Upset by Brexit? Have the weekend off. We go again on Monday.

Empty, upset, broken, disgusted, concerned, and betrayed — I, like so many people across the country, was feeling rather emotional on Friday following Britain’s historic decision to leave the European Union. By now you’ve undoubtedly read a number of things about what comes next. You may also have seen some people who’ve started to regret their vote.

Some of these voters simply didn’t think Leave would win, and were probably voting that way as some kind of protest vote. Others did, and are now angered to hear that the £350 million Vote Leave suggested would be returned to the NHS won’t be, or that it’s unlikely that Brexit will make a difference to immigration.

The one thing that is certain is that the opportunity to vote on this momentous decision has now passed.

Fight Brexit?

Soon after the results came in, Owen Jones took to Twitter to suggest Remainers should grieve now, and prepare for the challenges ahead. Over the weekend, he then suggested it’s time to accept the results of the poll, and look at the best way to implement a Brexit that works for everyone:

But is he right? Assuming that our withdrawal from the Union goes ahead then of course, it’s about getting the best conditions possible. That said, not everyone’s agreed that, despite the referendum, Brexit will necessarily go ahead. Legally, referendums are essentially just indications of public opinion, so what options might be open?

Holding Another Referendum

There is currently a petition on Parliament’s website calling for a second referendum. At the time of writing, it has 3.1m signatures and has gained some good media coverage.

People have signed the petition for a number of different reasons ranging from some of the pledges above now being dismissed, to some postal votes not being received. Unfortunately, those aren’t reasons for another referendum — politicians lie all the time before polls open, and small numbers of people are almost always deprived of votes at elections.

That’s not actually why the petitioner set it up though, and it’s worth having a look at the wording itself:

We the undersigned call upon HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based a turnout less than 75% there should be another referendum.

In my opinion, it’s unlikely to change anything for a few reasons, chiefly:

• The petition was set-up on the 25th May. If these were the desired outcomes, it would have had to have been agreed upon months ago and probably approved by the Electoral Commission. You can’t change the rules of the game mid-play...
• As my friend Jon Robinson points out, there’s no guarantee that repeating the referendum would actually lead to the conditions the petition outlines — would that lend itself to then holding a third referendum?
• Referendums are expensive. It’s cost around £142m to run this one, and the two campaigns have spent about £28m between them. Could we justify spending all of that again when we’re cutting crucial public services across the country?

As things stand, it’s very unlikely we’ll be holding another referendum.

Parliament Ignores the Referendum

As mentioned, unlike elections, referendums in the UK don’t actually have any real legal powers. If you’re voting for your local councillor it’s simple: the person with the most votes for that area gets to become councillor. It doesn’t work that way for referendums, and all Thursday’s vote does is tell the world that 51.9% of people that voted want the UK to leave the European Union.

To actually leave the European Union, you have to look at article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which basically means the UK government would need to tell the European Council we want out. Once that’s done, we’ve got up to two years to come to a number of agreements before we’re then formally out of the European Union.

Originally, Prime Minister David Cameron said he’d invoke article 50 soon after the referendum if the vote was to Leave. As it happens, he’s now said he thinks his replacement should do this when they come to office and lead the negotiations.

A lot could happen between now and then, and some politicians are calling for the final decision to lie with the government. Politically that might be quite difficult though, and the Vote Leave camp will feel they have a large enough mandate for whoever comes to power to have to action it.

It might also cause further problems in communities that already feel like politicians aren’t listening to their concerns and worries, especially those outside of London.

Better EU Deal

Leading up to the referendum, David Cameron agreed a small number of reforms with the EU. One theory is that now we’ve held it, and have voted to leave, we could go back to see if we can secure a better deal which may address concerns people still have about the EU.

Sadly, this is unlikely to happen. European leaders have been fairly clear both before, during and after the referendum that the deal David Cameron secured was a final deal — take it or leave it.

Moving Forward

Like I say, the hard work starts on Monday. What’s done is done, in terms of the result, and we’ll need to see what happens over the next few days or weeks before anyone can really think about influencing our future relationship with Europe and the European Union.

It’s important — vital in fact — that the voice of the Remain camp is heard throughout the negotiations. There is a real responsibility to make sure the rights and welfare of everyone is protected as part of any withdrawal process, even those that voted to leave.

Whilst our membership of the EU now looks largely out of our hands, there are some lessons for all of us both from the referendum and last year’s general election, whatever your political persuasion. These, for me, are some of the areas we’re neglecting and should pressure and lobby on.

Political Education

I am no longer surprised by how many people don’t know the political basics in this country: what is an MP? what is a party? what makes up the government? how is law created? etc.

You might think I’m talking about young people when reading that, and yes, there’s a lot of work to do with them. But actually I think it goes further than that and becomes an inter-generational problem. If people don’t understand the issues, and don’t feel they can meaningfully engage, can we really expect them to participate in democracy? In my view, voting in a democracy goes beyond putting a cross in a box to actually enabling all citizens to make an informed decision. For that, we need to turn our non-existent political education into world-class political education.

Media Ownership

I work in social media. Part of my job is training people in social media and telling them how great it is. My dissertation was on social media. Basically, I’m a fan of social media. But social media hasn’t replaced traditional media outlets. Facebook has around about 30 million users in the UK. The daily readership of the top 12 newspapers in the UK is 21.7 million, not as low as you might think.

There is one big difference for me here though, and that’s in the social element. If I put something on Facebook, my friends, family, colleagues, whoever can challenge that view immediately. I’m also, by the nature of the network, exposed to views from those I don’t agree with. It’s healthy, and it enables us have our views challenged.

Back to newspapers, and by the nature of the the way that content is consumed, that instant feedback or set of alternative views is missing.

A question we should asking is: how happy are we, given the influence newspapers have, for them to be owned and managed by small groups of often the same owners? For example, did you know that The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and Sky News are ultimately owned by the same person? Or that the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Metro are owned by another?

There’s a legitimate question here about whether so much power should be in so few hands, especially when some have made it abundantly clear that they have a vested interest. Do we really have the capacity to make an informed decision if we’re only being told information conducive to a fairly select group’s interests? That aside, some of the way in which the arguments have been made, especially the choice of imagery, has been horrendous at times.

This isn’t to condemn the media in its entirety — that would be ridiculous. Peter Preston has come out this morning mitigating the role of the media in this referendum, pointing to people like Donald Trump who’ve thrived without huge media outlets behind them. Even Jeremy Corbyn, one might argue, has done well without being backed by most media outlets. Those individuals don’t discount the need for some kind of reform here though.

Parliamentary Reform

Imagine if Coca-Cola or McDonald’s were operating in the same way as they were when they were set-up, without evolving? The processes would be outdated, it’d be inefficient and the end product would suffer — that’s if it was even still operating.

Parliament is much more resilient than multi-nationals and is clearly still operating, but that’s not through constant rapid development to keep it at the top of its game. It would be unfair to say there’s been no work on this area, but there are still problems.

In the 2015 General Election, just over 5 million people voted for the Green Party and UKIP collectively, i.e. around 16.5% of all the votes cast. Do you know how many seats they got in Parliament between them? 2. That’s 0.4% of all the seats in the Commons. Meanwhile the Conservatives and Labour polled 67.3% of the votes between them, but secured 86.5% of the seats.

See the problem? Can we really call our self a democracy when so many people are not getting a voice? I’m not going to align myself to any particular voting system, but it’s something that clearly is in need of review. If not, the system will continue to favour the two biggest parties.

Be Vocal

You may have seen some comments online taking a dig at those that have come out and expressed political opinions (on both sides) during and after the campaign, particularly aimed at those who may not have previously engaged in politics. The idea of only ‘experts’ being able to engage in politics is worrisome, and the opposite of what’s needed. With voter turnout amongst young people so low, surely we should be encouraging conversations of this nature now more than ever?

This is a time to continue being vocal, to continue challenging narratives, and to continue talking up for those that can’t. If you’re doing this online, it’s not always pretty: be prepared to be called names, have statuses written about you or deleted for your views. Also be prepared to have your own views challenged — others might have a legitimate criticism of your position that you hadn’t thought about.

Is there a tendency to ignore views which could be problematic because ‘it’s not worth getting into?’ I’m guilty of it myself, but I’ve also kicked myself in the past when I’ve tried to reason and be rationale with people who are so set in their views that all the facts, figures and arguments in the world won’t change their beliefs. Even with those frustrations, if I’m allowing those views to spread without critique I can’t legitimately see myself as part of the solution.

Voter Registration

There have been some big developments in voter registration, namely the ability to do it online including via a mobile device — credit where due, it’s a step in the right direction. Having said that, there’s still much more we can do.

In an age where someone can walk into a shop and have their identity instantly verified to the point where a business is willing to part with thousands of pounds of electronics (such as a tablet,) is the idea of registering to vote on the same day as polling day so strange?

This year’s deadline was the 7th June [extended by two days due to the website crashing] which was over two weeks before the referendum took place. During those two weeks, the momentum on both sides would have undoubtedly begun to pick up, capturing the interests of thousands more people.

It may mean changing the way registers are administered, but it seems something worth pursuing, especially considering nearly half a million people scrambled to register in those two days alone. Who knows how many others we’re missing?

Show Love

I got into a discussion a few days ago who dismissed my called for peace, love and unity as ‘mumbo jumbo.’ Fast forward to today, and social media has been flooded with reports of people being racially abused around the country, often with comments to the effect of ‘go home’ following the result. There have also been reports of physical violence along race lines too.

As if I need to say it, no, I do not think that every person that voted to leave is racist. But it would be difficult to argue that large elements of the actual Leave campaign (again, not necessarily voters) had issues of race and xenophobia running throughout.

So if you’ve voted Leave and you’re feeling aggrieved that people are generalising you as a racist, I’m with you, I agree, it shouldn’t be happening. But then do take a minute to think about those minority and migrant communities who are coming under verbal and physical attacks on our streets because of broad generalisations by the Leave campaign over the past few months.

Now, more than ever, we must let our minority and migrants know they are welcome. That they are appreciated. And that they are wanted.

It might be a smile in the street, or it might even extend to a full ‘good morning.’ Whatever you choose, let them know that it’s actually those carrying out these atrocious attacks that are in the minority in this country.