Please Bet Responsibly

Please Bet Responsibly

Roll up, roll up and place your bet.
It’s constitutional roulette.
Same old. Familiar routine –
general election in ’15,
Scots Independence. Magic touch.
Just scare them, say it costs too much.
The other lot are losers, so
play safe and stick with what you know.
They line up businesses and banks
to do the sums, to say No Thanks.
This change won’t mean financial gain
so common sense says VOTE REMAIN.

That’s rubbish, Michael Gove says, but
ignore the experts, trust your gut.
Dominic Cummings, on a roll,
proposes “Let’s take back control.”
You want more for the NHS?
Three hundred million, more or less,
is paid each week to the EU.
D’we want it back? You bet we do.
Watch out - the Turks are on their way.
Migrants? We never had a say.
If you vote LEAVE there is no doubt
we’ll keep the EU migrants out.

Farage is sure that he’s the star
but does his poster go too far?
Though Gove and Johnson don’t approve
they sense that UKIP’s on the move.
They’ll each get votes, that’s how it goes,
and so the LEAVE assortment grows.

Just what will make them change their mind –
the great ignored, the left behind?
They’re bitter, bolshie, but their voice
for once will count. They have a choice.
What are the issues which will sway
the votes on referendum day?
There’s regulations, payments, grants;
who’ll give the underdog a chance?
The cost of living, welfare state...
but where does immigration rate?
Election, just twelve months ago,
it ranked at number seven. Low,
you think?  Now, it’s the smoking gun
that tops the charts at Number One.

The level’s up, blood pressure too,
where people coming in is new.
No jobs, no housing, long neglect,
white working class denied respect.
Don’t trust the media, or MPs,
nothing to hope for, on their knees.
One simple cause is hard to name -
it’s newcomers who get the blame.

This can of worms must be addressed
but where’s the source that does it best?
The over-sixty fives say we
get info from the BBC.
The kids ditch papers no-one needs
since social media meet their needs
while UKIP voters in the main
depend upon the LEAVE campaign.
BeLEAVe in Britain, says the SUN
although that headline doesn’t run
in Glasgow, Belfast (They shape news
to make it match their readers’ views).

Two sides in conflict, fierce and mean.
The BBC steps in between
and climbs the ladder, rung by rung,
towards the tightrope that is strung
above these feuding factions. Strewth!
There’s phoney figures, lies and truth,
distortions that they might correct.
Don’t ask tough questions, don’t reflect
on dubious stories that deceive:
just alternate, REMAIN and LEAVE.

On Thursday night we go to bed.
Markets are up, cos Brexit’s dead.
On Friday morning comes the news:
REMAIN and Cameron have the blues.
So take it in, and give it large –
a win for Johnson, Gove, Farage.

The EXPRESS are chuffed, they’ve got it made.
The most successful press crusade
there’s ever been claims victory.
You should be proud, says one MP.
IT WAS THE SUN WOT WON IT. Hey,
it’s everyone a winner day.
Goodbye, au revoir, auf wiedersehen
to France and Germany and Spain
who shackled us in slavery.
Now Britain shall at last be free.

Here comes the Daily MAIL now
but they say “Britain, take a bow.”
It’s not the MAIL, EXPRESS or SUN
but their great readership that won.
The winners in this jamboree?
Liz Hurley, and the BBC.
According to Richard Littlejohn
“decent forgotten people won.”
Now here’s a smiling hedge fund kid
who won two hundred million quid.

Europe looks on in disbelief.
So much destruction, so much grief.
Agreements, networks, torn to shreds –
they can’t work out what’s in our heads.
We’re out, but we were hardly in.
If you don’t play, how can you win?
We lectured Brussels, raised the roof,
demanded opt-outs, stayed aloof.
Farage returns, he’s back in town
to mock the people we turned down.

We could have backed the big idea,
promoted membership, not fear,
been one of many in a team
but maybe that was just a dream.
We are the English, on our own.
We think we’re better off alone.

For those who peddle racist hate
it’s fifty-two to forty-eight.
Result! The numbers never lie
so foreigners can say goodbye.
We see them, on a bus or train
we make it clear they can’t remain.
Insult a Muslim, scare a Pole.
We won. We’re taking back control.   

There’s other casualties. The vow
you heard last week is cancelled now.
The millions that we said we’d get
are nothing like that much. Forget
the bonus for the NHS.
There’ll be more immigrants, not less.
They said the Turks were on their way
but that won’t happen. Not today.
Just what was true in this campaign?
Who gives a toss? We stuffed REMAIN.

This was the verdict of the old.
The future has been put on hold.
Agenda for the next ten years?
Pick up the pieces, stoke the fears
of those who feel left behind.
Put rational government out of mind.

The wheel of fortune, wheel of fire
spins round, and lifts its victims higher
only to drop them from a height
for heavyweights are feather light.
Powered by centrifugal force
careers veer off their plotted course.
They fell, no matter how they strove -
first Cameron,then Johnson, Gove.

We’re meant to feel this afterglow...
a bit like the Olympics, no?
The nation, unified and free
steps up to claim its destiny.
But what we’re told’s not what we get.
Those expectations, all unmet,
evoke betrayal, rage, regret.
We should have known. It’s called roulette.