By Charlotte Brisland

The vote to leave in today’s EU referendum is a saddening, maddening shock to almost half of the population. For once left-wing voters and the city stock brokers sit side by side heads in hands as the pound plummets and human rights hang in the balance. Women and feminists brace yourselves—maternity leave, childcare and equal gender rights were EU policies, and now we are stuck with a menacing-looking Conservative party and a pawing UKIP. Nigel Farage is pissed and happy again, and that can only mean a little derailing and more love for Boris Johnson. The pair are euphoric, Boris grins from ear to ear, holding hands with Farage and rubbing his groin as he eyes up the parliamentary throne. The UK has turned a deep and shocking blue and it is NOT a good shade for anything.

What happens next is completely uncertain. Leave voters look more guilty and surprised than happy, Remain voters are experiencing a rainbow of emotions mostly hovering over anger and shock. Scotland wants a new referendum of independence and if they get it I will be considering a move.

What does this mean for expats living abroad?

What does this mean for immigration?

Johnson speaking on the BBC this morning repeats hypnotic phrases such as ‘now we can control immigration in a safe and humane way rather than following the policies of the EU’. Bandying about left-wing semantics in a generic flurry making me feel temporarily calm until I look again, seeing that this means absolutely nothing whatsoever. What is his idea of ‘humane’ when he is prepared to make this dramatic move of “independence” just so he can eat his saveloy on his new shiny chair and fiddle with his parliamentary crown?

I don’t think I am alone at feeling infuriated that British parliamentary vote meant bombing Syria at a time when it was already a demolished country on its knees from war. The Asian spring was championed by the UK as an incredible and necessary move by the people to shrug off totalitarianism. Many Leave voters used the immigration crisis as an excuse to split from the EU, not willing to help out those we have pushed to homelessness and who are making a dangerous and inhumane journey to “freedom”.

I say ‘we’ with a heavy heart, I did not vote Leave in this referendum, I very much did not. Everyone I speak to feels the same way, I only have one happy friend who voted out.

I would like to say to Europe, from the 48% who voted in, we are sorry to leave you, we are so terribly terribly sorry.