I Want My Country Back

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I want my country back.

I want it to be great again;
it feels so different now.
I hear conversations on the tube
I never used to hear,
and it makes me uncomfortable.

I want my country back

I worry that we’ll forget
what “British” really means.
This isn’t what that generation fought for,
not so long ago.
What would they think
if they saw what we’ve become?

I want my country back

They’re not like us at all.
They don’t fit in.
They don’t even try.

They’re just out for themselves.
They don’t play by the rules.
They don’t care about our values.

I want my country back.

I want to take control.
I want things how they were
in the good old days.

Cold nights, warm beer,
drizzle
underdogs and queues.
Sarcasm,
lack of respect for authority.

Inclusivity.
Diversity.
A country that welcomes
your contribution to society
whoever you are,
wherever you’re from,
whatever your faith.

I want my country back.

This is what happens
when you tolerate intolerance.

When you let them drive
a wedge into those little cracks
we never quite filled.

When you let them lay the blame
for our own deficiencies
at someone else’s door.

When you let them sacrifice
truth on the altar of
faux nationalism.

When you let them sell
fake solutions to problems
they created.

When you let them turn
everything into “us and them”,
“traitors” and “saboteurs”.

When you let them slowly normalise
the abnormal
until whispered conversations become mainstream.

Not anymore.

If they can’t accept our country
in all its messy, proud, multicultural, welcoming glory;

if they can’t accept we need to
work together to solve our problems;

if they can’t accept that diversity
isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength;

then they can fuck off.

Because I want my country back.

Image result for british flag

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