Reflections on Brexit

Picture the scene. I'm lying on my bed in an apartment in Valladolid, Spain, watching the breaking news about the EU referendum on my phone. It's 11pm in Spain and BBC News are predicting a comfortable victory for Remain. Even Nigel Farage has admitted defeat. Phew, I thought; the country has come to its senses and decided to stay part of the largest single market in the world and a group of progressive co-operative nations. I could sleep in peace.

Fast forward about 5 hours. I'm half awake, and pick up my phone from my bedside table and through bleary eyes see a 'UK votes to leave EU' headline from the BBC. How could this have happened? Disappointed, disheartened, I can't get back to sleep before my alarm goes off at 7am. I'm in Spain for a language course. After getting to graduate level in French and German, I wanted to learn some Spanish - or rather, continue the language after learning some basics whilst in Germany. I got a scholarship from the Fundación de la Lengua Espanola to study in Valladolid for two weeks. The first week was fun - especially after England beating Wales in the Euros and receiving my degree results. The second week - punctured by Brexit and England's Euro misery (it seems we're good at leaving Europe in more than one sense) - was just as memorable.

Let me put forward why Brexit means so much to me personally. I am not an economist - if I'm honest, I don't know whether leaving the EU would be good or bad for the economy, though I would suspect bad. I'm a linguist, a student of culture. I received my grade for a BA in Languages and Contemporary European Sudies and in the same week my country decides it's better off separating itself from the very cultures I've been studying. You see, I'm part of that generation that considers itself to be British and European. Likes the UK and the EU. Appreciates the progressive nature of breaking down borders and building bridges, not putting up walls. During my time in Germany, I walked over a bridge between France and Germany (admittedly, because we got off the bus one stop early in Germany, rather than waiting to go over the border). After having studied France and Germany in depth, I could really appreciate the pertinence, even beauty, of being able to go between these great countries without a passport, without even seeing a security guard. Two nations who have been at each other's throats for generations, now at peace. Working together.

I've always been a Europhile - fascinated by French food, an enthusiast of Spanish football, an admirer of the German work ethic. That's what inspired me to learn languages, for a different language truly is a different vision of life. For me, the most saddening thing about Brexit is that it reveals what kind of country most Brits want to live in, a country that is so far removed from everything I stand for and believe in.

The day of the Brexit announcement happens to be my last day at the language school. At the awards ceremony (slightly too grand for a two week course, I might add), it was clear that it was not just the Brits on the course who were incredibly disconsolate about the result. Many people - from India to Italy and beyond - said to me that they were sad, and they felt sorry for me as a Remain voter. Language schools are a rare - and brilliant - opporunity to learn in a truly global environment. In my class, there was a Brazilian, a Russian, two Indians, a Croatian. I'm privileged to have been able to have such experiences - to learn from and alongside people from all over the world, and it is this that has shaped my own life philosophy and values. This is where the Remain campaign failed. Instead of embracing what is positive about Europe - the benefits of globalisation, co-operation, peace builiding and so on, far too often a negative rhetoric of austerity and recession were used. 

In an age when Britain chooses to look inward rather than outward, I can be reassured by one thing. There are many others like me, in Britain and beyond, who still believe that there could be a better world where we put nationalism and patriotism to one side, and favour intercultural understanding and friendship instead.