I’ve written to my MP about Brexit: have you?

Aside from removing my address, the following is the content of the letter I wrote to Nick Boles MP — my representative in parliament — this evening. If the country is to be saved, it will be saved one way or another by our elected representatives — the same ones who should have been making decisions like this in the first place.

If you’re not happy about the economy, not happy about the value of your savings, or — and I hope that this is the case — not happy about the rising tide of racist attacks and threats against Polish and other immigrants that has started since the referendum vote on Thursday, then write to your MP immediately. If you want to use any or all of the below and feel that it adequately represents your feelings, go for it — just remember to change bits like where you live and work and whether they backed Remain in the first place (and maybe whether you consider them intelligent and articulate!) because nothing gets a letter ignored quicker than the realisation that it wasn’t originally written just to you.

You can find who your MP is and how to contact them on the Houses of Parliament website or through third-party websites like WriteToThem.

Hi -

I hope you’ll forgive the informal tone; I just spent half an hour crying at the state that my country has been transformed into after two short days, and I’m not sure I can manage all the niceties. After the collapse of the pound, massive drops in FTSE indices and most worryingly a weekend of disgusting reports of continued racist violence against Polish and other immigrants coming from all corners of the country, I have to ask: what are our MPs doing about all of this?

This referendum has, to date, been an unmitigated and unprecedented disaster for this country. Anybody with half a brain could tell from the beginning that the economy would be wrecked for a long time, and it took little of the Leave campaign’s rhetoric to know that it would embolden the racist scum that have been carrying out this weekend’s attacks — who now believe that 52% of the country agrees with their vile politics. We are a total joke to everyone but neo-nazis on the international stage, and even the EU that would dearly love to punish us swiftly for threatening its fabric has made a show of magnanimously staying its hand because it’s pretty clear that we just can’t cope with anything so complex as international relations right now.

I have never felt more ashamed of anything in my life than I do right now to be British.

I know this isn’t your fault; I know you declared for Remain and I know that while I don’t agree with all of your politics (I don’t have a natural home in the English political landscape, I’m afraid) you’re one of the more intelligent and articulate members of your party. You are, however, my MP — and I one of your constituents; I live in Grantham and work in Bourne. I am asking you to do everything you can to overturn the result of this referendum before the damage done is too critical — before there are more racist murders, before every significant international company moves to Paris or Frankfurt, before the economy is completely destroyed and before unemployment — so little a real worry not so long ago — becomes rampant once more. I read today that Lord Heseltine is trying to set up a cross-party group of pro-EU MPs to try and overturn the result of the referendum: as one of your constituents, I beg you: join it. For the sake of the British people, whether they realise they need you to or not: join it.

There are many good reasons to do so. The Leave campaign has, between them, admitted now that pretty much all of the pillars of their manifesto were complete lies. Many Leave voters have expressed their dismay and their regret at their vote. The Remain ‘scaremongering’ has been shown in just a couple of days to be absolutely true — if not an understatement in places. The risk to our country of continuing to press to leave the EU is far, far too great — it never should have been put to the uninformed and wilfully ignorant population in the first place.

This was only an advisory referendum — and the result was far too close to call it a mandate for such significant and massively damaging change to our country. Only 37% of the eligible voting population backed Brexit — below the threshold the government sets for something so relatively unimportant as strike action by public sector workers, and all data suggests that the people who didn’t vote were more likely to back Remain. It’s true that Britain was once great — it was great just a short couple of months ago. It may never be again if you and your fellow MPs allow it to continue its current trajectory.

yours,

Jacob Staines