Brexit: a scottish point of view

Nate Kitch's illustration (The Guardian)

Kirstie, what's your opinion on what is happening in the Uk?

It's very tricky. Some wanted out and some voted in spite without thinking of the consequences. It's a bit of a shock that it's gone through for everyone. I hope it gets rejected in parliament, Nicola Sturgeon and her MPs are potentially going to reject the leave of the EU on behalf of Scotland which would veto it. She is frantically trying to keep Scotland in as the majority here want in.

What do you think about the geographic distribution of the vote?

The main point is that most of the big cities voted to stay as they no the benefits of membership due to being diverse where as rural people voted out. Older people tended to vote out more than the young as they want to go back to the 'good old days' and lots of young people didn't vote at all. But the old days are gone and that has nothing to do with EU. It's sad that the poor areas that benefit from extra funding are the ones that voted out! I believe most people who voted out don't know much about the issues and the leave campaign was targeted at people who think our problem are due to lots of foreign people clogging up our systems which isn't true. It was a shock to a lot of people who voted no as they didn't think it was going to actually happen. But nobody knows what's going to happen, everything is all over the place and people are petitioning government to have another vote.

EuRef has represented a severe political conflict...

Aparently Boris Johnson, who lead the leave side, decided to go for leave campaign so that he would be against Cameron and show himself to be a good candidate but never actually wanted to win. It looks like it was a vanity contest. A friend of Boris said he wrote 2 articles, one for leave and one to stay. His friend read them and said stay was more passionate but he said he had to go for leave as he wanted to go against Cameron to show himself in the lime light. Nobody wants Boris to be prime minister, in fact I think anyone who goes against him would get it. Everyone is blaming Corbyn as the reason so many people voted to leave as he couldn't unite them. Everyone on the leave side looks miserable and stressed I don't think they know what they are doing or actually wanted to win. Cameron looks stressed, looks like it's tough times!

What do you think Scotland should do?

I didn't want independence as I liked being part of the UK, but this has swung me more to the side of independence as I'd rather be part of the EU but I'd want to take London and Northern Ireland to as they want to be in the EU. I trust Nicola to act for Scotland though. I hope it all gets fixed but I don't know, it all looks bleak at the moment. The only positive think is the Scottish government fighting for it, if that wasn't going on it would be incredibly depressing here!

Tell me something about the perception on "migration" issue.

First of all, I just hope everyone outside of the UK doesn't think we all hate Europeans! I have lot of friends here from all over Europe who have lived here for years and are scared about the future. I think people are getting greedy and wanting to fend for themselves. The whole point of the EU is to help each other, scary how people are getting so anti immigration. My colleague is Muslim and gets shouted at every so often to get out the country. I still have hope that it'll be fixed somehow...

This morning Boris Johnson said UK will continue to "intensify" cooperation with EU following referendum result, what do you think about it?

He is right, now is the time to build bridges, our country needs it. I am interested to see how the leave result will work in practice and how they plan to unite people again. The fractions are deep and it won't be easy, Especially as it will effect all our lives especially our non British citizen colleuges, neighbours and friends living here who contribute so much. I hope what we end up with is not too different to what we have at the moment but I suppose all we can do at the moment is wait and see what the next move is in what feels at times like a political chess game.


Kirstie McDonald, 26, accountant, lives in Edinburgh. She works in small business and charity sector.