I still keep fretting over weather the UK can still call itself an outward looking nation. Since we voted to leave the EU, part of me feels that we’ve turned our backs on the world, and shut ourselves off in favour of becoming an inward-looking little island. But we haven’t; we haven’t left the world. In June we voted to leave an organisation, one which has many flaws. Yesterday I flew into a rage when I heard a tory on the tv tell us ”we are still an outward-looking nation”, but I shouldn’t have: he was right. You don’t need to belong to the EU to be part of the world, and leaving it does not mean we are any more xenophobic, although I’m very worried about the recent rise in xenophobia. Thus I can still love my country; I can still feel proud of it’s culture and history, and what happened here in 2012. My error was to mentally collate internationalism – working together across borders – with belonging to this largely corrupt, flawed union. To quit an institution because it is flawed and to no longer participate in the world are two separate things. Being in the EU did not allow us to participate in the world. At least now we’re out of it we can start to work towards something better.