Earlier this month I organized a March against Brexit in Bagni di Lucca. It was well advertised both locally and in Facebook. The protest consisted of a gathering in the square in front of the forestieri in Bagni villa and a stroll down to bar Italia.
Those who turned up to make their views known about the most ridiculous political decision a British government has taken since Ethelred the Unready’s foreign policy (don’t worry if you can’t remember what it was just, as people today forget what the poll tax was all about) were a mere handful and they were all concerned British residents of Lucca who’d come specially for the occasion. There was no one present from Bagni di Lucca at all (apart from me)!
In the end the rally turned out to be more of a meeting between aquaintances and the proposed march was called off in favour of shopping in the local market.
I clearly overestimated the political know-how of the worthy band of British immigrants and visitors of our comune and their reliance on fake news (and fake foreign secretaries too).
Just on the matter of holidaymakers to Bagni di Lucca, figures already show that the numbers are encouragingly up on those from last year but that the increase is largely from non-brits. It’s the Dutch, the Germans, the Scandinavians and the French who are now the majority of European visitors to our area. People from the uk are down nearly 30%. What’s more alarming is the fact that uk citizens with holiday homes here have not been able to afford to come to stay in them.
These are facts not just drawn by a straw poll but by figures drawn from local statistics. Bagni di Lucca is littered with empty houses bought by hopeful inhabitants of the British isles who now have an albatross tied round their necks.
It’s the increasing downfall spiralling of the uk pound against the euro (parity between the two currencies is expected by Christmas) that is the main reason for these phenomena. Banks do not like uncertainty and the continuing floundering of an inept band of amateurs and buffoons at the palace of Westminster is not helping.
Regrettably, I will not be able to join the sensible people who will give the forthcoming guest of the old Dominican convent of Santa Maria di Novella in Florence the reception she may truly merit today.
On the other hand, the long tradition of cultural and economic interchange between London and Florence may make the beleaguered head of a minority government, increasingly threatened by rising inflation, decrease in the value of the pound, souring community relationships, higher food prices, anxiety among all those non-UK workers who have kept the orchards of Britain still producing, the hospitals still managing to heal and the caterers still able to present edible food, could make her government see some light at the end of a tunnel which now seems much longer than the one underneath the channel.
Hope is an ever stronger anchor….