Hello friends from my small uni kitchen where I'm waiting for my chicken to finish defrosting while my flatmate makes paella and beef wellington for dinner and my other flatmate is doing a crossword. This isn't a post about uni life so far, however much I know you must be gagging for a post about it (of course.), it's actually about a pretty significant event that happened yesterday here in Manchester.
I'm not going to get on my political soapbox and preach about why we should have remained in the EU or anything, nor am I going to complain and whine because that's clearly not going to help anything.
However, I am going to tell you why I went on this march and why I think it's so important to have marches and protests like this, even after an outcome has been reached.
For those who don't know, me and my dad run a pretty small anti-Brexit Twitter campaign called Brits Against Brexit, so we firstly used the march as a bit of a marketing strategy, because obviously who wouldn't right?! Obviously the main reason we went on the march was because we are all anti-Brexit but it's so much more than that.
While tweeting from Brits Against Brexit using #stopbrexitmanchester we came across many replies telling us we won't make any difference, what's done is done and there's nothing we can do about it now, it was decided by a democratic referendum and so on and so on. Chances are we won't change the decision of the government, but I do just want to address this idea of a democratic referendum.
While the actual referendum itself (as in, the question asked, the ballot paper and the voting procedure) was as democratic as they come, it was the months building up to the referendum that was so undemocratic. You see, if we really think about it, the entire Leave campaign was built on lies and scaremongering, we all saw the nonsense about £350 million going to the NHS if we left?! But I digress, I'm sure we all heard the complaints when the results came through. The main reason for me that the referendum was undemocratic was because I was not allowed to vote. And I don't mean me personally, I mean the entire 16-17 year old population of the UK.
In my personal opinion, and in the opinions of many others, we should have been able to vote in that referendum as we are the ones that the outcome will affect directly, and as my father pointed out yesterday, the effects will be happening when we are of age. The reason I marched yesterday was because my future was taken away from me and I didn't have a choice about that, and to me that is as undemocratic as it comes. The reason we weren't allowed to vote? They were scared of us. Young people who are interested in politics have a voice and we have very loud voices. Yes, a some of us would have voted Leave if our parents were, or just because they don't care, but also the majority of us cared more than the 65+ population did. We weren't thinking of the 'good old days when we weren't in the EU', we were thinking of the bad new days when we aren't in the EU. That majority of us were loud and we were yesterday and we will always be.
The reason my sister marched yesterday is because, post-Brexit, her job prospects in neuroscientific research will be reduced dramatically as most funding for our scientific research comes from the EU. Sure, the funding could come from elsewhere, but how long is that going to take and how much is that funding actually going to be? We leave the EU and we leave scientific research behind. Moreover, those who just say 'well, she can go and work in Europe', well yes of course she could if our right to live and work in the EU wasn't being taken away too!!
We marched for the young people who didn't have a choice and the future scientists who will struggle to find jobs, but we also marched in solidarity with the EU citizens living in the UK and the UK citizens leaving the EU whose futures at home with their loved ones are in jeopardy. We marched with the business owners who will be economically affected by the falling pound and we marched because first and foremost we care a hell of a lot about what's going to happen in the years to come.
I did end up on my political soapbox a little bit there, but it's true and I won't stop going on about it anytime soon so don't expect me to. We may not make any difference to the overall decision but we can at least let the government know how annoyed we are about it!!
Alright, that's me done, so I'm going to leave you with some pictures from the day and this: Bollocks to Brexit.
Emilia xx
For those who don't know, this is Dr Mike Galsworthy, he's a big pro-EU activist in the science world, hence why Jess was so excited to meet him!!
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