Brexit, the U.K. and our responsibility to Europe

I write this as I watch the news of a horrific attack on a shopping mall in Munich. This follows the horrific attack in Nice and I wonder where has our sense of community (eupoean community) and human decency gone?

We really need to stand together now as Europeans. There are millions of Britons that feel European and grieve the potential loss of our involvement in the European project and we grieve for the loss of life of our European friends.

If there ever was a time when we need to stand together it is now.

Visit to liverpool

On the weekend, I took my youngest daughter on a trip to Liverpool (Ormskirk to be precise) for a chess tournament. We travelled up on Friday, stayed in Liverpool Friday night and went to the chess Saturday. Grace played really well in the all England girls championship winning one game and losing one game. She and I were very pleased we made the effort to go.

Funnily enough the 9 hour journey due to traffic was fun as we bonded, played the number plate game and generally laughed a lot.

I was surprised to see the number of “vote leave” banners on the M6 and wondered if the people that placed them really understood what a leave result would mean to the country and their fellow citizens. Anyway, the vote has come and gone and “leave” it is. I personally do not agree that such a narrow majority on such an country changing decision should be law but as so many have said, I am just a sore loser.

One thing that sruck me was the famous North/South divide did not make itself known to me. The north seemed just as developed (more so in some ways) than the south and people were friendly, positive and human, just like us in the south. Amazing isn’t it.

Brexit has divided our country, I hate that it has not gone the way I wanted and I honestly believe the north has benefited more than the south from EU investment but it is what it is, I only hope that whatever the future holds for our country, it does not promote xenophobia and intolerance.

Brexit and how it affects me

When anyone writes a narrative, it always contains bias and so does this one.

When the Brexit result was known, I was angry, disappointed, embarrassed and concerned for the future and the economic and political union of the U.K. Whilst I am still all of those things, I think I have narrowed down my real concerns. I am concerned for our youth and our place in the world but most of all, I am concerned about the rise of nationalism and overt racism.

Why am I so concerned and why does it bother me more than most?

Well, we are Australians making a life in the UK and unlike most UK citizens, we have seen nationalism at its worst.

I have never discussed this previously but when we first moved to our village 9 years ago we suffered several nationalist attacks, some of which included:

• Being shouted at in the street to “take your ####ing kids and your ####ing  animals and #### off back to Australia”
• Being asked “why should you have that house?”
• Bricks thrown through car windows
• Every panel on our car keyed
• Eggs thrown at our house
• My children verbally abused in our own garden
• And several other incidents (18 in total)

Whilst It was tempting to do as they wanted and leave, we realised there are far more decent people in this country than nationalistic morons, so we weathered the storm (with the help of the police) and 9 years later we are relatively free of this abuse.

I see the Brexit vote as a legitimisation of these views in the eyes of nationalists and that can only be bad for the country as a whole. In my view, if Article 50 is enacted, the country will lose us and many more migrants that enrich the UK, it will also lose free thinking youth and the brightest and best minds in science and economics. If this happens, the country will never fully recover and faces a real danger of being run and enhabited by nationalists and xenophobes.