There has been a considerable amount of discussion about the ‘UK European Membership Referendum‘ which happened this week[1].

I currently remain optimistic, and not too concerned, but I was struggling to put words together to explain why, until I saw this diagram, which dovetailed with many of my thoughts:

To put it bluntly, the UK is already quite entangled with the other nations of the EU, economically, geographically, and by treaty. This referendum result may end in something further away from a completely united Europe, but there are already a number of nations which are already at arms length from the EU. (The UK still had its own currency, for example.)

Hopefully they’ll just use this vote as a negotiating tactic to get more of what is good for the people of the United Kingdom (although they’ll probably use it to get more of what is good for the people in power).

Now that David Cameron has resigned, I feel like they need some leadership which can take this immense amount of frustration which has just been expressed[2], and channel it into positive change. Looking back at my knowledge of current and recent UK political history, I don’t know who that would be (or whether there has been such a person in recent memory).

But I remain hopeful that people will step up, and the sensible party will bring people together.

[1]Here, and here, I’ve said some words on the topic, for example.

[2]Not that it hadn’t been being expressed before, it’s just that those in power were listening even less than usual.