The Coming Weeks

I am off to bed now, and will be out at polling stations and on the street tomorrow, trying to answer as many questions as I can.  My last thoughts, before the polls open:

If you have a vote, please consider your choice carefully tomorrow. It isn’t just you who is affected by the outcome.

This has been a crushing referendum, and it has lifted the lid on the seething bigotry which still infests the UK. That isn’t going to go away after tomorrow, whatever happens. Whether we vote Remain or Leave, please, please, please spend the next few weeks making sure that your friends and coworkers and whoever else who are immigrants know that you want them here, that this country is made better by their presence.

It isn’t just EU immigrants who have been affected by the rhetoric. So please, reach out a hand to the people you know who have been the target of some of the most hateful vitriol we’ve seen in this country for years, and ask them how they’re doing. Tell them this is still their home and, if they don’t feel like it is anymore, ask them how you can help.

I know a lot of people who have been deeply hurt by the last few months, who feel unwelcome for the first time, who don’t know if they’ll stay even if we do choose to Remain. Please make sure your friends are ok.

To all my friends who were born in other countries and live here, I am glad you do. My life is better because you chose to come here, and I will do whatever I can to make sure that this feels like home again.