The EU Referendum - I am writing this angry

Part of the EU Referendum series.

I am extremely angry at the moment, so feel free to ignore this rant, I will try to provide a less emotional response to the EU Referendum in other posts.

I am angry at the older generations who seem to hark back to the second world war, to the idea that we are still at war with Europe and hark back to a "golden age" when the British Empire stretched forth it's hand in a rule of tyrrany. I'm angry because they will not feel the real pain of what has happened, they won't ever want to work in the EU, most won't even want to travel to the EU for a holiday, they won't feel the economic pain because the government will ensure that their pensions are safe at the expense of the younger generations. They are guaranteed to have their pensions rise above whatever inflation we will get, they have passed the financial burden of brexit onto the younger generations, we will pick up the bill, we will suffer to keep them safe from the pain. I know George Osborne said that pensions may suffer but I don't think that any Conservative Chancellor will attack pensioners, will attack one of their key demographics. They didn't do it for our generation, they didn't ask us what we wanted knowing that we were the ones who had to live with the long term consequences of it. It feels, right now, like the last great "FUCK YOU" from the older generation to the younger, they've secured their pensions (that we are unlikely to have by the time we retire) they've still got the NHS to provide for them but yet vote in a Conservative government intent on destroying it, they've got their houses that have increased in value to be out of the range of the young, their generation has ensured that for the first time the younger generations are expected to be poorer than their parents.

I'm angry at the people who did not vote. It is rumoured that the majority of the young did not vote, I wonder how many are angry or complaining about the decision now. Maybe they felt like we were going to vote remain, maybe they didn't care, but they will care as the economy collapses, they will care as prices rise and they find themselves screwed. Maybe they were put off by the torrential rain in London on the 23rd but if they were my anger doubles, get a little wet for just one day and safe guard your future, don't expect others to make the sane choice. Maybe they felt that their vote doesn't count, but this was the one time in the screwed-up system in the UK where your vote does count, where every vote counted, even if you think your side is going to win, use your vote, make it an emphatic win not the horrific 50:50 split that we have been seeing.

I'm angry at the idiots who thought that they could use this as a way to protest against the government, against the Establishment, because they are pissed off at the way they have been treated. So used to their vote "not counting" in local and general elections they protested and now are facing the consequences. If they did then they are stupid, they gamble their future on throwing a temper tantrum in the one vote where every vote counts, they threw their toys out of the pram and don't want to face the consequences.

I'm angry at David Cameron for even putting us in this mess, to stave off the UKIP threat to his own party he made a promise to hold this referendum and didn't have the ammunition to win it. I'm annoyed at him for being part of the problem, for being someone people want to protest against, for his attacks on the poorest in society that may have exacerbated the leave vote, for the language of austerity that he and his party introduced that normalised "othering" people, that gave people the excuse to look down on different sections of the community, to make themselves feel superior

I'm angry at the entire remain campaign who did nothing really but bang on about the effects on the economy conceding the immigration issue to the leave campaign. They used lies and half-truths to try to scare the public into voting remain but they were not trusted by the general public. They did not put anyone up who was passionate about the EU, Sadiq Khan and Ruth Davidson did better in one debate than the entire remain campaign had done in the previous weeks. The fear of the economy falling wasn't enough, people needed to hear hope, needed to hear people who weren't apologising for the EU. I look at Jeremy Corbyn, and I am angry, he deliberately stayed away from the remain campaign because he did not want to share a platform with the Tories, he became almost invisible and when he did appear he spent more time talking about the failures of the EU than why we should remain in it.

I'm angry at the leave campaigns, who used lies and half-truths to manipulate the fears of the general public. They had the backing of a media that had been consistently, for decades, spouting more lies and half-truths about the EU that linger in the minds of the people. I'm more angry that just hours after they had won their main campaigners were back-tracking on almost everything that they said, the £350m per week for the NHS has evaporated, the numbers of immigrants probably won't fall, they now say the numbers may even go up. Gove said the UK has had enough of "experts" but now is saying we can't trigger Article 50 immediately because we need to listen to the experts. Even worse we have the Nigel Farage campaign, using Nazi-esque posters to propagate fear of the muslim immigrants even though they were refugees fleeing war and were not part of the EU free-movement agreements. I'm angry because I saw this giving strength to the far-right, to the racists and xenophobes both here and abroad, that by being the "civilised face of prejudice" he has created an environment where more extreme views are tolerated, where those holding these views feel emboldened.

I'm angry because an Italian friend of mine, 24 hours after the results were known, was surrounded by three thugs telling him "we're going to get you out of the country next" while pushing and shoving him around. I am angry that there are dozens of racist/xenophobic incidents that I have seen in the hours and days following this result, some at primary schools, that thugs feel like they can intimidate children is a shame on our country. I'm angry because I don't understand how, throughout this debate, throughout the years and months of the press peddling their hatred of foreigners that people have not seen this coming, that people could vote leave knowing that they are standing shoulder to shoulder with these horrific people. How can you not have seen this as a consequence of voting leave?

I know I'm angry right now, that a lot of what I've written doesn't make sense but this is how I feel, I see two nations within our own, one full of the love, solidarity, compassion that was evident at Pride and another that is small-minded, xenophobic and intolerant. I'm angry and I'm scared, I'm scared that once these people have driven away people like my friend they will find another group of "others" to hate, I'm scared that they will come for the LGBTQ+ community and anyone else who is different from their narrow view of what it means to be "British". For the first time in my life I am truly scared for the future of this country.