23rd June 2016

“We have more in common than that which divides us” – a poignant quote of Jo Cox's adorned the stage at Glastonbury today and holds as true today as it did when she made her parliamentary maiden speech.

Yesterday I voted to leave the EU. I also wrote a piece in my head congratulating the Remain campaign as I wholeheartedly believed that they would win. That the undecideds would stick with the status quo. That the cry of xenophobia had been believed by too many. 

I have campaigned, in my own little corner of East Cambridgeshire, to leave the EU since our Prime Minister delivered on his promise of a referendum. We are leaving a political organisation, not a continent. We were political allies before the EU and we will continue to be so. We have hundreds of years' of history of welcoming immigrants from across the world and, we will continue to do so. We love Europe. I love Europe. Those things are all true. What I could never buy into was the belief that the central government which has manifested itself in Europe would ever effectively serve the interests of its members.

I don't believe in federalism. I believe in democracy. As a good friend and colleague once told me, democracy is about taking the decisions as close to the people as possible. Within the EU structure, that is not very close to the people at all (and, yes, I also oppose the House of Lords). The President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, said, “Britain belongs to the European Union”. To me, this epitomises the nature of the organisation. If they have that view of Britain, how do they view Greece, Spain, Italy – those countries who really need their help to claw their way out of the economic gloom that they have found themselves in since surrendering their currencies to the Eurozone? Nearly 50% of those under 25 are officially unemployed in Greece and Spain. The EU is a power-hungry juggernaut, immovable in its direction, as demonstrated by our own inability to get any meaningful reform. It also has an extremely chequered past in terms of keeping its member states safe from terrorism, driving prosperity, creating jobs or doing right by refugees from war torn homelands. To me, it has crashed and burned on all of those issues yet, we hail it as the purveyor of peace, prosperity and opportunity.

Today has been a strange day as the Remain camp cry “where are the Leave supporters now?” as they hurl down their abuse on social media and direct their anger at those of us who voted for the same reasons as them, because we believed that this was the right thing for our country. And I respond with, “we are quietly planning on going to work, trading, serving the people and businesses of our country, creating jobs, building our futures and keeping the wheels of this country moving over the inevitable hurdles that this historic event will create.” I have spent countless hours researching, reading and listening to all sides of this debate, yet still, I am called uneducated, small-minded and racist. This campaign has divided our nation like nothing I have seen before. Now is the time that we must ensure that our government is the best that it can be, we must be heard, we must care, we must listen and we must work. I, for one, plan to brush off the insults and do everything that I can, in my little corner of the world, in the coming weeks, months and years to lift our country back to its feet so that it can prosper, grow, welcome, trade and embrace its place in the world. 

23rd June 2016 

"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right." ~ Martin Luther King