Ugh 🇪🇺

Disappointed and disheartened this morning. A few articles I have found interesting/useful while trying to find some sort of silver lining. Still looking for it.

• BBC’s Reality Check blog providing “live fact checking and impartial analysis ahead of the EU Referendum”
• Economist article “The Brexit Delusion”
• Guardian opinion piece “We have woken up in a different country”
• Telegraph opinion piece “After Brexit, Europe faces an existential crisis”
• Guardian comment piece “‘If you’ve got money, you vote in… if you haven’t got money, you vote out’”
• The Verge article “Google search spike suggests people don’t know why they Brexited”
• Post on the Economist blog on British poligics “Bagehot’s notebook”, “Anarchy in the UK”

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Addition – 9.18pm 24 June 2016
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There is a parliamentary petition calling for a subsequent referendum if a representative majority is not reached that has been passed along to me by multiple people. The site loading has been patchy due to the amount of traffic it has received, and verification emails (the last step in the process) have been delayed by several hours.

Though it may not obligate parliament to debate a new referendum, and though it had already received well over the required number of signatures by the time I accessed the site, I signed the petition because I think it is important that people continue to make their opinions heard.

After verifying my signature, I contacted my local MP via email to share my thoughts. I wanted to add the contents of my message here in case someone somewhere finds it useful.

Sign the petition
Find the contact information for your MP

Dear [name of MP],

I hope this email finds you well. I live in [town/borough/city] just off of [street name] in [postcode].

I wanted to get in touch to share my sentiments regarding the recent EU referendum. As with many others that have signed the petition at the link below, I wish to call upon you and our other elected officials in HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote majority is less than 60% alongside a turnout less than 75%, the results should be discarded and there should be a subsequent referendum.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/131215

It is incredibly disheartening that such a momentous and universally life-changing decision has arisen out what does not seem to be a representative majority. I might add that I feel especially for the 16- and 17-year-olds in this country that have been denied the ability to take part in a decision that has utterly altered and limited their future opportunities.

I know that there is much that you will be attending to with the recent results, so thank you very, very much for taking the time to understand my opinions on the matter.

With kind regards,
Piper Haywood

Whatever action is taken in the aftermath of the recent referendum, it is critical that we continue to share our opinions in a civil manner and that we work together towards an outcome that is as mutually beneficial as possible. The EU referendum was a huge decision, but many related and equally important decisions are likely to follow in the upcoming months and years.

Time to find a movie or something, any tiny bit of escapism. If anyone happens to read this and you’ve got a suggestion or two, pls pls share.