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.

Tagged:Brexit