I’m European. I’m English and had a Belgian grandfather. My first holiday when I was six was in France, and I learned about foreign places through the wonders of northern France, like a lot of people of my generation. My grandchildren are all European British because there are other nationalities in my family, as in so many families in this country. The EU has been the most positive political project of my lifetime. I don’t think there is any other organisation besides the United Nations that has done more to find a way towards peaceful collaboration and cooperation. It was a huge achievement, and I don’t think anyone talked about that when we went into this awful tissue of propaganda and falsehoods and hate.
I remember the discussions when we joined. There was this sense that we needed to be part of this group. I’m a war baby. A lot of people voting then would have had not-that-distant memories of what war had done to this country and to Europe. Here was a way of binding nations together with treaties of friendship and trade. It has not proved as positive as we wanted it to be, and the prosperity the EU has given to people has not been spread enough around, but to come out at this particular timenow, when the world seems more fragile the moment than I have ever known it, is like leaving a ship when it’s in trouble instead of mending it.
It’s the fiction this whole thing is built on, the falsehoods that have been sold to the British people. I don’t blame people. Many have found themselves on the wrong end of the recession, and this has been a massive protest vote. But coming so shortly after the death of the wonderful MP Jo Cox, who meant what she said and spoke truth from the heart, so much hope seems to have been lost in the last week. We know the right is on the march in many countries and there is likely to be further fragmentation of this great EU project. When there is no more reason for people to live for each other, sell to each other, go to each other’s countries and universities and to mix, that’s when suspicion creeps in. It turns to resentment and hate.
• Michael Morpurgo is an English author, poet, playwright and librettist
