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Kim Willis
Worldwide * Story * Strategy * PR * Writes in The Guardian, BA High Life, The Indy

32 things to help make life better now we’re leaving the EU

Returning to the real world after Glastonbury tomorrow seems a wee bit scary, so I made a list of things I can do to help make this a bit better. Figured I’d share it here cos, you know, we’re in this together.

  1. Keep learning Italian
  2. Keep drinking aperol spritz
  3. Go to Europe A LOT and make more friends
  4. Build stronger personal ties with Europe
  5. Run to be an MP in a Leave-centric town and try to make it a better place where people don’t feel so fucked over and therefore don’t feel so much like they want to blame non-existent immigrants for things.
  6. Stop nodding politely when people’s logic is epically flawed. It doesn’t help anyone to entertain idiocy for sake of politeness.
  7. Be hyper vigilant about calling out racism and xenophobia. We’re not gonna become a far right stronghold. We are not.
  8. When they ask, refuse to give back my European drivers licence.
  9. And my passport.
  10. Campaign to lower the voting age. Baby boomers seem to have way too much power.
  11. Make sure my European friends know how much I love them.
  12. Don’t let them leave.
  13. If anyone tries to make them leave, ever, do everything possible to stop them.
  14. When Scotland go independent and rejoin the EU, try to get a Scottish passport.
  15. Start growing food.
  16. Try to talk to people who voted to leave and try to understand their point of view. But still call out flawed logic (see above).
  17. Find out if logic is taught in schools.
  18. If it isn’t, suggest it should be.
  19. Don’t panic if my flat loses value. It will be ok.
  20. Don’t panic if my pension pot just lost a shed load of money. It will be ok.
  21. Don’t panic that at the moment the only country I can now legally live in is this one, which I don’t much like right now. It will be ok.
  22. Remember to update travel insurance when we do leave, so I can still get health cover in Europe.
  23. Campaign for an even vaguely effective Labour Party. This one is a joke and the Torys are gonna be very weird now.
  24. Don’t let this take over so much head space that you forget about the really important world problems like climate change and sexism and hunger and refugee crises and war and drones.
  25. Remember that no matter how fucked the UK is, we’re still bloody lucky to have been born here in the grand scheme of things.
  26. If I ever have kids, try to engineer it so they’re born in Europe and therefore still have an EU passport and can live anywhere, even if I don’t and can’t.
  27. Don’t watch the news too much. It’s depressing and infantile.
  28. Keep doing research.
  29. Keep being educated on political issues.
  30. Stop mentioning Farage. He needs no more oxygen. He isn’t even an MP. He’s basically unelected when it comes to British policy and politics. He has no right to the power/airtime he inexplicably seems to wield.
  31. Get some sleep.
  32. Don’t worry too much. Not because there isn’t a lot to worry about, but because worrying is a waste of energy. Save that for other things (see 1–31 above).