Warning: I’ve been thinking again
About the EU Referendum this time. Obviously. Not much else to talk about today.
Throughout this whole ordeal, I've been safely stuck on the opinion that we should 100% remain as a part of the European Union. It's worked pretty well overall for the last 50 years, and honestly, none of the arguments I've seen from the Leave side seemed convincing in the slightest. Everything I've seen and read makes it clear that the Leave campaign, as in the actual politicians involved in it and the things that they have said, was based on misinformation, fear and basic xenophobia (The video from John Oliver that's been floating around the week explains this pretty clearly).
But, despite the fact that to me it seemed absolutely insane that we would choose to leave the organisation that's contributed so much to the fact that none of us have been trying to blow each other up for the last 70 years, the results came in today, and we voted to leave, with a 52-48% majority.
Now, firstly, that's an incredibly slim majority. We knew it would be close for the whole time, and that's definitely proven to be true.
When the news first came in, and still at the point of writing this, I'm genuinely scared to see what is going to happen next. No country has ever left the EU before, and we have no idea of the long-term effects of this. Short term? In the two hours since the results came in, the value of the pound has dropped 10% (Bearing in mind that 1% is considered a huge drop, this is an insane amount to have dropped), we've overall lost 350 BILLION pounds from our economy, and the politicians in the leave camp already seem to be backing out of the promises that they made throughout the campaign. That's a worrying start. Now, of course, this could improve. No matter what the result, it was always pretty likely that the pound was going to take a hit. But 10% is a staggering amount to have dropped, and is going to have some serious repercussions over the next year at least, more than likely.
To be brutally honest, I'm pretty pissed off about all of this. And I still am. I feel like this was the perfect opportunity to show a world that's pretty much falling apart at the seams that we can stay united and strong. And what we've actually done is decided to separate ourselves from the rest of the organisation that we were such a big part of. (Side note - The 'lack of control' the UK has in the EU parliament is pretty well summed up by the fact that since the EU started, we've been in favour of almost all of the laws suggested, and overall have been on the losing side of these votes a mere 2% of the time.)
So yeah, I'm pretty pissed. But (This is going to get worrying preachy) after all of this, after the initial shock has calmed down, and after a bit of thinking, I've come to a few conclusions.
1. Whatever the result, it's been made pretty clear to me that if we're trying to promote Unity, we're going to have to really work at it. Yes, I disagree with the decision, very strongly. But, much as I hate it, the decision has been made, and though I don't think it was the right decision, I also think that we have another choice to make: We can either go sulking off, sitting in the corner of our little podium, grumbling about how 'it's not our problem' and 'They've brought this on themselves', or we can try to make the best of a bad situation. I don't believe that there's such thing as a definite reality, and though it'll be hard, and there's going to be a lot of struggling, I do believe that we can still make this work. Yes, we've rejected the unity of the EU, but that doesn't mean we have to reject unity altogether. If we want to try and reduce the impact of this decision, then we're going to have to make that effort ourselves, and we're going to have to do it as the United Kingdom that we're so obsessed with being. It's going to be hard, and things are likely going to be bad for a while, but there's no reason why we can't get through this if we work together.
2. We shouldn't let this change us. There's a huge instinct to show contempt towards the people who disagree with us. I've felt it as well. But, I don't want to let that happen. I have friends who, if we had been given the opportunity, would have voted remain. And, although I think that doing so would have been a mistake, I don't want to let the knowledge of that change my relationship with these people.
Though I've had a lot of struggles with my faith recently, which I'll probably go into another time, one thing I can't help but believe in is God himself. And, flicking through the internet, I came across this verse: 'My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.' - James 1, 19-20'. Now, I get that a lot of people probably don't believe in God. But, personally, I tend to feel like when stuff like this comes up so perfectly, it means something. Like I said in the first conclusion I found, if we just give up, then this exit really will be the disaster that we're expecting. Anger isn't going to get us anywhere, and I for one refuse to let one differing opinion overshadow everything else.
So, final conclusion, we're probably pretty screwed, and I don't get why, but now that it's happened, we need to make sure that we work together to make sure that we still have a future to look forward too.
(Sources of some of the stuff I brought up earlier)
John Oliver on Brexit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgKHSNqxa8
Pound devaluation: http://goo.gl/jhaHIQ
EU Parliament Statistics: https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-facts-behind-claims-uk-influence/
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