My inbox is inundated with messages telling me to use my vote in the European elections because if I don’t “others will decide for you”. My head agrees with the messages from EU politicians that I should do my bit for democracy. But for the first time, my heart isn’t in it.
As a European who is also brown and Muslim – and who has long wanted the EU “project” to work – I am terrified at the extent of power and influence wielded, inside and outside government, by politicians who are unashamedly racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic and whose vision of Europe – whatever they may say in public – is also inherently hostile to women, Jews and gay people. And I am worried that it is going to get even worse.
