Beneath old towers of golden stone
The clanging bell, the thump of drum,
Where an ageless river flows;
Protesters come, flags are flown
Of unions caught in the undertow,
People have gathered together
In clamorous amalgamation,
Side by side in the bitter weather
In hope, in fury, in confusion,
Equal and opposite in their fervour
For union or nationalism;
Those who see our saviour
In a second referendum,
Those who want Westminster
To deliver the sworn unicorn
And those who’d just prefer
This Brexit business done,
The noise, and then the hush
As the crowds wait and listen
In that huddled crush
For parliament’s decision,
As the bells peel
I worry with millions
That there be a no deal;
An incalculable burden
Leading to more poverty,
Inequality, social division
Affecting the majority,
A bad deal garners historic defeat
As the drum beats
The hearts on the street,
I wonder what consensus
Parliament could meet
That would guard and represent us,
If cabinet chose only to outreach
To Brexiteer extremists in their party
Ensuring May’s red lines aren’t breached
In the name of the mock democracy
Her impassable processes preached,
While Labour refuses doors to dialogue
A far-right Brexit seems a possibility,
Corbyn in apparent stasis, his own voice vague,
I fear a worse deal passed by united Tories;
For a path to ruin to be laid
The percentage win need only be tiny,
Let me be as clear as the tolling bell
I’ve wanted passionately to remain,
That hope by a minor margin fell,
Now, uncertainty and frustration reign,
Disintegrating realms, unforgivable
That all this will cause us all more pain,
We could say the Brexit project’s failed;
For millions of us, this would be preferable,
But other millions would feel their voice curtailed
And we must think of them as well;
Not the bigotry and isolationism
Within the leaver’s swell
Nor notions driven by racism
Which we must quell,
But the inherent criticism
Of governance being too central,
Distant, too far from them;
Too absent in their struggles;
Seemingly devoid of realism;
Aloof in the face of their troubles,
Those who work beneath Big Ben
Can sometimes seem the most remote,
But the EU has been condemned
By those who see the ocean as a moat
And invasion in each boat or plane;
Who’ve been sold the scapegoat
To explain what’s hard to frame;
Hidden in many leaver’s votes
Was a broad, nebulous rejection
Of the status quo,
We need a proper constitution
Yet those negotiations closed,
We traded thoughts of UK devolution;
Of proactive regions within a whole;
Brexit offered as an alternative solution,
Yet, in all the to and fro,
Scarlet barricades and preconditions
There is one thing all this shows;
Lack of transparency in political decisions;
A deficit we cannot afford
On the benches of our House of Commons,
Our crises don’t begin in Brussels or Strasburg,
The problem has long been born at home;
Our economy, among the most centralised in the world,
Witnessing widening gaps in people’s income,
The EU used a stooge, Westminster failings ignored,
As the drum thunders and the bell chimes
To conundrums and discord,
Facing divorce fees or severing fines –
Our futures hanging on a word,
Too much not agreed, too much undefined
And all of us calling out to be assured
In these troubling, world-shifting times,
While we, like collecting dew, are poured
Into the flow of the leaden Thames,
If we go ahead, we need a far softer line
To protect our kingdom’s unions,
Our security, our peace, and the rights
Of our UK and international citizens,
To guard investments and keep in sight
Our shared intercontinental ambitions,
Cross-border threats to climate
And the need for social protections,
But the hour is getting late
As debates continue into the night
And we watch others write our fate
As deals fall in the dwindling light.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
The 48% 