EU Referendum Prompts Many People To Argue They Actually DON'T Want Their Country Back

'I don't want it to be shit again.'

The campaign to leave the European Union has prompted many - most notably Ukip - to claim that they want their country "back" - but not everyone feels the same way.

One Facebook user's post has gone viral after he explained why he *doesn't* want his country back.

Alongside a picture of two children playing in rubble around a number of derelict houses in Salford in the 1960s, Mark Salad wrote: "'I want my country back.'

Facebooker Mark Salad doesn't want Britain to be 'shit' again
Facebooker Mark Salad doesn't want Britain to be 'shit' again
.

"The photograph is my place of birth, the world I was born into. It was rough, depressing and squalid. It was a slum. It was already better than my parent's world. My father - orphaned in his teens - watched his mother die of cancer screaming on the kitchen table. No money meant no doctor, no hospital, no painkillers. There's precious little of that 'cinema working class stoicism and nobility' here - my father grew up into a troubled violent alcoholic. Life expectancy was such that I never met a grandparent.

"Luck and some level of determination enabled my parents to get out of this place. Moving just two or three miles was a different world with things called gardens, where the default state wasn't filth. Eventually, at a cost, we ended up as a working class family in a suburban middle class life. The changes bought a few years on the cycle - I was in my early 20s when my parents died. They died in hospitals, being cared for by trained staff and receiving medications that made their passing less painful. Quantifiable improvements."

Salad explained that he had been able to improve his own life thanks to his state education.

He continued: "The state paid for my education - in full - had it been any other way it would likely have been curtailed earlier. The education guaranteed nothing, but afforded opportunity to put more distance between myself and where I started.

"I'm middle class now, dont'cha know - shopped at Waitrose and everything.

"All this has happened across two generations. My grandparents were Egyptian, Irish, German and English - mostly migrants - the world that I was born into was already an improvement for them."

Salad ended his post by explaining why he didn't want his country "back".

He said: "So, back to this phrase - heard on both sides: 'I want my country back.'

"I don't want my country back. My country was shit. I want something better than that. For everyone.

He said people needed to "drop the nostalgia filter", concluding: "The advance of liberalism is infuriatingly slow, but it does happen - incrementally. Even with the occasional setback things are so much better than they were in our supposed golden age.

"When the incredibly affluent talk about "taking our country back" the reality of that for the non-affluent is a massive step backward to a time of few rights, no protections and no safety net - that's not a place you are in any way equipped to survive, let alone thrive. Drop the nostalgia filter, things used to be awful.

"IN."

Some people aren't so keen to get the country 'back'
Some people aren't so keen to get the country 'back'
Nick Ansell/PA Wire

And now it seems Salad isn't the only person who says they don't agree with the sentiment.

Many expressed their feelings on, with some saying they felt that going "back" really wasn't really preferable...

I don't want my country back. Britain was shit. Now its alright. I don't want it to be shit again.

— Matt Belshaw (@MattBelshaw) June 20, 2016

I've taken a look at what was happening in the UK in 1972 & quite frankly I don't want my country back#IWantMyCountryBack

— (((Julie Minns))) (@kenningtonkitty) June 20, 2016

In fact some felt "forward" was a better option...

"I don't want my country back, I want it forward"#IN

— Paul Bullion (@PaulBullionLive) June 20, 2016

I have never had any doubt over which way to vote on Thursday - not least because I don't want my country back I want it going forward.

— Bob Calver (@BobCalver1) June 20, 2016

I don't want my country BACK. I want it to GO FORWARD. We should lead in Europe NOT leave it. #StrongerIn. It is 2016 NOT 1956. #VoteRemain

— .... (@WgrahameW) June 15, 2016

Some argued that it wasn't the European Union that they wanted their country back from...

@ChristchurchLab @andym_echo .don't want my country back from anyone except the Conservatives ..

— sally winter (@sallywin) June 3, 2016

One person didn't really seem that enthused about their country anyway...

Our politicians are poisoning our country & nurturing hatred & division. I don't WANT my country back if this is our future.

— Ann Driver (@ahddrv) June 16, 2016

Some really didn't seem that fussed about any of it...

I don’t want my country back. It’s not my country, really – it’s just a blob of land inhabited by chance.

— (((Wheaty Tubes))) (@ncguk) June 19, 2016
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