Brexit: Waking up in Little Britain

Veröffentlicht: 16. Juli 2022, 10:22 Uhr

Aktualisiert: 09. Juni 2025, 23:01 Uhr

Von: wom87

The decision of the UK to leave the EU was a bad one. On Friday, June 24th, I woke up and found that I lived in a completely different Great Britain when I thought

kia and I keep ourselves away from politics in this blog. We have such a diverse and international audience that a region's politics rarely interests everyone. However, last week our home country made a decision that triggered shock waves worldwide. The British vote for leaving the European Union was a bad decision that I think I cannot ignore.

loss of identity

on Friday, June 24th, I woke up and found that I lived in a completely different Great Britain than I thought.

I thought I was living in an advanced, open -minded, coherent Great Britain, which is committed to promoting the world in a positive way. On Thursday I was proud to be Briton. On Friday it was embarrassing to be Briton.

I was born in 1984. I was born in a Europe that still had to deal with the aftermath of the Second World War; A still shared Europe in the middle of the Cold War. This Europe was united in the early 90s, and when I became of legal age and started really politically committed, I was part of a free Europe.

A Europe that would be so different from the Europe that I had met in history at school. The mistakes and divisions of the past would never be repeated again.

I always felt British, not English. I am part of a country that consists of four very different nations, all of which are united under a kingdom. My family name, Watson, is a Scottish name, part of an old clan associated with the areas of Aberdeen and Kincardineshire. We even have our own tartan.

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divided kingdom: Scotland and northern Ireland elected Remain; England and Wales largely voted for Leave

I always felt like a European. Great Britain belongs to Europe. Historically speaking, Great Britain is part of Europe and Politically, Great Britain was part of Europe. I always had an identity. This identity was both British and European. To mention unnecessarily that Kia and I both voted at the referendum for Remain.

Now my country and his identity in the flow. The referendum on EU membership has changed things. We as a nation clearly sent a message to Europe, and this message is roughly as much as this: We believe that we are better off without it.

Since Scotland is right against Brexit, it is also becoming increasingly likely that they will be left the United Kingdom. For the first time in my life, I feel like a stranger in my own country. I thought I had understood my compatriots, but now I'm not so sure.

a divided country

Most of the toxic Leave campaign was led to immigration. Whether you are for or against immigration is largely irrelevant because the leaders of the Leave campaign have never promised to reduce immigration in Great Britain. Instead of facts and data, xenophobic rhetoric has largely dominated the campaign and focused on "the others" and how "they" steal jobs, blackmail social benefits and strain our healthcare.

This argument is so caustic. In a country that has been built for centuries of colonization, it is almost hypocritical to complain about immigration. In a country in which immigrants form the backbone of our public services, our health and education system, it is short-sighted to say that they are not welcome.

Great Britain is a country that was built up over 2,000 years of immigration. Our first king was a damn French immigrant because he screamed loudly! And our current royal family is German descent.

alt = “wake up for the small British colonization”>

I don't speak from a privileged London perspective either. I grew up in Caister-on-Sea near Great Yarmouth, where there is a UKIP mayor. I am very familiar with the specific mix of disenfranchisement, segregation and social immobility, which drives the revolt against the establishment. However, the choice of leaving is not just a cry for attention; It is a deafening scream of rejection.

HAVE HALFED THE PEOPLE IN YOUR LAND STORIES as the extremist nationalist parties such as UKIP, BNP and EDL - the only British political parties that support the exit from the EU? Do you really agree Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and the leader of Isis? Do you really believe in what you just voted for?

This week Great Britain declined by Europeans. Who will be the next?

My country suddenly feels very split.

lost generation

The greatest tragedy of this referendum is that the people who will affect the most - the people who have to live with it the longest - are exactly the people who have voted against it. Decisive 73 % of 18 to 24 year olds and 62 % of the 25- to 34-year-olds voted for whereabouts. These are the generations that have to live with the consequences of Brexit.

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This widespread quote from the Financial Times is best to get to the point:

"The younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never experience the full extent of the missed opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences that are denied.

A Twitter user pressed it out more bluntly:

"A generation that gave everything: free education, golden pensions, social mobility, voted to take the future of my generation."

Personally, Kia and I have a lot to consider. We are currently in Great Britain and are planning our next big trip. After that we wanted to move back to France for a while. Maybe it has to be further away now.

The result of the referendum will influence our future. Certain doors will have closed now and others may be more difficult to open. We have to let the dust lie before we decide what our options are. One thing is certain that we feel uncomfortable in a country that has joined the ideology of the extreme right.

the future ...

I believe that Great Britain has made a catastrophic mistake. The EU is by no means perfect, but very few unions are ever. The exit arguments are actually only arguments to improve the EU; To repair it, don't leave it.

I hope that the result of the exit is rather a misleading of the British public and not that she really believes in what she just voted: division, isolationism, xenophobia. Either way, the conclusion is worrying - millions of people are either ignorant or intolerant or both.

My farewell thoughts on this topic are the same as my opening: embarrassment. Travel is an important part of our lives, and if we meet people from now on and ask you where we come from, I will tell you that I am Brit, and it will be embarrassing: embarrassing that my country seems to believe that it is better than the European Union; embarrassed that we made a stupid decision on an international stage; embarrassing that we couldn't see how well we had it and that we thrown everything away.

My only hope is that the current and future member states of the European Union will continue to show openness and tolerance towards the British and the rest of the world. Many of my compatriots made a mistake - please do not judge us all of us according to their mistakes.