Comment: The fear of Brexit is real (because I failed to register to vote)

As Brexit looms, ex-pat Ian Rose wonders if his failure to register to vote will end badly.

A campaigner for 'Vote Leave' holds a placard during a rally for 'Britain Stronger in Europe', the official 'Remain' campaign, on June 19. Source: AFP

I wonder how many British ex-pats are out there, like me, kicking themselves for having missed the deadline to vote in the EU referendum. It kept getting extended; social media alerts went from citing a mid-May cut-off to June 7. We were lulled into a false sense of security. And then it was suddenly too late.

Back at the start of this month, when I still had the best of intentions to sign up, do my bit, and add my distant voice to the chorus of reason that would surely drown the shrill chant of the Brexiteers, I just couldn’t see it happening, Britain backing out of Europe. Even in these unhinged times, it seemed a step too far into the abyss of fear-fuelled unreason.

But now it’s looking like it really could happen. What if there was something we could have done about it?

I’m a little too young to remember Britain joining what was then known as the “common market”, more formally the EEC (European Economic Community), back in 1973, or the original referendum on whether to remain that was held just two years later. The vote back then was decisively for staying put, but it was made by those who still remembered the war (or wars), and exactly what kind of horror show a divided Europe could produce.

By the time Britain signed the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, which marked the birth of the EU proper, as a 21-year-old, left-wing, wannabe bohemian, I knew I was pro-Europe because that meant being anti-nationalism and pro-nice food and frothy coffee. I was keen, too, to see Thatcher’s government mangle itself on internal divisions, and maybe at last have power wrenched from its nefarious clutches.

And so it came to pass. Europe did for Maggie. Another reason to love it, from where I was sitting.

Before we knew it, the Chunnel was open. Tapas were a thing. The expertise and affordability of Polish builders became a dinner party topic among the chattering classes of London.

Both major political parties had their share of “eurosceptics”, but it was always the Tories who had the most trouble keeping them reigned in. That most unlikely of Prime Ministers, John Major, led a party crippled by eurodivision to annihilation at the polling booths of 1997, marking the end of 18 years of Conservative rule, and the ascension of Tony Blair (who, rather than mess around with our European ties, would be destined to lead Britain into a different kettle of catastrophic crusade altogether).

Out on the street, when it came to being part of Europe, sure, there were grumbles about Brussels bureaucracy, and the odd myth about the curvature of our bananas and flavour of our crisps being under threat, but, all in all, we just got on with it.

For most of us, the economics were too complex and tedious to have a firm opinion on, so we just intuited that being part of an entity that was more multi-faceted, versatile and sexy than our damp little islands could ever hope to be all by themselves was clearly in our best interests, besides those of socioeconomic (and culinary) progress.

It wasn’t as if we even had to give up the pound.

So what the hell is going on now?

When David Cameron made his pre-election “cast-iron pledge” to hold an in-out referendum on European membership by 2017, did he understand what kind of can of worms he was kicking over? (And isn’t there a lesson here for Malcolm Turnbull and an inevitably toxic and damaging plebiscite on same-sex marriage?)

The unveiling last week of the 'BREAKING POINT' Ukip poster, featuring a stream of brown-faced refugees, was the noxious icing on a cake that was already hard to stomach. That the Brexit campaign has gained such traction through its increasingly shameless appeal to (post-austerity) anti-immigration sentiment is truly chilling.

The latest polls have the in-out camps neck and neck, with around 10 per cent of voters “undecided”.

The shocking murder of pro-EU Labour Party lawmaker Jo Cox last Thursday seems to have stemmed the Brexit momentum, but this is far too close to call.

I just hope that, come Thursday night, when the votes are in, those like me, who have been too dopey to register, or not bothered turning out (because it couldn’t really happen, could it?) will not have cause to rue their complacency.

After all, it wasn’t so long ago that a Trump nomination seemed too crazy to contemplate. We’re living through times when history is being disregarded, and made, at dizzying rates. And I’m starting to feel kind of queasy.

Ian Rose is a Melbourne-based writer.