There is nothing to be proud of in Britain this week. No matter what the outcome is, this referendum has pulled the country apart.
As we enter the final few days of the campaign I find myself despairing at what the future holds for Britain. The Conservatives are a mess, hardly something to cry about if you are on the left, but Thursday's outcome is going to leave the government in turmoil nonetheless.
Not that Labour has gotten off lightly; their remain stance has alienated many Labour supporters, who now view them as middle class metropolitan elites who don't understand or care for their target audience.
I'll vote remain and I know that's the right choice, but I'm so tired of the Remain camp pretending the EU is perfect. How many times do we have to hear middle class 'left wingers' condescend and patronise working class people who want out? Immigration is difficult and problematic and yet no one in the remain camp is prepared to say that. The more privileged people sing the praises of immigration and demonise all other concerns as racist the more the left loses the argument.
Immigration is difficult for the people who live in near proximity to it. That is a fact. The working class in Britain deals with immigration, and the middle class dismissing their concerns is patronising. UKIP and the right can only manipulate these people's feelings because Labour has abandoned them. If we remain in the EU those people will be lost, if we leave the EU the feeling of hatred and intolerance will grow more and more.
It's taken the murder of an MP for people to actually reflect on the hatred that's been spread, to reassess what it is anyone actually wants from this campaign. If we leave who knows how fast the anti-immigrant, isolationist views will spread. If we stay we have to think about what we are going to do with the growing frustration of so many.
The referendum was supposed to be an exercise in democracy, but we'll be left with a country divided. Britain has been whipped into frenzy about what was once a niche Tory interest. We've forgotten what the issues for young people in Britain really are; lack of jobs, lack of housing, student fees, and above all the lack of a bright future ahead. All of these problems are made in Britain, and yet we've spent the last year discussing the European Union.
Factional divisions have opened up between the countries within the UK, between old and young, rich and poor, rural and metropolitan populations, and yet this issue barely touches on some of the most problematic issues in British society today. By even taking sides Labour and the left have sacrificed itself on the altar of high Toryism.
We need to reject everything about this campaign; it has been a facade. Europe is the Tories' argument and it's been sold to us as a problem that needs fixing. Young people need to vote remain on Thursday to stand together against isolationism dressed as socialism.
We vote remain with neither pride nor joy; we do it as a way of getting back to square one, a way of trying to pretend that all the dirt that has been dug up over this campaign never had been. This referendum was sold to us on the false pretence of democracy and has ended in a display of cavemanism. Vote remain on June 23rd and we can get to work trying to clean up this mess.