Unless you’ve been living under a rock with no internet connection for the last few weeks you will have heard of Brexit. I think, as a Scottish student living and studying in ’the continent’, I can’t ignore this. But don’t worry, I am (hopefully) not going to be too boring or political. Actually I am not even really going to talk about the Brexit vote itself. But to give a quick background, on 23rd June 52% of the UK population (or at least those who voted) chose to leave the European Union.

There were many arguments to be made on each side, discussions were and still are needed about the EU/Turkey deal, the democratic (or lack thereof) status of the EU and the Greek situation, to name only a few. However, the argument taking the forefront was immigration, with some arguments sounding worryingly xenophobic (Farage’s propaganda-esque anti-immigration poster being a prime example). By no means am I trying to argue that everyone who voted leave had xenophobic leanings, to say so would be ridiculous. However, since the vote there has been an undeniable rise in the number of the racist and xenophobic attacks in the UK. I worry that the tiny minority of people who hold these toxic views feel that their views have been legitimised by a campaign, arguably, won by xenophobic rhetoric. This all creates a worrying picture of the future of the UK. Indeed, the European far-right were among the most vocal celebrants of the result.

The statistics show how divided the voting of the UK was. With the young, Scotland, Northern Ireland and London all voting to remain. With both the Scottish First Minister and the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland calling for referendums regarding leaving the UK in order to remain in Europe, the ramifications of this vote could be felt for generations, even triggering an end to the UK as we know it.

However, these are matters for the future. What really matters right now is that voters in the UK, whatever they voted, do not let their votes be turned into racist ones. Obviously, people feel disenfranchised with the current political climate. But underlying issues are not being properly examined. And, this isn’t just a problem for the UK, the whole of Europe is seeing a resurgence of the far right. In my opinion, we must learn from history, we cannot go back to dark days in Europe. We must remember what happens when we target a particular group of people to scapegoat for our problems. Whether we are in the EU or not, we must stand together against xenophobia and racism and really look deeper into the underlying problems in our societies such as injustice and inequality.

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