Part three of my recent travel-marathon - and it's not over yet. Things just kind of worked out this way and I can't complain: another one of my favourite destinations or "second homes" as I like to call it. After having lived in the UK for 4 years during my studies it definitely feels more like coming home than going to an exotic holiday destination.
Since I went with my sister who doesn't know it that well though, we decided to go to the South of England where neither of us had been before. First we spent a few days in Brighton (ok, I had visited but only once or twice very long ago) and then we went to Southampton and the Isle of Wight for a "real" holiday.
I enjoyed all of it but I couldn't help thinking about Brexit a lot. I get annoyed discussing it all the time in Brussels because we see it from a more theoretical and procedural point of view but being in the UK and thinking that I might not be able to vist so easily anymore in the future makes me really sad. I'm sure they'll sort it out somehow and hopefully they won't shoot themselves in the foot and damage their tourism sector by restricting travel, but who knows - the Brits have proven to be quite capable of shooting themselves in the foot once before.
All this Brexit talk makes me still angry on so many levels but especially because NONE of the problems that were brought up by leave-campaigners will actually be solved by Brexit. I could have maybe understood it at least a little bit if Brexit would actually address any of the concerns that made people vote to leave, such as unemployment, lack of economic growth, or immigration (even though that's a different issue altogether that I don't even want to get started on), but Brexit doesn't even concern any of those topics.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic but all I can see as an outcome of this is that the people will actually be worse off. Money will be wasted on changing the rules and the finding new solutions and I'm convinced that a few years down the line they will have to admit that the UK was actually better off in the EU. However, at that point they will find a way to twist it in a way that they can blame the situation again on some "unforeseen circumstances", the opposition, the economy, or whatever. Blurgh.
For the time being I enjoyed my salt and vinegar chips, my hot-cross-buns, and my chicken tikka but who knows for how much longer? I'm intrigued how the general elections on 8 June will turn out, even though I don't have high hopes for any improvements. I think it already says enough that none of the political leaders who engineered Brexit are still in the game.
