The small island nation on the edge of everything.

It's been an exhausting couple of days with the results of the EU referendum coming in from late Thursday through to early Friday morning. I woke up just before 3am on Friday morning to check the results so far and saw that the Leave camp had a very slight lead at 50.1%. There were still 210 counts to go so I figured there was plenty of time for it to swing back the other way. When I looked again at 6:30 in the morning to check whether a definitive result had been reached, I was genuinely shocked and upset to find that the Leave camp had actually won, leaving the future of this country highly uncertain.

I continue to be shocked and upset following the result, not least due to the continuation of lies and propaganda which is still being spread about the future trajectory of the UK, together with a string of broken promises. Unfortunately what's done is done and we must now put all this energy to good use and make sure not to lose sight of who we are and where we want to go from here. As a friend recently said, it's not the people who voted leave out of a genuine belief that things would change for the better, it's those who voted out of fear and ignorance, which is a significant proportion of the population.

I struggle to accept in the 21st century that as an island nation, we want to turn our backs on Europe and the rest of the world and go it alone, especially in a time where more and more common problems will be faced by us all. The people who take things for granted such as European holidays and cars, travel benefits and other economic measures will soon find that things aren't going to go to their advantage. Someone else told me that I don't remember what life was like before the EU, implying that I wouldn't be able to appreciate why they want to turn back the clock.

The issue for me is that clocks don't turn back, except at the start of summer when we lose an hour (all rather pointlessly). Some of my friends from outside the UK already say they now feel like outsiders here, if they didn't already. If it's any consolation to them, I feel like an outsider too and am disappointed when I see how many people have voted purely from an immigration and/or a white supremacist point of view - the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Perhaps it's time to consider moving to Scotland - a country which is sure to go independent the next time a referendum is held, and will then make a move to join the European Union themselves, which will no doubt be accepted. Better to have part of the whole than none at all right? The key issue here is not that coming out of the EU is wrong per se (although I think it is) but the motivations for doing so, which in a lot of cases haven't come from a profound sense of reason. I genuinely worry about the future path of the UK now, and will be watching with interest (not in a positive sense) what happens next. Life just got a lot less colourful.

Time to vote, Europe.

Full colour, or red, white and blue?

With only 12 days to go until the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union, I figured it was high time I put across my own view on the subject. I may not have written on this blog for some time (mainly due to time constraints), but this issue is too important not to write about. It's significantly more important than a general election and far more important than many of the other news topics currently doing the rounds.

The UK media reported today that there has been a significant surge in support for the Leave camp in the latest poll, which surveyed 2000 people with 55% of respondents saying they would vote leave. Crucially, 80% of over 55's say they will vote, and it would seem that many (though by no means all) over a certain age are to vote Leave. So does that mean our hope rests with the young?

I say the young not because they are more likely to vote Remain, but because the impact of an exit vote is going to impact the young, especially in the long term, far more than a vote to remain part of the EU will. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems the majority of older voters are obsessed with turning back the clock and going back to 'the way things were'. That's all well and good but do they really think that will happen, especially in the short term? It will take years before any tangible benefits will be felt from leaving (if there are any) and they'll be felt by the people who want them least (and probably didn't vote for them).

It may sound from the above that I'm strongly in favour of the EU and everything it stands for, and that it has no problems on any level, particularly for the older members who formed the foundations of it's existence in the early years. Well I'm not and I don't. It's big, bureaucratic and doesn't offer equal benefits to all, no matter what it's original intentions. Still, I ultimately think we're better off in it, despite all it's problems, and here's why:

1) Being big and bureaucratic doesn't make it any different from the majority of modern day governments who seek to run and impose control over their own countries from the inside out. Britain has long been dominated by overly bureaucratic procedures and political parties whose major focus has been on London at the expense of the outlying regions, towns and cities.

That may be changing now to a degree, but the EU certainly does more to foster integration and help regional towns and cities to become prosperous, attractive and intelligent cultural destinations in their own right, particularly in areas of Europe previously neglected or scarred due to war or other historic occurrences that Britain hasn't had to endure or suffer in recent years. If we can contribute to the wider common good by contributing to the EU, don't we have a moral duty to do that?

2) The EU is a bastion of cultural integration, language development and change, with wider integration promoted at all levels of society to help combat the wider issues we are all facing on a planetary level. Should we try and fight climate change, terrorism and global poverty as a single entity, or as part of a larger more influential grouping of 28 states with one voice?

That's not to say that it's easy to get 28 states to agree on a common course of action (it isn't), but if we go it alone who's going to listen to our voice as a (relatively) small island state north of the European mainland?

3) If we leave our food prices will inevitably go up, along with our existing trading relationships with other states. Again, I'm not saying I'm in favour of all the complex trading agreements we're involved in across the globe, but we're so deeply enmeshed in some of them do we really want to negotiate our way out of them and still expect to get a fair deal on any renegotiations as we go it alone?

4) If we leave the EU, our cultural integration will suffer disproportionately. Britain has historically had a somewhat insular attitude towards people of different cultural or ethnic backgrounds and this will become even more pronounced if we are to leave as it buoys the fervent beliefs of the leave camp who believe every foreign national in the UK is here to take our benefits and rob us blind.

Many of my friends are from other countries and cultures, and my life in particular would be much less interesting if we hadn't previously been as open as we are now within the EU, as I wouldn't have met half of those people as easily or been able to travel to see them in their own countries.

5) Believe it or not, Britain isn't the only country in the world. We may have our own culture, history and traditions, and that's fine. But guess what? Being part of the EU isn't a threat to those values, it enhances them.

By recognising the interests and values of other member states, we enhance their understanding of ours, and by mutual cultural exchanges such as ERASMUS and other wider EU schemes such as Schengen we can promote tourism and travel on a wider level with benefits for all. Closing our borders isn't going to eliminate our problems, it will simply mean we leave the rest of the world to pick up the pieces whilst we look after our selfish selves.

I could write reams and reams on this topic but I won't. Suffice it to say that I want to remain part of the European Union, culturally and socially if nothing else. Sadly, it's all or nothing. We're not going to get the desired result here by abstaining or by being undecided. The only choice to make is to vote yes or no. Should we leave the European Union, or should we remain?

You decide, but think carefully about what kind of country you want to live in before you do. I know which way I'll be voting. This may be the single biggest political decision any of us make for the rest of our lives, so use those 12 days until the 23 June wisely and make the right choice.