Dear Kids. I am sorry

Head in the sand

I don’t know what else to say, really.

I am so sorry that your future has, effectively, just been ruined.   Everything we have worked for in the past thirty years towards your future has been destroyed by a pencil mark on a piece of paper.

I went to sleep at 2am proud to be European, and I woke up at 5.30am ashamed to be English.

As I was walking the dog last night at ten past ten we saw a fox running across the road and jumping into the local electricity sub station.   There was an almighty bang, he clearly died instantly and all the lights went out.   Literally.   There was a power cut for about a square mile.  People came out of their houses to stand in the road and see if it was just them or if their neighbours were in the dark too.   The street lights had all gone out and it felt like the end of the world.

A fox had caused localised chaos

Whilst a 6% margin overnight now sees us plunged into chaos and leaving the EU.

A win for a campaign led by odious men that at the general election nobody wanted.   One, Farage, who within minutes of the result, has said that the £350 Million fund that will no longer go to the EU can’t actually go to the NHS.   It was a lie.   One of the main points of his campaign is a lie.

An untruth.  With an absence of fact.    Of which there are many.

What we do know is that 75% of 18 to 25 year olds voted remain, because this really effects them.   This is about them.   That is all three of my children and my daughter’s boyfriend.    This is them.   Yet their future has now been decided by a mostly older generation who voted for a very different future.

The generation that had free university and are enjoying their pensions .  This age group mostly voted against you, kids.  And I am sorry.

Europe think I voted, that my family voted, to leave them.  Europe we didn’t.   I didn’t.   They didn’t.   We are proud to hold European passports (which will now have to be re-issued) and really don’t want to be seen as xenophobic.

I should point out that I have respect for those that voted leave if that is their true belief.   We live in a democracy after all and had the shoe been on the other foot I would ask the same from them of my vote.    What I don’t respect is those that voted leave just to “stick two fingers up to the establishment” as appears to have been the case in Sunderland.    Or those that voted leave simply because they hated Cameron.

I have zero respect for the 16 million people who didn’t vote.   Who couldn’t be bothered.   Who didn’t want to go out in the rain.   Who didn’t think it would matter.

Well it does matter.   It matters today.  It matters tomorrow.   It will matter in thirty years.

In 12 minutes this morning £190 billion has been wiped off the value of our stock market.  

Enough to pay for our membership of the EU for 45 years. 

Just read that again

If you voted leave, this is what you voted for.

 

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  • I am with you. Although I am not British. My kids are. I wanted them to live in a big family and now they can’t. I weeped for them today. I am sorry. I am sorry they might need to live in a world lead by people like Putin , Trump and Farage….Oh God.

    • It just doesn’t seem right does it Otilia. That you are a family of Europeans, you have European children and split your time in Europe. That this has now been ripped away by this and will undoubtedly change. I could cry

    • Charlie thank you so much for taking the time to read and to comment.

      It staggers me that so many of us are feeling this today, facing something we didn’t vote for.

  • oh tanya – its so STUPID feels like the whole world s going backwards – not what I wanted for my kids – how do the Trumps and Farages even have a voice.SO WRONG

  • I could have written this although not as well as you I am sure. I have shared this everywhere and so many people are reacting to it on my social media which just goes to show how much of a divide this is already causing. I felt like I was grieving this morning – I never expected to feel that way. Its a sad sad day for us and it has made me feel rather ashamed to say I am Welsh. I am angry. I agree with the right to vote but this just feels ever so wrong.

  • Thank you so much for sharing this! I think the thing that makes be so cross is that those who will be affected the most and for the longest are those whose voices were overshadowed in this 🙁 I fear for our future, for the future of my child, and for the future of any grandchildren I may have. How could we let this happen? Having spoken to family and colleagues (of the older generation) who voted to Leave I do believe they honestly thought what they were doing was the right thing, and so I can’t fault them that… I just fear that the ramifications of that may be greater than they imagined!

    • And I think that is my point. I do respect anybody who has voted leave. That is their right, we live in a democracy. And if they feel that was right for them, great. But is it right for future generations? That is the point you make and that I also worry about. And I fear it isn’t. And all that fear and uncertainty is destabilizing in the short term and that is no good thing either.

  • Never before have a so badly wanted to cry after I’ve heard the result of any political campaign I have had a vote for. Never before have I been less proud to be English as let’s face it I probably won’t be British for much longer as slowly ‘Great’ Britain get broken into chunks. I don’t know what the future holds but I can safely say I desperately want to be proven wrong.

  • Only just reading your piece. Have been banging my head on a table most of the day1
    I think we should set Boris, Niggle and Gove adrift in an open mandate with the Owl and the Pussycat.
    Wretched result.
    And if/when the UK breaks up bang goes our seat on the security council.
    And Argentina will be looking forward to invading the Falklands again.
    One old soldier interviewed today:- “Beat the bloody Germans twice.Not taking orders from them now”
    Well said sir!

  • I feel sick. I woke up with the gut wrenching feeling that this is a nightmare and it’s not real. But it is.
    This pensioner didn’t vote for something that will dominate the rest of my life, and can only end in tears.
    We have no idea what Pandora’s box has been opened. Europe is now in deep trouble. We could have helped, but we walked away. The EU is hugely imperfect, and the top politicians aren’t listening to the jungle drums in their own countries,, but our history has always to be a reliable ally in times of trouble.
    A man on the news last night said ” it’s all about immigration, all,these Poles. Kick ’em out, all of them.
    A Polish politician on the same news said angrily, ” that’s the last time Polish pilots will fly in defence of your country. My father flew in the RAF in the war, and this is how you repay us”.
    The sad tragedy is that the Brexiteers won’t deliver a stop to immigration because this country needs it. Who is going to pick the vegetables and clean the floors in hospital? Not Brits for sure.
    A sad sad day, and I am ashamed too to be English.