Trouble digesting Brexit
When I woke up the day after the referendum, I went to work and stared at the Bloomberg screen, it wasn’t the erratic behaviour of the markets that upset me. I’ve seen similar indecisive knee-jerk reactions many times before. I just felt sad that our relationship with the EU didn’t work out and had ended like this.
I’m still very pro-European. And, I genuinely want the EU to work even without Britain in it because I care deeply about many of the countries that are part of it. I don’t want Britain to leave – I voted to remain. However, I have a tremendous respect her democratic decision to do so. I will not blame those that wanted to leave or dismiss their points of view.
What really concerns me is how divided the nation now feels. There is the threat again that Scotland might leave. Millions of people have signed a petition for a second referendum. The nation now seems split in two: those that live in Remainia and those that reside in Leavia. I will not live in either – I’m British.
What I would say to my beloved country is to have faith. Britain is not going to just disappear of the face of the earth just because it may leave the EU. We will still have trade relations with Europe. They may not turn out to be as favourable, but we are not Norway or Switzerland.
On the contrary, we are a nation of 64 million people with a GDP of 2.7 trillion US dollars. We are a force to be reckoned with at the negotiation table where neither Britain nor the EU would want to lose out.
I’m not saying it will be easy and I would prefer if we didn’t take this path. However, our presence in this world and the influence we have globally took centuries to build, long before the EU existed. This is not the end of Britain.
I hail from immigrant background whose family came to Britain in the late 1960s with virtually nothing. Today, more than three quarters of my extended family work for the NHS. They’ve saved people lives, paid enormous amounts of money in taxes and tried to make a genuine contribution to the prosperity of Great Britain.
I’m proud to be British and as an ethnic minority I apologise to anyone who feels that I have contributed to watering down of our nation’s identity. Some of the uncomfortable undertones I heard during the Brexit debate worry me deeply.
The leadership of the new ‘free world’ could also look very different a year from now. Boris Johnson’s spectacular gamble to back Brexit has paid off. He could well be the next ‘non-elected’ UK Prime Minister. Donald Trump has also used our referendum to gain political currency in the US presidential election. My feelings are mixed.
In some ways these individuals bear some similarities: they are both Americans and both have crazy haircuts. But, I can’t help feel just a little bit nervous about the future of our special relationship with the US. I’m annoyed that both these individuals exploited Brexit for their own political agendas.
These are just a few of the feelings that ran through my mind when I woke up on Friday morning after the referendum. However, after a weekend of reflection, now is time to look forward.
We don’t have time for anger or division. Let’s work together regardless of which way we voted. We need to come together and show how great the British people are even outside the EU.
We have fought many battles together in our nation’s history. We have suffered, but always prevailed stronger. It’s important that we show the world how united we are. This is the true British spirit.
Therefore, I’m prouder than ever to say, “I am British”.
