EU Referendum | writermummy

I don’t really want to talk any more about the EU Referendum, but I’m going to anyway, because I can’t think of anything else.

I feel like I’ve been going through the grief cycle: shock, anger, helplessness, bargaining and acceptance.

I read an article in the Guardian online that helped a tiny bit. It compared the result to a workers’ revolt, following years of austerity and being marginalised and disenfranchised by an uncaring government (I’m paraphrasing).

I can buy that.

I don’t personally think leaving the EU is the right response, but I can understand that those with nothing to lose will fear the consequences less. And I’m enough of a leftie liberal to quite like the idea of shaking up a settled and self-satisfied elite.

I can also understand why people voted who hadn’t voted for twenty years. Because this time their vote mattered. With our system of voting in a new government, it’s hard to make a difference (or can seem that way). But a yes/no vote? Every vote counted.

Anyway. It’s done.

The hardest part is taking the world’s criticism. We’ve always been quick to criticise others. Laughing at Trump supporters and being angry at those who support gun rights.

Now it’s our turn to be the cause of shock and ridicule. And the world hasn’t held its punches.

As someone who connects to people all over the world, through my blog and other social media, I’m seeing some awful things being said.

We deserve all of it.

volkswagen-158463_1280 All of us. Not just those who voted to leave, but those who voted in a Tory government, those who didn’t fight harder for an opposition to be proud of, those who thought only of their own and didn’t worry about anyone else. Those who let the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.

We got our just desserts.

The world feels broken and I’m not seeing anyone I trust to fix it. Not here, not across the pond, not in Europe. Not in this generation. Maybe in the next. Millennials, sorry we fucked it up for you, please help us fix it.

I’ve studied history. I know where this goes next. And if we wait long enough, live long enough, survive long enough, perhaps we’ll reach a new swinging sixties of love and peace.

Let’s hope it doesn’t take thirty years. I can’t wait that long.

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Dogs at Polling Stations

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or with earphones in, reading classic novels, and listening to rock, in which case I envy you) for the last few weeks/months (feels like forever), you’ll know that Britain had a rather important vote on 23rd June.

The European Union: stay (Bremain) or go (Brexit).

It’s quite a big deal, and lots of important people have waded in on the arguments for and against. To be honest I stopped listening a while ago, when I decided which way to go. It doesn’t really matter. As I put on my FB page earlier today, “In? Out? Whatever it’s all about, I feel honoured to have the right to vote.”

What’s even better is that I got to vote twice, as my sister applied for a proxy vote. She’s living in America now, and gutted she can’t take part in the presidential elections, so she applied to vote where she could. And thankfully we were on the same page, so I got to vote the same way twice.

It’s awesome.

I find it hugely empowering to vote. I don’t know if it’s because of my English Teacher, Miss Corby, who impressed upon me age thirteen that the vote is a sacred right, and it’s better to invalidate your ballot slip and be counted than not turn up at all. Or learning about the Suffragettes, or seeing what people endure in other countries to be counted.

Whatever the reasons, I think I’ve only missed a couple of votes in the last twenty one years. Local Council, MEP, MP, you name it, I’ve voted.

It’s frustrating, with the system that we have, that my vote often counts for very little. I live in an area where the majority (or at least the majority who vote, which is not the same thing here, with a miserable turnout usually) vote a different colour to me. Hey, even my husband votes a different colour to me.

That’s annoying. But that’s democracy. It’s better than nothing.

But the referendum? My vote counts! It’s a yes/no decision. I will make a difference.

Whatever you think about Bremain, Brexit, Politics, or anything else, when you consider what people have gone through – and still go through – to cast their vote, being able to do it safely and without prejudice is amazing.

I took my dog to the polling booth (so I could post a #DogsAtPollingStations post!). It was quiet, friendly, easy. No picketing people, no riots, no violence. No one turning me away for being a woman or voting for the wrong side.

I’ve deliberately written this post before the polling stations close. I don’t want to know the result. In some ways it doesn’t matter. There is no right answer to this, and whatever the decision, change will come.

In? Out? What if the hokey cokey really is what it’s all about? I still got to vote, and that’s pretty cool.