Stay calm and make lemonade

I voted remain. We lost. But I’m still super positive about London and the UK.

I can’t help feeling somewhat annoyed at the shrill voices of the political debate and much of the mainstream media coverage, I do feel really proud today that I live in a democracy where:

• there was so much last minute demand by young people to register to vote that the web form went down
• 72% of the population turned out to vote
• the importance of #voting regardless of your vote is celebrated

While 48% of voters may feel frustrated at the result, I’m actually really pleased that many of the major issues that have been bubbling under the surface in Britain are now more out in the open and we can all become more focussed on how to best address them. Many of these issues like income inequality and profound frustration that politicians and mainstream media are out of touch with voters issues are just as apparent in the US and amongst our European neighbours.

So while market fluctuations and the loss of our Prime Minister may dominate the next few news cycles, the real long-term work is becoming much clearer to everyone and it’s not just about negotiating a better relationship with our neighbours in Europe, it’s also about a better deal with our neighbours at home.

As for the London and the UK, I looked again this morning at the post we wrote this March about “12 reasons to be excited about London” and there is nothing on the list that I feel has changed — in fact in some cases things have only improved.

So why do I feel calm and positive that nothing will change overnight:

1. The UK is one of the world’s largest economies and we have been trading with the world and especially Europe for nearly 1000 years — the relationships are deeper than the last 24 years of integration show and I’m confident that they will mostly remain strong
2. Leaving the EU is different from leaving Europe — the UK is one of Europe’s two largest economies and not only will it take at least 2 years to change how we relate to the EU, it’s clearly beneficial to both the UK or European states to stay deeply connected
3. UK tech has hit critical mass for all the reasons outlined above and London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge among others are all magnets for multi-cultural and diverse talent

We have become used to living in a stream of social media and real-time communications, so sometimes we forget that actually it often takes centuries to build long term foundations and decades to make real change.

So while my vote was to remain in the EU and I can’t pretend that yesterday’s result doesn’t feel like being given a box of lemons, I am an entrepreneur and professional optimist at heart so my strong advice for the weekend is: tune in to Glastonbury, watch the Euros, make lemonade and get ready to start being part of the solution from next week.

Game on :)