This is a poem about the UK referendum vote for Brexit, which occurred on the 23rd of June 2016 and resulted in the vote to leave winning 52% of the vote. Britain left the EU in 2020, and the impacts of this have been hugely negative for the UK. I’m still angry and I still don’t really know the right way to feel about this. The photos here are from the March for Europe in London, July 2016, attended by 50,000 of the 48%.
I woke up on the edge of a breaking. History in the making felt like a betrayal. It's fucked. The tallest of headlines says the country's divided. More than half of my neighbours are fatally shortsighted And I can’t adequately express my intense disappointment. I wear a Star Wars t-shirt reading “Welcome to the dark side” Walk old roads seeing new hesitance in all of our eyes. Feeling useless. What I wish my t shirt said was, I did NOT vote for that. I didn't want the empire to strike back I didn't rail against mosques or migrants while ignoring our privileges Sprung from the conquest of corpses. I didn't eat Brick Lane curry and Caribbean jerk While hiding a paranoia of foreign tongued words I marched London with painted banners. I ❤️ EU With thousands who felt we were on the edge too Of a British Renaissance. Such potential in tolerance. Education through difference. The chance to show growth. That we stand for togetherness. All you need is love. But Britain’s green and pleasant rotted into shit and thorns. Rule Britannia with divisive scorn. My optimism died as they voted leave. June 2016 bore a new type of grief. A fresh layer of shame in the country I'm from.
