#Brexit: A Sad Farewell to the EU.

On By stuartakenIn Author, Creative Writer, opinion, politics

Sad news, but we, the UK, have now left the European Union. Probably the worst decision made in our long existence as a sort of democracy. Certainly not a time for celebration.

We’ll likely pay more for food, lose many manufacturing and service jobs, and reduce our influence on the world stage. As a member of the EU (pop. around 512 million) we had some influence on world affairs, but as a single nation (67 million) in a world with a population around 7,760,000,000, we represent significantly less than 1%. Who’s going to care what we think?

At a time when the world needs the greatest possible unity to fight the growing climate emergency and mass extinction, we’ve decided to abandon a group that at least had some clout to set against the idiocy of Trump. Seems like a form of suicide to me.

From my teens, I’ve considered myself a citizen of the World, Europe, Britain, and England, in that order. We live on a tiny blue marble speeding through a potentially hostile universe. Our species, probably the most destructive known, is responsible for significant damage to an ecology that took eons to develop as a viable environment for most living things. In a few decades we’ve damaged it so seriously it will take centuries to undo the harm we’ve already caused. Yet our opportunity to join with other nations to correct this has now been effectively curtailed by a lunatic decision to stand alone. Tribal, isolationist and foolish beyond measure, this move will do no good, other than for those individuals already too rich to spend their wealth who will now be able to avoid the new tax laws that might otherwise have reduced the unjust inequality that exists in our world.

This is my response to a situation over which I have no control and which I expect to cause years of negative effects for the bulk of the UK population. But, I’m an optimist and can only hope that, regardless of their reasons, it may turn out the ‘leavers’ are eventually proved right. Unlikely, I know, but in a dark place with so little illumination one looks for even the briefest spark to bring light into the shadows.

End of rant, and apologies to those international visitors here for whom this is of no interest.

6 thoughts on “#Brexit: A Sad Farewell to the EU.”

    1. Thank you, Paola. Sad day indeed. What so many Brits in the ‘leave’ camp clearly don’t realise is that we’re mostly European by decent. Original population arrived from Europe and, following that, we were invaded by the Romans, Vikings, and the French, so we’re all pretty much European stock anyway. And, of course, geographically, Europe is our natural neighbour. Unfortunately, poor education and an ill-informed idea of what the British Empire was really like mean a lot of ignorant people dream of a past we never had!

      Liked by 1 person

  3. Tom Austin

    You let your true feelings out. You should never have to apologize for having feelings or an opinion. I ‘ve been railing at the circus currently in the U.S. senate. Senators and legal representatives yammering till mildly obscene hours don’t exactly impress me. Instead of listening to tales already known and arguing about procedures I’ve been yelling “Get a rope and find a tree…works every time “.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks for the reblog and the comment, Tom. I decided to be relatively circumspect because this issue has deeply divided opinion in the UK and I’ve no wish to add fuel to a fire built and stoked by irresponsible, self-serving politicians.

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