Today the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU. Or rather, I should say ‘half’ of the people of the United Kingdom, for what shook me the most about the result today was how close it was.
51.9% to 48.1%. These figures stand to symbolise the disunity of a population and the distance between generations. Is it not alarming that we can be so divided? Disconcerting that we can claim a democratic majority with a 3.8% difference? I would be arguing the same if the results had been the opposite. For in short: this is a divided kingdom, and what is worse, by making the decision to leave, we have defined ourselves by this division.
I have felt the rise in paranoia. I have seen stances grow more extreme. I have heard the voices of children in my classroom parroting the prejudices of their parents, parroting the persuasion of politicians. And now, staring at that blue and yellow arch on the BBC News homepage, I see the first step on a bleak journey. The UK has made a choice. It does not want intelligent argument, thoughtfulness, research or fact. It is fear we want, emotion, rhetoric, even a bare-faced lie if it can get a reaction or one more vote. Not even the repugnant political personalities of Farage and Gove are enough to give second-thought to that heady mix of sensationalism and easy apathy that drives UK politics. Half of the voting population have elected a change that is still yet to be clearly explained or justified. What was the point again? Immigration? Economy? Freedom of … what exactly? Gove was right; we’ve had enough of experts. We just want to know who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s left and who’s right, who’s red and who’s blue, who’s black and who’s white. We want easy answers and to know whose side we’re on. But when we define ourselves down party lines, class divides and generation gaps, we can never be a united kingdom, no matter how proudly we assert it.
Today I have looked in the faces of twenty-somethings and teenagers in tears, not because they are sad or angry or even disappointed, but because they are scared. They are scared of an uncertain future that is not in their hands, of opportunities closed to them; and more than anything, of how much their parents could betray them, putting their present fears over the next generation’s future worries. In a poll conducted by my school’s sixth form (largely made up of students merely months too young to be entitled to vote), 92% said they would vote to remain. So where are those frightened voices now?
Lost in the chasm of that 3.8%.
51.9% to 48.1%. These figures stand to symbolise the disunity of a population and the distance between generations. Is it not alarming that we can be so divided? Disconcerting that we can claim a democratic majority with a 3.8% difference? I would be arguing the same if the results had been the opposite. For in short: this is a divided kingdom, and what is worse, by making the decision to leave, we have defined ourselves by this division.
I have felt the rise in paranoia. I have seen stances grow more extreme. I have heard the voices of children in my classroom parroting the prejudices of their parents, parroting the persuasion of politicians. And now, staring at that blue and yellow arch on the BBC News homepage, I see the first step on a bleak journey. The UK has made a choice. It does not want intelligent argument, thoughtfulness, research or fact. It is fear we want, emotion, rhetoric, even a bare-faced lie if it can get a reaction or one more vote. Not even the repugnant political personalities of Farage and Gove are enough to give second-thought to that heady mix of sensationalism and easy apathy that drives UK politics. Half of the voting population have elected a change that is still yet to be clearly explained or justified. What was the point again? Immigration? Economy? Freedom of … what exactly? Gove was right; we’ve had enough of experts. We just want to know who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s left and who’s right, who’s red and who’s blue, who’s black and who’s white. We want easy answers and to know whose side we’re on. But when we define ourselves down party lines, class divides and generation gaps, we can never be a united kingdom, no matter how proudly we assert it.
Today I have looked in the faces of twenty-somethings and teenagers in tears, not because they are sad or angry or even disappointed, but because they are scared. They are scared of an uncertain future that is not in their hands, of opportunities closed to them; and more than anything, of how much their parents could betray them, putting their present fears over the next generation’s future worries. In a poll conducted by my school’s sixth form (largely made up of students merely months too young to be entitled to vote), 92% said they would vote to remain. So where are those frightened voices now?
Lost in the chasm of that 3.8%.
Blame too must perhaps be given to those 27.8% who did not vote. Who naively believed that the British people could not be so foolish, so misled, or so frightened to actually make this decision. Who had such blind faith in common sense that they did not feel the need to raise a voice for the common causes of reason and factual truth. But let this be the lesson learned: that rational, quiet voices can no longer tread water in the vitriolic sea of louder, deceitful ones – that sometimes, when sense is drowning, we must declare what is obvious to keep ourselves afloat.
Before today, I had never seriously considered living anywhere but England. I had continued blithely in the belief that, for all its flaws, the UK was going to be alright. Indeed, the one redeeming quality of this ‘Great’ Britain was that it seemed to have enough humility in its present, and enough shame of its past, to get on quietly in one piece. But now I am not so sure.
We have become arrogant and proud. I don’t want to live in a country divided down its middle, a nation no longer united, whose predominant message to the world is: “We don’t want you!” Because we can all hear that message, and one-by-one, we will all be turned away. We will turn away our professionals and our students, for we cannot promise a better life or education; we will turn away our artisans and academics, for there is no value in art or science here; and then we will turn away each other, as each of us who once voted to remain will vote to leave.
What a sad little island will be left behind, trapped so close to the borders of the world, but with its doors shut, its windows barred, its fingers in its ears.
I could be wrong. I cannot know. Impacts will barely be felt at first. But I still fear the route we are taking, the lines we are drawing, the future we are building. I want so badly to be wrong. But it is hard to be wrong in a country that has decided that it is so right.
Before today, I had never seriously considered living anywhere but England. I had continued blithely in the belief that, for all its flaws, the UK was going to be alright. Indeed, the one redeeming quality of this ‘Great’ Britain was that it seemed to have enough humility in its present, and enough shame of its past, to get on quietly in one piece. But now I am not so sure.
We have become arrogant and proud. I don’t want to live in a country divided down its middle, a nation no longer united, whose predominant message to the world is: “We don’t want you!” Because we can all hear that message, and one-by-one, we will all be turned away. We will turn away our professionals and our students, for we cannot promise a better life or education; we will turn away our artisans and academics, for there is no value in art or science here; and then we will turn away each other, as each of us who once voted to remain will vote to leave.
What a sad little island will be left behind, trapped so close to the borders of the world, but with its doors shut, its windows barred, its fingers in its ears.
I could be wrong. I cannot know. Impacts will barely be felt at first. But I still fear the route we are taking, the lines we are drawing, the future we are building. I want so badly to be wrong. But it is hard to be wrong in a country that has decided that it is so right.
