Watching Brexit from over the pond is an increasingly surreal experience

I’ve now been working from the New York office for just over two and a half months, and my days now revolve around the upcoming 2020 US election rather than daily Brexit updates. That doesn’t mean, however, that Americans don’t turn to me – in bars, in my shared house, in restaurants, at meetings and sometimes even on the street – to explain exactly what’s going on in the island of my birth.

Two weeks ago, when I was live on Canadian radio discussing how the US had received Justin Trudeau’s SNC-Lavalin scandal, the presenter suddenly cut in with: “And could you just explain quickly what Brexit is all about?” It was the day Theresa May was due to bring her deal back to parliament for the second time; rumours (later confirmed) abounded that she would be forced to promise her resignation; the idea of another general election was being floated; EU officials had been making sarcastic asides about the state of UK politics. I tried as best as I could to summarise that situation for outsiders, but after I’d spoken for about 10 minutes nonstop, the presenter cut in with: “I think it’s safe to say we’re now even more confused than when we started.”

“Now you’re getting the real feel of Brexit,” I replied.

Watching your country change so fundamentally while you’re 4,000 miles away is strange. Having presided over the Voices desk in London for four years, I had become so involved with deconstructing the nitty-gritty of parliamentary debates, late-night votes, intra-party controversies and leadership contests that I barely had time to take stock and wonder what Brexit meant for us all in the long term.

It’s only since I’ve started work on building the US Voices department and begun planning my days around the latest claims surrounding Joe Biden, the Green New Deal and its superstar champion Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and what feels like an impossible number of Democratic candidates putting themselves forward for the presidency that I’ve started processing how the UK is also changing in a massive way. When your vantage point is New York City – a place with diversity and internationalism baked into its core – you can’t help but feel sad watching your own country reject those central liberal tenets.

As for 2020, my money would be on Kamala Harris or Beto O’Rourke. Both have strong political backgrounds and have commanded huge crowds from the word go. My preference would be Harris, as O’Rourke has been reticent about committing himself to any hard and fast policies. He is much more accomplished in saying what he doesn’t stand for – and what he’s changed his mind about – than he is about revealing what’s close to his heart.

Having said that, publicly admitting mistakes and changes in opinion is a welcome trait in a politician right now, and an admirable one. After Donald Trump, it feels like America is crying out for political integrity. That begins with talking about where you went wrong in the past.

It’s worth mentioning that some fascinating ideas have also been put forward by Andrew Yang, the Democratic candidate who is standing on a platform of providing universal basic income to all citizens and who wrote about it for Voices here. He’s so dedicated to the policy that he’s already paying UBI to two families in America out of his own pocket. That’s innovation at its finest.

I don’t know if I’ll return to Britain after Trump is (hopefully) knocked off his throne, but I do know that I’d only want to if it was a forward-thinking, progressive nation. I hope, in other words, that politicians don’t capitulate to the right-wing Brexiteer demands being thrown around by ERG types. I have seen what unfettered free-market capitalism without a socialist safety net looks like, and it isn’t always pretty. There is much to love about America, but trust me: we really don’t want their chlorinated, antibiotic-riddled chicken, ubiquitous corn syrup and private healthcare system in Britain.

Yours,

Holly Baxter
US Voices editor