I decided I wanted to Remain. More people it seems wanted to Leave. I accept that I am democratically defeated at the ballot box. If you are with the centre-left politically, it is not an unusual experience.

I do not doubt for a moment that UK, or whatever the UK morphes into, will survive, even flourish economically. I am not really into economics. Actually I am not really into sovereignty either. I think human beings are primarily relational beings. I want human beings to flourish.

I don’t particularly have a love affair with Europe, and am sure that the EU had many faults. I think the UK does too actually, and if we are honest we would all agree on that.

I voted Remain because I believe we are fundamentally connected with each other at a deep, spiritual level. We are not individual islands. We are part of each other. I guess I have always believed this as a child growing up in Sheffield, with some connections to Holland and Dutch Protestantism in our family genes and through the work of Liberation theologians, whom I learnt to listen to in Birmingham. They taught me that when I met to worship, I was worshipping not alongside those physically present but with Christians the world over. I am part therefore of something bigger. I can imagine a Christian Leave voter agreeing with these sentiments.

The message of Vote Leave seemed to me to deny the fact that we are interconnected. The hashtag #TakeControl spoke of independence, of being in charge. It reminded of Rowan Williams phrase that human beings often ‘have delusions of omnipotence’. In our 21st Century interconnected world no nation state is fully independent, and it is perhaps delusional to think that we are.

I think something broke for me in the early hours of 24 June.

I think the isolationism and the shoring up of a firm British identity within the campaign has directly led to an increase in hate crimes. I am glad that official spokespeople are both sides acknowledge that such incidents are utterly and totally wrong.

I don’t think this will be easily fixed?

I am saddened completely that some of the hopes and dreams of the white working classes will be shattered further as the Brexit negotiations happen. I wrote an article entitled Working Class Dreams (http://ext.sagepub.com/content/121/9/437.short?rss=1&ssource=mfr …) in 2010. I am now wondering about rewriting as: dreams shattered, what now?

I understand, I think, why whole communities voted to Leave. After years of not being listened to, of a variety of short term initiatives and being told what to do, here was an opportunity to say ‘No’. In such a position, I would have very probably done the same.

However, what will happen when the pot of gold does not come; when the job is not created, because there is not one, not because someone else has taken it. It is a foolish and dangerous thing to give hope when you cannot deliver on the promise.

There you go. I cannot move on yet.

What about reconciliation? Yes…. and no. With individuals yes of course. I am friendly with lots of people who disagree with me. But I have to acknowledge that I want a world with different values… and it will take time for me to accept that there were more people who did not want to share in those values than those who did.