Informit article: Bigger than Brexit

A first ‘Letter from London’.

Three years ago I drove through England, from London to Scotland, and was surprised to see so many English flags either flying from cars and windows or on flagpoles planted defiantly in front gardens. I live in Remain London and holiday in Remain Scotland, so it is rare for me to come across these symbols of a Brexitish English nationalism. Such flag-waving, largely unseen outside English football stadiums, seemed to portend something. I wasn’t yet sure what. When I arrived in Scotland, my sister came to the door to greet me and whispered, ‘Eoghan is voting for Brexit. I don’t know whether I can continue to speak to him’. So there it was, another surprise. I had ended up with a Brexit brother-in-law. Two, in fact, because my other sister’s husband, Bill, was also voting to leave the EU.