Twenty four hours in London, and it’s rather surreal. On the surface, it seems nothing’s changed since my last visit a month ago, yet so much has.
I can sense the shock and disbelief that it’s come to pass and the realities and (some regrets) are starting to sink in – what happens now after Brexit?
Forty years of integration to be pulled apart on a roll of a dice, on a binary question, yes or no. It’s bigger than anyone can imagine, least of all by the leaders of the Leave campaign as it’s turning out.
The implications are everywhere.
Sitting on the British Airways flight to London and I wonder, what will happen to this most British of institutions? How will air rights be renegotiated? What will happen to its access to Europe, of which it is the dominant carrier and its home airport, the undisputed gateway? Arriving at Heathrow and going through immigration – there’s the EU lane and the non-EU lane. What will happen here?
My Blacklane driver is from Pakistan. He came here 12 years ago in search of a better life. He voted Leave because his friends told him it was all about immigration. He said, “I regret it.” I asked him why he would vote against immigration when he himself is an immigrant.
“I am worried about my kids’ future, I don’t want them to have to fight for jobs,” he said. “Now I am worried there will be no jobs.”
He shakes his head. “We’ll see.”
A couple of my friends, white, educated, pretty well-off, in their 50s, voted Leave because they wanted to protest. “I never thought it would happen,” said one. The other said, “I feel good at having taken a bit of democracy back but distinctly nervous about the immediate economic future!”
Such are the sentiments that have surfaced and the media is saturated with wall-to-wall coverage about Brexit.
I am staying at the Town Hall Hotel & Apartment at Bethnal Green, in the East End. This is a neighbourhood of immigrants – from Somalis to Pakistanis to Bangladeshis. The kebabs and curries are good here, I am told, and there’s even a Japanese canteen. The hotel’s staff is predominantly non-English and you wonder how London’s hotels will do without foreign workers.
St Paul’s Cathedral in full glory yesterday
Life on the streets seem normal. I was out all day, on the subway, exploring St Paul’s Cathedral and its neighbourhood, walking across Millennium Bridge and spending time on the South Bank, visiting the new Tate Modern which opened last weekend and enjoying its new exhibitions.
The place was packed with tourists from everywhere – children on school trips, Spanish, Germans, French, Americans, Chinese, Thais, Japanese – this is one of the things I love about London, it is such a melting pot of the world both in its population and visitors, and you somehow feel this is what Utopia should be like – diverse, tolerant, human.
Morning 1926, by Dod Procter (1892-1972), on display at the new Tate Modern
I popped into the Shangri-La London and who should I bump into but the Jimmy Choo of shoes – the Penang-born designer was there to give a talk about his life at one of the hotel’s regular Culture Salon events. While “Decidedly Underdressed Me” sipped champagne and mingled with the well-heeled and well-dressed of London’s fashion scene, I overheard conversations about Beauty and Brexit.
Inbound tourism will be the immediate beneficiary. Cheapflights.co.uk reported a boom in enquiries for flights to the UK from international markets. The company reported a doubling in flight searches from the US to the UK, searches from China jumped 61% and Canada 49%. “Searches for flights to the UK from EU countries shot up 31% in the same period, with Spain and Italy leading the push, showing increases of 84% and 62% respectively,” said managing director Andrew Shelton.
The weaker pound certainly makes it more attractive for me as a visitor – suddenly £75 doesn’t seem too much to pay for a musical in the West End. And with shops advertising “Sale” signs everywhere, you can understand the attraction of London for bargain-hunting, value-seeking, shopping-crazy Asians.
But this is short-term. Outbound travel will feel the pinch and tour operators and hoteliers I spoke to, who are reliant on the UK market, are predicting a dire 2017. Tourism boards like the Singapore Tourism Board will struggle to make numbers – longhaul will be hardest hit.
The Town Hall Hotel has has daily sayings to amuse guests. Well, there’s no changing what the majority of Britons said now.
Beyond travel, the longer term consequences are deeper and unknown. The three young girls I have been working with for our event at the Tate Modern this Thursday were more subdued and somber this time round than a month ago when I last visited them, but no less professional.
In their 20s, they are anxious and insecure about the future. This is the generation that voted overwhelmingly to remain. Their parents and grandparents, most of whom voted to leave, would be proud of them. In true British stiff upper lip fashion, they say, “We will carry on as best we can.”
There are so many questions. Will they lose the right to work across Europe? What happens to Spanish people working in Britain? Questions that will take a long time to be answered.
Said Hugo Burge, CEO of Momondo Group, ‘This is an uncertain day for those who believe that freedom to move, to experience different cultures, and to share knowledge, skills and expertise, are fundamental to who we are.
Hugo Burge: “The focus now needs to be on how we navigate the uncertainties with positivity and collaboration.”
“As an outward looking global business with offices in both London and mainland Europe, and users across the world, we’re advocates of the idea of the EU and believe strongly that the benefits it bring to us as a business, and the citizens of Europe in general, far outweigh the negatives.
“The focus now needs to be on how we navigate the uncertainties with positivity and collaboration. Business leaders, politicians, anyone with an influence need to work to ensure we resist an inward path and remain an active part of a global community. We need to build bridges, not walls.”
For now, a nation, known for its stoicness and resilience, will have to face the future its people have chosen. The only moment I saw that stoicness broken was when Iceland beat England last night in the UEFA Euro 2016. Yes, I distinctly heard hearts breaking all over England then. In that moment, it was a nation united, not divided.