It has now been 3 days since the dawn hit us woth the Brexit vote. My mourning period should be over but I feel it is just starting. On Friday, we got voted out of the EU. Yes, we. At first, I thought I was being pessimistic and really this was not about EU workers, but really immigration and refugees. As reality hits, and despite the Mayor of London's message that we are welcome here, the UK has changed in the last 48 hours, and suddenly it became acceptable to insult foreigners in the street, to send them home, to tell them they are no longer welcome. This has been a really additional shocker to everything else that was already happening.
On Friday, I was immersed in sadness. I could not believe the magnitude of the decision that just happened and the implicarions for the UK, for Europe, and the world. Few crisis are so directly self inflicted as this one. I was in the office at 3 am, ready to see history unravel but really hoping I did it. Until 3, there was space for hope, from there there was just disbelief around me. Certainly there were some leave voters there, but either they were to shocked at the outcome or just felt sorry to rub it in our faces straight away. There was some panic, but the overwhelmimg feeling of most people was sadness. Is this at us? Is this at the poor refugees whose country has been destroyed by war? Is this because of bankers dictating the rules of business? Is this because of pure power plays of power hungry politicians? What about the people? What will this mean?
When I got home I tried to tell C I as sad because our country that we lived in said they did not want to be friends anymore. How can I explain to her the country she was born in does not want her there. In my bag I feel the safety of my newly printed citizenship documents and her passport application form. No, it is not like I want to be British right now. But I have to be pragmatic. She was born here and is starting her education here. I want to give her the optionality to live and work here in the future, if this is still a good place for that then. We have had the forms for a while, but the illusion this might never happen made us postpone it. No more. And what about us, what if we are out of jobs, go back to Portugal and things don't go as planned? Re-entering will be much harder. And we are entitled to passports anyway. I print the forms in the clear internal conflict, that right now, I do not want to be British.
And then the weekend just makes everything worse. People regretting votes, Leave campaigners coming out to say some of the promises are not quite like that, Leave voters saying they only voted because they did not think they could win, Cornwall massive voting Leave and now saying they want to keep EU funds and will now do an impact assessment. Usually you do that before you choose. I can't help but feel revolted at the bad campaign of the last months. Rather than fighting each other, Remain campaigners were unable to engage at each constituency level and explain in plain, truthful and legal English in a way people would see this befor they vote. The level of discredit given to politicians is so high that people had trouble believing in anything that was said. How can people be surprised the NHS number is a fraud, how can people be surprised at David Cameron quitting and now being stuck with Boris, how can people be surprised that the EU did not come running after the UK with a sweet deal and rather said 'out is out please leave now'.
And when you thought it could not get more damaging the social media starts telling me about all the incidents. A woman on the bus with a baby is told by an old lady to leave and go pack. A polish waiter in a restaurant asked by a British couple 'why are you laughing, you have to go back to your country now'. 3.1 MM people signing a petition for a second referendum, a general strike called for all EU workers, anti-brexit marches, the list goes on.
What have you don UK? Will you be UK for long? Do 52% of people even know why they voted out?
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