The Day I Fell Out Of Love With My Country
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One week ago today I fell out of love with my country.
I have always been a passionate Brit, but also a European. Don’t worry, I’m not about to go over the arguments for and against the European Union!
I awoke at 3:45, my alarm had been set, and I switched on the internet to find Nigel Farage making some kind of victory speech. Surely not?
When the referendum had been announced, in my head it was more of a case of how much the winning margin would be. I wanted the referendum so that we could finally put a stop to the anti-EU nonsense from around one third of the Conservative MPs. But with a few weeks to go, I started to be worried. There were a couple of weeks when people were asking me how it was going to go, that I said leave would win. Then in the final week, my confidence of a remain victory returned – on the final day, most polls were showing an 8-10% lead for remain – a couple with a small lead for leave.
To wake up to Nigel Fucking Farage, of all people, gloating and beaming about taking his country back, and taking control was anathema to everything I believed in. Project Lies/Project Hate had beaten Project Fear.
My heart sank.
In fact, last Friday was the most unhappy I have felt in a long time. At first I was miserable. Shocked and miserable. Then anger took over. I was fuming to the point that I actually considered punching one of my gloating colleagues (who is still winding people up). Even the next day I was furious.
What really got me was the rejection of the values that I believed in and I thought my country stood for:
- Openness
- Tolerance
- Freedom
- Internationalism
- Liberalism
- Honesty
All of these values that I strongly believe in, had been rejected by 51.9% of my fellow countrymen.
I was hurt and am still hurt. As it stands, I no longer love my country.
I didn’t even care about England losing to Iceland on Monday.
It will probably come back, and I don’t despise my country like Jeremy Corbyn seems to. Who knows, Brexit might not actually happen, or maybe we’ll find a way to make it work without too much of a hit to the economy, keeping full access to the single market and most importantly, keeping freedom of movement. There is no certainty that it will be a disaster.
But the values that I hold dear have been rejected by my fellow countrymen and for that I will long remain saddened.
I want my country back.