Written by Helena Windsor
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“A splendid Midsummer shone over England:” so begins Jane Eyre, in Charlotte Bronte’s eponymous novel, as she recalls the perfect Midsummer Eve of Mr Rochester’s marriage proposal in Thornfield’s orchard – and its end in a sudden thunderstorm.
A splendid Midsummer shone over Southern England on the 22nd June 2016, the eve of the Referendum on our membership of the EU. At the time I was chairman of the East Surrey branch of UKIP and a Surrey County Councillor, elected in the nationwide mood swing of 2013. It was what all the years of leafletting, organising public meetings and standing in elections had been for. As the sun dipped towards the horizon we put our final preparations in place.
After the local elections in May, I organised an open meeting with my Vote Leave counterparts in our local Conservative Association and anyone else who supported the Leave cause, to get us all working together. At County Hall, two of my fellow councillors, both Conservative, had stood for the Referendum Party in 1997, one was our local organiser for Vote Leave boards; I also put another Leave-minded councillor in touch with his local UKIP branch for campaigning in his area. In Tandridge the Conservatives were divided, the former leader of the district council, a member of the Committee of the Regions and recently ousted by a local Residents Group and our MP, who later defected to the LibDems, were dedicated Remainers. Horley, also part of East Surrey, was different; in a hustings with our MP and a Remainer Tory MEP, pitched against Dan Hannan and neighbouring Crawley’s MP, Henry Smith, a pre-debate show of hands was 60% for Leave, rising to 80% at the end. Our MP headed straight for Boots, “probably needs some aspirin”, observed one wag.
Bev, my enthusiastic Vote Leave counterpart and her Tandridge team struggled when it came to manning polling stations for the Big Day, UKIP organised most of the tellers. My job on the Eve of Poll was to deliver packs to all the first tellers at those polling stations – clipboard, notepad, pen, instructions, rota – showing who was rostered when- and the all-important Vote Leave badge. The ‘boys’ were out tying Vote Leave boards to lamp posts either side of the polling stations – at a suitable distance – and hanging them over motorway bridges. I loaded the piece de resistance in my car; two 8’x 4’ white correx boards had protected a batch of large Leave boards which had been loaded on a local farmer’s trailer, to deliver to those who had requested them. They couldn’t go to waste surely? A pot of red paint and a brush did the trick. They were destined for the roundabout on the A22, by the Anne Summers HQ.
My last pack drop, deliberately, was just up the road; my volunteer excitedly offered assistance. As we worked, the thunder rolled ever louder; the storm grew closer; we just beat the rain, the first drops falling as we finished securing the second board to the metal barrier. I completed my evening’s work tying all leftover boards and the cloth banners, from Vote Leave table stall packs, along the A25, in pouring rain, lightening zig zagging all around me.
I have so many memories of June 23rd, which I spent manning polling stations and, between shifts, doing a sweep of the polling stations to check everyone was OK and collect completed sheets. These went in a dropbox, in our board erection Maestro’s porch, for the Vote Leave team to collect for number crunching in their committee room. The mood was buoyant, the polling stations busy, the tellers, greeted with many a cheery thumbs-up, filling sheet after sheet with electoral roll numbers. The best polling station was in a pub; the presiding officer and his colleague were genial and chatty, in rare lulls, during my telling shift. “We know what they’re voting”, they laughed, “because they come in here and then go in the bar and shout it out to their mates”. This normally quiet little polling station was in danger of running out of ballots.
First-time voters turned up in droves, one confessed to being fifty and never having voted. Young people can’t be dismissed as all Remainers, one lass arrived with her father, after taking her economics A level paper earlier – there had been a loaded question on the EU, she told me. As he left the polling station, with his parents, I distinctly heard one young voter tell them “ I put a big, fat cross for Leave”. I ended the day at my own polling station, among village friends, amusing the presiding officers when my mobile trilled out Queen’s I want to break free. And I learned who had been causing disruption earlier, objecting to our Vote Leave badges. A local LibDem activist walked in and pointed at my official badge (yes, I had one of the large ones) “I thought we’d agreed not to wear those”, he said. We’d agreed nothing of the sort. I replied, quietly, that he should go home for his Remain badge and come and join me. He turned on his heel and left, he had no answer to that. Remainers skulked in the commuter stations, we manned the polling stations.
At the count the mood was downbeat at first – until Sunderland came in, when we dared to hope again, monitoring the results on the TV in the café as well as our count. It was going to be close. Many Leave voters really had put ‘big fat crosses’ in the box, concerned about vote tampering. As it neared the end Bev and I hugged excitedly – it looked like we had done it, in our district at least. The final tally was slightly higher than the eventual National result. I was and still am, so proud of everyone in our community who came together in those last weeks for that final push. The sky was already brightening as we drove home, removing those boards from the A22 roundabout on the way.
I have never known so glorious a dawn. We drank champagne, English, of course, and watched the results come in on TV. It wasn’t just a Tandridge win; we had done it. We had voted to leave the EU. Dimbleby’s strangled tone as he reported that “the people have spoken” while the new morning sun poured through the windows, banishing the dark, dark night, really was the icing on our cake. There was no point going to bed, I had a critical council meeting that morning so I just freshened up and walked out into that new day. A splendid Midsummer shone over us, the dawning of a new era.
Did I imagine then that it would take over four years of obstruction and ‘fudge’ to actually leave? No. Did I imagine that the political party, set up to bring this momentous day about, would descend into chaos? No, but, after the verdict we had, as expected, resignations because that was what they had joined us for. And a disparate group of libertarians and true justice warriors had been united by that one aim, so maybe the ensuing division was inevitable.
Memories of referendum day
Dont forget the storm of the night before…see your Julius Caesar .
cleared flooded roofs and kitchens-make do office- drove the traitors off the streets who did not want to get their sandals wet- got the vote out.
And got 4-1 on leave.
later some got 10-1 online.
The sun rose the next day and shone on the righteous.
Singing Cameron out of Downing Street.
And a never to be repeated stream of parties
Helena that was a wonderful account of your doings. What a busy lady you were. So dedicated! What a pity some of our current politicians don’t have some of your belief in Britain and your dedicated ‘work ethic’. The initial euphoria you must have felt will always stay with you although the shameful manipulations of the ‘Remainers’ over the succeeding four years must have grated upon your sensibilities! A great read!
Frederica Agree with every word. Well said.
What a victory in the face of insults and lies from every corner of our institutions and media – The ‘elite’ have never been so humiliated. Don’t remember it being daylight when Dimbleby conceded – The next years were equally suspenseful – There will be many movies made of the Brexit story because it has everything, huge characters on both sides, the central underdog hero figure of Farage, cliff hangers and masses of irony, deceit, gloriously pricked pomposity, king makers and destroyers but most of all the victory of the people over their masters. we will probably have to wait for this generation of Remainer film makers to retire!
The demise of UKIP was deliberately engineered by quislings planted at he very top of the party structure.
Are you going to name them, Harry?
Of course he won’t because its one conspiracy theory too far. There are a number of factors as to why UKIP ultimately failed. It started with Farage’s resignation and then a whole series of incompetent leaders following that, which led to extremists joining or being linked to the party. Not an organised effort by one person or several persons representing an organisation within or outside to kick the party into touch, but by various individuals who acted independently of each other. The sad fact of the matter is that UKIP should have rebranded itself when it had the chance to, but it didn’t, and now it is far too late as time has passed it by.
But UKIP does have “brand recognition”, everybody’s heard of UKIP and knows that UKIP wants freedom from EU rule. UKIP is easily the best known Leave party still going. Boris Johnson’s Agreements (WA & TCA) with the EU don’t give Britain that freedom. If eventually people realise that about the WA and TCA, then UKIP could come back in the polls with a vengeance.
Apart from Neil Hamilton, who Nigel Farage never got on with for some unexplained reason, I do believe you are right Harryagain. I am very torn as to whether to renew my membership right now although Neil and his wife Christine work incredibly hard. Maybe GB news will give them a break! All I can see for the future is more fluff and nonsense but no BREXIT.
Names?
I think I know what you are getting at Herewegoagainharry, but I don’t believe it was planted quislings.
Remember, I am only speaking from what I learned through the old UKIP forum and latterly UKIP daily and I only joined in 2009 around the time of the Lisbon Treaty, when I felt UKIP was the last and only hope of our ever getting out, I had previously supported UKIP at the polls, being tutored by Kilroy in his morning TV programme ( he went on to try to take over UKIP and luckily failed)
But Nigel defeated him, mainly with the help of his old brigade.
UKIP continued to prosper in the EU elections, but made little headway nationally.. Nigel and his backers realised that we could only advance in a big way by spreading our wings, getting in real money men and making a big splash, but they wouldn’t be attracted by an apparent enthusiastic band of uncoordinated rebels ( not much different from terrorists in the eyes of the MSM and other detractors)
So there had to be an element of civilisation introduced, Nigel was always at heart a Conservative, but of the Bruges Group persuasion, they were members or ex-members of a Conservative Think Tank/ Young Conservative training group YBF ( don’t ask me what that means but it’s definitely not You’ve been framed, mind you that does at least sound right in view of their future actions).
These were introduced into UKIP at high level and presumably they were financed by the monied men Nigel was then able to introduce – big bucks were swirling around.
Then Nigel learning from Canadian elections decided to do a “Reverse Takeover” of the Conservative party and in full view set out to attract defections and we ended up with only Thingy and Reckless (perhaps Cameron,s view that they were well rid of Thingy was heartfeltly correct for once)
Anyway we got them and a whole host of council lots and others like OFlyn who crossed the floor..
We all all know the outcome, we harvested millions of votes, but only one Parliamentary representative, Thingy who wasn’t a happy bunny anyway and so the rot set in virtual war between the dispossessed Old Guard who’d put in loads of time and the own money and this new lot of discontented carpet bangers who were not only Johnny come latelys but we’re not very pecunious anyway and were eating their heads off on money that was now being cut off by discontented backers.
So yes Harry they were “semi-planted”‘ but only replanted after being unearthed ( replanted and promised i God knows what by Nigel and others) but definitely not Quislings
Oh! And then came radicalism which apparently took the form of re-nationalising everything, I think that’s when those Conservative Carpet naggers started to return to old pastures and feed off that tit ready to forget, forgive and encourage, subversion of staff can lead to two way traffic.
Bang on target Harry. I wasn’t going to sully our memories of that wonderful new dawn with mention of the current corrupt and ignominious end. Anyway, egos and infighting did play a big part, quislings know to exploit that.
The treatment of Freddy Vachha has been disgusting. They set out to break Richard Braine and succeeded, Freddy was harder to get rid of, only by threatening another did they succeed, to them, honour is a weakness. Freddy did not walk away of his own volition, despite their vile false accusations, harassment and threats, it was part of the price of protecting others, the rest of the cost we shall never know – they made sure of that.
As Baroness Williams said of the Labour Party “The party I have loved and worked for over so many years no longer exists”
We should remember how the rise of the Labour party last century was at the expense of the Liberals – the Tories wanted to make sure that they never suffer the same fate – especially now they are turning into classic watermelons, not conservatives. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely
I think the best chance UKIP had of succeeding electorally after Nigel Farage resigned was with Diane James at the helm. I voted for her as leader because she was an MEP, was a good orator, had a warm personality, and had a real presence which was missing in some of those who followed. I think she would have been really good for UKIP had she been backed 100% and could have progressed the party in the polls, but it was never really satisfactorily explained as to the reasons why she walked. However it was the start of the slide of UKIP’s popularity and Henry Bolton finished it off. Another person who would have been good for UKIP was Suzanne Evans, and she again was a missed opportunity. That said, Neil Hamilton is probably the best leader UKIP has had for a very long time, and whilst he has considerable political baggage, he is at least an intelligent man able to hold his own in a debate, and give a speech and answer questions from interviewers and without looking down at an aide memoire.
Ah Diane James – yes, she could have been a very good leader. She knew the finances were iffy and wanted full access which was denied. I was told that she would have come back into UKIP (once- never now) but Gerard had said he’d resign if she did and she didn’t want to rock the boat. (this was before he was leader I think)
But Colin – cannot agree with you over Neil. He grabbed power in a coup when he COULD have put his name in the hat for leadership and let us have a democratic vote. He has behaved with utter dishonour, not just over the treatment and unjustified vilification of Freddy Vachha but also in Wales.