I didn’t think it would happen, but we are there now. As a French person who has lived in the UK for the past 10 years , I was very much against Brexit, Alex and I have discussed this at length and I wanted to add my bit.
I am not going to lie, I am disappointed. It feels a bit personal, but I know it shouldn’t, it is a business/political decision, not much to do with me. From the moment I first came to the UK in 2000, I fell in love with country. Coming from Lyon, I lived in Colchester in Essex for the first year a bit of a culture shock, and it was an incredible experience, which led me to decide a few years later to settle in London. Originally I thought ‘2 to 3’ years, but then life goes on and I felt welcome and at home in London, so I stayed. I love the cosmopolitan side of London. Nowhere else in the world you find such diversity, open mindedness and I even want to add freedom. There is something « grandiose » about it, when you see old buildings mixed with the Shard and the Gherkin. Here lies my mistake, London is not Great Britain, in the same way that Paris is not France. London does not represent most of the country’s point of view, because it is a big pool of people coming from everywhere and who live in relative wealth.
So, I will not linger on what will happen next because, frankly, no one knows what will happen next. We can all speculate, the future is now different and everybody in Europe and in GB will have to adapt to new rules and we will see what comes out of it. We all have an opinion about it but it doesn’t mean it is the right one.
One of the main reasons to create the EU in 1957, was to ensure peace between all nations that decided to be part of it. Later on, the EU became much more and created a parliament, a court , foreign and safety policies etc…. We can agree and disagree about a lot that is being decided in Brussels but it is so much bigger than any of us. I dare say that most of us do not even understand how this all work. It probably is in need of restructure as it seems that a lot of the countries part of it right now feel that too much power has been given to the UE.
The brexit campaign in the UK has played its hand very well. In a similar fashion to the Front national in France and other main western countries, it used a couple of very successful ingredients : Fear and Nationalism (Fear of immigration and on a larger scale terrorism, nationalist views regarding unemployment). Clearly it worked. This has contributed to put in light the clear distinction between London and the rest of the country. If anything the next prime minister should start thinking about how this can be changed.
The bottom line of all this and what really does annoy me is the following : More than ever, the world needs to be a place were communities hold on together, where people help one another and decide to actually think of the greater good. GB , like France, is one of those countries which has largely consumed and benefited from the wealth of so many other countries, and this for decades . The UE for me is just this: A big community of people who do disagree on most things, but also try to work together for the greater good.
Travelling around the world currently, just shows how much some countries are in need of help. And it is in those places that have so much less, that Alex and I have been received with the greatest kindness, regards and respect. Because people who do not have anything, show such generosity that I wish my countries would show the same enthusiam to be part of a project I believe in. It seems to me that many people have lost faith in the UE project. I hope that this will be a wake up call for Brussels to actually rethink the overall organisation and legislation before it collapses Let’s see what is coming ; As for me, I am still very much a European, half French – half Londoner and proud of it.