I woke up to a myriad of despondency amongst my friends on social media. All in favour of remaining in the EU. All in favour of unity and tolerance over fear and ignorance, and all pretty disappointed, angry or both. 
It’s the same friends that 13 months ago were also feeling the same way when the general election results came in. 
Can you blame us?

How many political mess ups have already happened from the Tories? The junior doctor contracts, the welfare bill, turning schools into academies, billions of pounds proposed to be invested in trident. These are all political motivations that have ended up with newspaper headlines with the word ‘crisis’ in it, serious protest and resistance or spin and U-turns. 

But this EU referendum took the biscuit. It never should have happened. Too late for that now, and there’s the final nail in the coffin for Cameron’s leadership. 

This referendum became one of the most divisive and bitter I have ever seen. Both campaigns used subterfuge and fear to promote their campaign. How can you reason your decision on such values? I want legislative action on the use of stats, the misguided figure on the buses that we spend £350 million is a moral irresponsibility when it is significantly less binary than that. The remain campaign was just as bad, using the lesser likelihood of war as a selling point. Don’t get me started on the Sun or demon ridden figures like Hopkins or Murdoch. 

The spirit of the bogeyman is high. The immigrants are taking over! Farage’s nazi-esque poster, another endorsement of said xenophobic and regressive values. You can’t escape the transgressive smug face of such a disgusting individual. He stands for everything me and my friends do not. 

Despite the watered down in and out politicking. The EU is a complicated one. I weighed up the reasons with Brexit being heavily swayed by those who are concerned with immigration, and the money issue with a desire from the older generations for what was.

What was once won’t come back again regardless. 

Remain was campaigned for ambivalently. Cameron was hopeless. Corbyn seemed half hearted in his statement that we should stay when bureaucracy in the EU has arguably at times, run amok. It’s not perfect, but no reasons to leave convinced me, I read several financial experts guidance, the EU’s funding in deprived areas in Wales not too far from me and the need for unity in such uncertain times made staying in the necessity. For me and my friend at least anyways.

The result was close. The U.K. Is split almost in the middle but alas, we leave.

What are the implications of that? I don’t know, it’s too early to tell. It is however ironic that the areas that were regenerated from EU funding voted to leave. Why? They ask the misinformed folk on the BBC? So we can ‘take our country back’! What on Earth does that even mean? The concept of possessing an island of tea drinkers is a rather abstract concept to me! 

Whatever the implications, what disheartens me most is the values that we have promoted in these last few months. The murder of Jo Cox, an mp who, despite the tarred brush of politicians being all the same, fought hard for a better world.

 I’m ashamed of the prejudice, the ugly nationalist pride that has that has come head to head with unity and tolerance. 

You see, me and my friends, a lot of which are very talented musicians, students and writers are liberal in our values. We believe in unity, we share companionship with friends across the globe. Some of my closest friends are from South America and Europe. We have utilised technology and today’s opportunities to come together. Our national pride only goes so far as the football and food. 
 We are a generation subject to significant change on industrial, technological and economic scales. We were outvoted and still, we can’t afford our homes and there’s little upward mobility for most of us regardless of our individual talents and endeavours to succeed. 
In or out, the rich are getting richer and we ever grow weary of the unrest and anger channelling through the likes of Trump in America. It’s all uncertain at the moment with too many values that divide us coming into the fray.

Still, let’s not loose heart. Let’s stand up for what we believe in. It’ll probably get worst before it gets better. But let’s hope for the better and more so, fight for it.