We awoke as a nation on Friday 25th June 2016 to the incredible announcement that Britain has voted to leave the European Union.
How and why ever did that happen? As The Economist in the article, A Tragic Split, mentions…” How quickly the unthinkable has become the irreversible”. Economist 24.6.16.
On Saturday morning I was walking in a small town in East Anglia, similar to many small towns with different communities, who bring lots of benefits to local towns. As I walked on the streets I could see many Lithuanian and Latvian young families doing their shopping, they were stopping and talking with each other. How do they feel on this Saturday morning? How will their children feel at school on Monday?
And so as a passionate European, my small lament as a consequence of this reckless decision…
Spare a Thought for all those who now live with us from Spain, Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and other countries…
For the nurses in our hospitals who every day look after us when we are sick and ill.
For the carers of our elderly parents and older generation, who every day care for and act with compassion and tenderness to our families.
For the people who work on the land, who every day battle with the cold and wet weather to provide us with cheap food.
For the plumbers, carpenters, electricians in the building industry, who every day build our houses and places of work.
They have come to be with us to make a better life for themselves and for our country, they are trying to make things better. How did they feel on Friday June 25th?
Now we have to live with this decision taken on a vote fuelled by prejudice and fantasy. We will make individual decisions in a different way than before the vote.
It seems inevitable that decisions will be made that will close the door to friends in the EU. As a partnership, we will try more than ever, to ensure that we work and strive to maintain the compassion, care, inclusiveness, diversity, fairness and support for everyone who is and who wants to be in the UK.
Sue Martin