the crowd of pale Scottish holidaymakers. She touches her chest as if to say: “Me?” blushes, and struts down past us mortals. A depressing catwalk ensues.
Hold on — what’s this approaching from the rear: a sea of grey trackie bottoms and pot bellies — a veritable mirror of our own predicament. Here they come, approaching as slowly and/or clumsily as we did. A slim crescent of self-satisfaction slips over my mug. They’ll be right here with us, behind us in the queue even: stupid Bridiots filling up the whole of Brandenburg airport like a beanbag spilling those tiny white balls.
No! What is this? They’re sailing past us. “Is this got the digital doo-dah that’ye put there on the electric gates now? Oh it is so? Fantastic.” They’re Irish! They’re fucking Irish! Look at them, they’re so similar to our Scottish crowd in all ways but two: charmingly melodic accents and they get to use those beautiful digital gates. We watch them come and go with funeral faces. The light at the end of the tunnel in this case is blinking the letters EU and I wonder if I had died would they let me go through it.
Back to the conspiracy: Look, I’m basically just saying that I’m catching a vibe. A plausible solution might be to have more than one customs officer for an entire commercial airliner flying in from the UK. Perhaps to reallocate some of the staff who seemingly have time to stand around on the EU side looking at us rather disapprovingly. We didn’t all vote for Brexit, y’know. Scottish constituencies voted unanimously against it. (Unanimously! When does that happen in politics. Only in this tragic affair I suppose…) I know, it hurts. It stings. It burns.
I bet that there’s no real motivation for the folk running this big German airport to ease a minor fallback consequence of Brexit for UK citizens. Why should there be? The only thing that comforts me is that I share these queues with the dull sods who made Brexit happen, and have spent the last few years watching the train wreck that it created. I hope the embarrassment of their inefficient passports serves as a sharp reminder of the damage they’ve done. Not just to the economy, but to the international community, the ability to host Europeans in the UK, and the freedom of migration we once enjoyed (read: my own constant visa nightmares). To those people:
I’m telepathically sending you a big sarcastic thank you!
All the best from the border control in Berlin.
Brexit PS from Jackie
Walter is not the only Scot who feels like that at the EU border. I find myself in these circumstances muttering sarcastically ‘Thank you England’! A friend likes to point out that London didn’t vote for Brexit either - but that is different. The UK is a union of four nations, Scotland voted overwhelmingly to Remain in the EU - but that was completely ignored. At the time of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, the UK government sent a leaflet to every home urging us to vote No - to protect our seat at the EU’s top table. I feel sad that I believed that. It feels like a personal betrayal. Perfidious Albion.
There have been some recent Brexit developments. The UK just postponed - again - import controls to mirror its export controls at the EU border. That was because the UK’s food supply chain is already fragile - we import half our food. But no sensible country has export controls without import controls - it is financial idiocy. The UK’s balance of payments is increasingly unbalanced and that puts downward pressure on sterling and increases inflation. It’s Economics 101.
People worried about the UK’s high food inflation sometimes suggest buying local - but UK farmers are producing LESS food. That is partly because of the loss of the EU seasonal workforce. But it is also because of the failure of the UK government to be clear about what the funding regime will be to replace the Common Agricultural Policy. The CAP effectively ensures that a large part of the cost of food production is borne by the taxpayer not the shopper - but the UK government is not committed to replicating that. Food inflation will likely continue to drift upwards. So will Scotland’s high rates of obesity, which in part reflect an increasing lack of access to nutritious, affordable food.
Brexit is a shit sandwich forced on Scotland by England. It is not going down well. One day an independent Scotland will be back in the EU.
Firstly, my sincere condolences regarding your mother. I'm sure you and the wider family will never feel the same "shape" again, but you will hopefully find a new shape to continue forward while remembering her life and legacy with love and affection.
Secondly, I'm afraid I didn't bother reading Walter's article beyond his: "I don’t have any evidence — this isn’t even conjecture of a high quality — it’s just a reflection of my easily frustrated Scottishness." If I really wanted to read that kind of evidence-free, self-righteous conspiratorial madness, I wouldn't have left Twitter—sorry, "X"!
Thirdly, regarding your "Brexit PS", can I politely suggest that – as well as muttering "Thank you England" – you also remember the 1,018,322 Scottish voters who put their mark against "Leave" (and I hope they're as pissed off about the consequences as I am), plus the roughly 1.8 million (ish) people on the electoral roll who couldn't be arsed to vote either way. (Turnout for the EU referendum was 67.2%, compared with just under 85% for the 2014 vote, which possibly explains why 340,735 more Scots voted to stay in the UK than in the EU—2,001,926 compared with 1,661,191. Perhaps they were indeed knowingly lied to regarding how a "No" vote would keep Scotland at the EU high table, but at least they made a decision.
Finally, I admire your holding onto this idea that "The UK is a union of four nations", when it clearly isn't beyond some sporting arenas—especially when it comes to UK-wide votes. We live, whether you like it or not, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And the former voted clearly (though not by that large a percentage of the electorate really) in favour of Leave. Unfortunately.