Brexit.

In the space of a couple of hours I was followed down the street by not one, not two, but three different men. Each of them wanted to ensure that I was very aware of the fact that they disagreed with my opinion on Brexit. One man, draped in a Union flag tried to stop me passing on the street. He was very hostile and aggressive. When I eventually managed to get past he yelled “Hey, come back here! I’m not finished speaking to you.”

A second man was holding a hand drawn sign outside the back entrance of the Bournemouth International Centre where Lib Dem Conference was being held. He was waiting to accost people. He kept yelling at me that I was undemocratic and disrespecting the will of the people. He then targeted my age. He started yelling “Hey everyone. This little girl is only 21 and wasn’t able to vote in the EU Referendum yet wants to change the outcome.” This made me laugh for three reasons. The first is that I am 26. The second is that if I was 21 I would have been 18 when the referendum happened and therefore still eligible to vote in it. The third is that he wasn’t making the point he thought he was making. He was yelling that someone who according to his bad maths was too young to vote didn’t like the outcome of the vote and wanted it changed. Meaning the will of the people only counts when it’s the will of the people who were of age to vote 3 years ago and voted the way he wanted?

A third man walked up to me and went “So you must hate Brexit? You must hate our country.” I walked away. Matt asked what he said as he hadn’t heard, so I told him. The guy then appeared by my side again – he’d followed me – and he’d said “I SAID you must not like Brexit?”. I heard you the first time mate, and weirdly it didn’t change my mind.

We currently have a Prime Minister who on one hand doesn’t know what to do with the land border in Northern Ireland, and on the other wants to build a bridge to connect NI to mainland UK meaning it’ll give the rest of the country a land border with the EU. 

Don’t get me wrong. The EU isn’t perfect. It needs modernisation. When I was campaigning for Beatrice Wishart in Shetland I spoke to fishermen who voted Leave because they’d not been able to cope with the EU regulations. We can do something about that. But the way we do something about that is by sending MEPs to the European Parliament and have them work together as politicians trying to better all of the nations involved. We don’t get change by sending Nigel Farage and his cronies in to collect a wage and not show up. It doesn’t work when we send the likes of David Cameron in with demands and coming back with “thin gruel” as Jacob Rees Mogg once put it.

We have got to the stage where we are literally risking lives in order to put something through that the government is too scared to even ask the public if it’s what they still want. They’ll prevent terminally and chronically ill people from accessing vital medication.  They’ll strip the millions of people born into the EU of their European citizenship without their consent. The longest running peace project in Europe is under threat. We need action. We don’t need Etonian egos.

No Emotional Responses, Please. We’re British.

The Great British stiff upper lip. Our Victorian stoicism. Show no weakness, admit nothing is making you uncomfortable. It’s the thing many people instantly think of when they think of Britain, and to be honest, it’s true isn’t it?

We’ve all sat on the train, straining our necks to not look at the drunk person causing a scene. We’ve got the ability to get up and move to another carriage, but we don’t. We sit there and occasionally make eye contact with another British person doing the same thing and have a nano-second of “Oh goodness I wish this would stop and I’m glad I’m not the only one.” But, we persevere. For some reason.

Ever sat in the hairdresser’s chair with the world’s worst hair cut and you’ve painted a smile on your face saying “yeah, it’s great!” pay the full price for something you hate and then cry in your car before going home?

How about when you’re out for dinner and there’s someone who has been given the wrong meal, or something doesn’t taste right, and they’ll complain to you but when the server comes to the table they shove the food in their mouth and smile through the pain instead of causing a fuss.

One I’m definitely guilty of is when someone gets your name wrong and I just go internally “Well, I guess I’m Rachel to this person now.”

And maybe there’s a time and a place for us to hold on to our British uncomfortableness. But Brexit is definitely not that time.

Brexit isn’t the cup of tea someone made you and they’ve put sugar in it when you didn’t ask for any but you’ll just drink it anyway “just to be polite”.

It’s time for a People’s Vote. It’s time for us to let go of attitude of “I didn’t ask for this but I suppose we’ll just deal with it.” Nobody voted for a wage cut. Nobody voted for a medication shortage. Nobody voted for instability for their future. A No Deal Brexit will deliver all this and more.

A People’s Vote does not undermine democracy and it does not undermine your vote. Nothing stops you from voting the same way you did previously. Use your voice because we’re lucky enough to live in a country where that’s a possibility.

Sign this petition to tell Jeremy Corbyn to back a People’s Vote. What good is an opposition that doesn’t oppose the Government?