Brexit : The End with no New Beginning

I am feeling a profound sense of loss today. My country, my tolerant, welcoming, open, progressive, supportive, multicultural, friendly country, disappeared in 24 hours of shame and heart-breaking closed-mindedness.

The referendum has dragged me, and 48% of this country from light into darkness. Their insecurities about our culture (and let’s face it, this was the overwhelming reason) has caused possibly the biggest insecurity in decades. It has made me apologetic for my country, not for the minority of idiots fighting at a football game, but for 52% of our UK voters. I have found myself saying sorry to my European friends, to people on Twitter, and to the lovely French guy in Pret who I say hello to when paying for my overpriced salad fix. I have found myself looking at everyone on the street with an eye of suspicion, did they vote out? Did they condemn us to this?

I’m also feeling a real loss of identity. Above all I do identify myself as European first, British a very far off second. I studied French, German and English at school, and read International Relations and Politics alongside sociology for a year at University. When the terrorist attacks happened in Paris, they may as well have happened in London – it was an attack on me as a European. As someone who believed in the wider society, in thinking outside of the box, of tolerance rather than exclusion. Of community rather than individuals. Of something greater than our small island with our small-minded islanders.  So how do I identify myself now? Who am I?

I am genuinely fearful of the future. Sure, it may take 2 years for this to officially happen, and an awful lot can happen in 2 years, but will the current population of Europeans want to stay, knowing that 52% of people don’t want them here? I wouldn’t want to – I barely want to myself. It’s infuriating, it’s scary, and it’s so unbelievably sad. It’s an end, with no idea what the new beginning will be. It’s a loss.

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