I was bitter and felt a bit betrayed that you left us, but thats History now. I would be happy if we can get the Gang back together.
Britons are good People and you built a great Nation.
Felt sad as well when the UK decided to leave the EU as well. Also gave us a lot more stuff to deal with as my wife is British. So I really hope we get the gang back. Love the UK as a country and it's people, we should be working together as an European continent and work our way away drom the US
If it’s any comfort, many of us Brits felt just as bitterly betrayed that slightly over half of our voters decided to vote for something so obviously stupid - and 28% just didn’t bother to vote at all.
Britain will always be European 🇬🇧🇪🇺🇬🇧🇪🇺 We stand with our continental brothers and sisters against tyranny and for democracy 💪 Together!!
(Much love to 🇵🇱 - Polish RAF pilots were heroes in the Battle of Britain and the bomba kryptologiczna turned the course of the war. Our nations are bound together in blood and freedom. May we never forget.)
My thoughts exactly. Britain got targeted by Putin puppets before the rest of us did so they weren't prepared. It's easy to point fingers but I think recognizing the common threat and focusing on the future will get us further.
The conservatives ran with a vote as a manifesto item, planning to drop it when they had to form a coalition (they won however).
The government had used the EU as a whipping boy for their own problems.
There was a strong minority in the conservatives with a nationalistic bend.
A relatives element wanted out of the tax transparency laws the EU was enacting.
It turned into a popularity against Cameron, who wasn't popular at that point.
No one thought leave would win, since it was such a shot in the foot. This meant a lot of people didn't bother to vote against it.
The remain campaign was lackluster, while the leave campaign was impressive and shameless (this is where Putin likely put his foot in hardest).
The main opposition leader was also anti EU (for very different reasons) counter to most of the labour party, and so flopped around like a beached fish.
Basically, a nationalistic minority got it on the table (intended to shut them down for good). Lies and deceptions got it through, and the escape from tax laws put the bit between the teeth, as we got ran down by it.
A change at any point would have likely killed it, but here we are.
FYI, I would consider myself more in line with European right now than British. I'll keep fighting, tooth and nail, to get us back in as soon as viable.
I was living in the UK as an immigrant back during the Leave referendum and for Brexit and, frankly, I would not welcome them back until they get over their problem of widespread delusions of grandeur, xenophobia and Fascist thinking (though, unlike most, a posh mix of elements from Fascism).
They're basically Hungary, only posher and with more money and looking to America (and we all know how those are doing nowadays, now don't we?!) rather than Russia.
It might not seem so from the outside since that country's elites and middle classes have a deeply entrenched culture of tightly managing appearences (something one learns to to see through when living there long enough) so the form of Far-Right that has contaminated both main parties (with a First Past The Post system, they suffer from a similar lack of Democracy as America, hence they have 2 dominant parties) over there is a lot less rough, uncut an loud than what you seen in places like Hungary and the US.
I've lived in a couple of countries in Europe, North, South and Western and Britain is further to the Right than any of them and their citizens still hold hard onto the delusions of being inherently superior to foreigners (from the time of the Empire, kept alive and fed over the years by the way the Press covers and spins international affairs).
Even before Leave, the UK was never in the EU with team spirit and treating it as a project for the common good, rather it always had a "what's in it for me", "win-lose" take on it.
In my opinion, which I believe is well informed, Britain should only be allowed back in once they grow up into a well-adjusted run-of-the-mill middle-sized nation.